Seagate 3TB Expansion Desktop Drive Teardown
Tools
These are some common tools used to work on this device. You might not need every tool for every procedure.
Background and Identification
An external storage device is an accessory that holds electronic files outside your computer. You can use external storage to keep extra files that you don’t need/want on your computer all the time or make a backup of your data in case of accidents. If you’re enterprising, you can also start your computer from an external storage device if your internal storage has failed.
For most computers before 2000, external storage consisted of floppy disks, CDs, or DVDs. Only DVDs were able to hold over a gigabyte of data.
External storage is usually connected to a computer via USB, Thunderbolt, or FireWire (old school), but sometimes the device is attached to your home or office network allowing you to access it over Wi-Fi. Some external storage devices use hard drives inside, which are generally slow but can hold large amounts of data for a relatively cheap price. Hard drives are produced in two form factors—2.5 inches and 3.5 inches—which refer to the diameter of the spinning platter inside the hard drive.
Other devices use solid-state drives (SSDs) that access data at high-speed, but cost more than hard drives for an equivalent amount of storage space. SSDs in external storage typically mimic the form factor of 2.5 inch hard drives.