Breaking Down Seagate 3tb External Drive

xRehab · Jul 5, 2012

Well some of you may remember my thread a week ago asking if it was possible to tear apart an external drive to make it internal. After talking to a few of the members here I decided it was worth a shot, and order an external 3tb seagate drive for $114 on sale. It arrived earlier today and after verifying it was in working order, I immediately went to work breaking it...

- the drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178117

There are no screws, so I resorted to a butter knife and guitar pick to pop the tabs

Had a PCB that I couldn't figure out how to remove, then I realized I was just being stupid and removed the rubber stoppers on the side...

And there you have it, nothing fancy but that is the drive that is inside these 3tb external seagate drives. Haven't had a chance to run any real tests on it but its working fine so far and I have no problems with it as a backup drive. Im off to work but I'll play around with it some more when I get home tonight and report back.

btw this isn't meant to be a tut or anything, just figured someone else out there may be curious as to what drives are inside these things and if it was doable. Can confirm it was super easy, and I am pretty sure this drive alone has a longer warranty then the external drive lol

edit - for anyone reading this, after partitioning the drive and internalizing it these are the HDTune results.

Sequential Read on 500GB - 190 - 204Mb/s
Access Time on 500GB - 13.3ms

Pavix · Jul 6, 2012

Thanks, I've got a Seagate GoFlex home(Network version, not USB) and it will randomly disconnect when streaming to my blu-ray player. I've been told I can take it back to best buy and get a replacement but since I don't have another 3TB drive laying around I would lose anything on the drive. I'm sure I could pay for dropbox and upload it there but the thought of uploading 3GB on my 20/2 cable internet makes me want to vomit. This makes me want to just share it through Windows.

xRehab · Jul 6, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pavix

Thanks, I've got a Seagate GoFlex home(Network version, not USB) and it will randomly disconnect when streaming to my blu-ray player. I've been told I can take it back to best buy and get a replacement but since I don't have another 3TB drive laying around I would lose anything on the drive. I'm sure I could pay for dropbox and upload it there but the thought of uploading 3GB on my 20/2 cable internet makes me want to vomit. This makes me want to just share it through Windows.

ha yeah that would suck to have to transfer thru dropbox... I'm pretty sure the goflex even had a tut on YouTube of how to break it down if you're thinking about it. Took me all of ten minutes to pop mine open, take all of the pix, and install it into my case. Just have to wipe the drive of whatever the lame Seagate software that's on there and I'll be good to go. Cheapest 3tb out there

Kramy · Jul 6, 2012

Handy info. I can't wait to see some HDTune Pro and CrystalDiskMark benches.

Out of curiosity, have you popped the internal drive's serial number into the Seagate warranty checker? I'm curious if the internal drive has a warranty, or only the unit as a whole.

General123 · Jul 6, 2012

Wow very nice, if its fast i might have to jump

xRehab · Jul 6, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kramy

Handy info. I can't wait to see some HDTune Pro and CrystalDiskMark benches.

Out of curiosity, have you popped the internal drive's serial number into the Seagate warranty checker? I'm curious if the internal drive has a warranty, or only the unit as a whole.

Drive is in warranty until 06 September 2013 according to the seagate site. I'll get some benches for this drive in a bit when it is done reformatting. So far I am pleased with this drive, only thing that annoyed me at the beginning was that it was in MBR at first so I had to switch that to GPT for it to be recognized as a full 3tb hdd. Now it is formatting and I couldn't be happier with the $114 I paid, if I find out it is a fast drive it would just be icing on the cake to me.

edit- benching now, will post back will results

xRehab · Jul 6, 2012

benches from hd tune & crystal disk

CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/

* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 193.143 MB/s
Sequential Write : 191.977 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 57.499 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 94.389 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.633 MB/s [ 154.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.403 MB/s [ 342.5 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 1.577 MB/s [ 385.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.392 MB/s [ 339.9 IOPS]

Test : 2000 MB [M: 0.0% (0.1/2794.4 GB)] (x2)
Date : 2012/07/07 0:39:38
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

oh god, that is the biggest derp moment of this build so far... I had the drive hooked up to a 3gb sata instead of a 6 :facepalm: i will be back with the other results...

overall tho still happy with this drive. spins at 7200 and those speeds aren't bad for only being on slow sata. but lets see what we can get on the right ports...

HothBase · Jul 6, 2012

I don't think any single mechanical drive can max out a 3Gbps SATA interface so your results will be the same regardless.

Anyway, nice thread. I'm getting the 2TB version next week. I'll be keeping it in the shell though, for starters at least.

Oh, I have a question. Was the enclosure broken in any way to get the drive out?

xRehab · Jul 6, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by HothBase

I don't think any single mechanical drive can max out a 3Gbps SATA interface so your results will be the same regardless.
Anyway, nice thread. I'm getting the 2TB version next week. I'll be keeping it in the shell though, for starters at least.
Oh, I have a question. Was the enclosure broken in any way to get the drive out?

I'm pretty sure you are right about the 3bgs but I still am going to switch it up just to check. I'd rather have it on a 6 anyways so that I can try and keep the wire management cleaner since my ssd is feeding to the 6gbs sata.

as for the case breaking, I didn't break any of the tabs surprisingly. I did crack the top of one, but it didn't break off and without looking directly at it you would never notice. theoretically i should be able to RMA this drive if I ever needed to, but the internal drive has its own warranty as well so I'd probably just RMA that and get a fresh bare drive instead.

Kramy · Jul 7, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by xRehab

benches from hd tune & crystal disk

CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/

* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 193.143 MB/s
Sequential Write : 191.977 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 57.499 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 94.389 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.633 MB/s [ 154.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.403 MB/s [ 342.5 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 1.577 MB/s [ 385.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.392 MB/s [ 339.9 IOPS]

Test : 2000 MB [M: 0.0% (0.1/2794.4 GB)] (x2)
Date : 2012/07/07 0:39:38
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

oh god, that is the biggest derp moment of this build so far... I had the drive hooked up to a 3gb sata instead of a 6 :facepalm: i will be back with the other results...

overall tho still happy with this drive. spins at 7200 and those speeds aren't bad for only being on slow sata. but lets see what we can get on the right ports...

That is the weirdest performance arc that I've seen in a while. It's supposed to continue going upward towards the left... reaching at least 200MB/sec.

Access times are totally horrible. 20ms.

The first 300GB is good and fast, so that's fine for OS/Apps/Games - but the rest is too high... way higher than most 5400RPM drives. Good for storage, but not so great for other stuff.

I'd try flashing the drive's firmware to see if that helps:
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/223651en

And if it doesn't, partition it in at least two. Make the first only as large as you need for games (or other active data on the drive), and then make the second for storage of anything that isn't accessed at the same time as your games. That should keep access times as low as possible when playing.

(I suggest this because if access times get too high, some games or engines will fail to load important models/textures/files before they are needed, which can cause stutters. Keeping all the data close together towards the edge should help prevent that.)
Quote:

Originally Posted by xRehab

theoretically i should be able to RMA this drive if I ever needed to, but the internal drive has its own warranty as well so I'd probably just RMA that and get a fresh bare drive instead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HothBase

I don't think any single mechanical drive can max out a 3Gbps SATA interface so your results will be the same regardless.

Some have burst speeds higher than that. If a drive were doing something highly sequential (video editing/encoding, benchmarking, etc.), then it might matter - but for Apps/Games and regular usage it does not.

Edit: Have you checked if you can adjust the AAM settings in HDTune? It looks like a pretty good drive for the price.

But if you can figure out how to drop those access times, it'll be way faster. That would take it from a good deal to a really great deal.

xRehab · Jul 7, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kramy

That is the weirdest performance arc that I've seen in a while. It's supposed to continue going upward towards the left... reaching at least 200MB/sec.
Access times are totally horrible. 20ms.

The first 300GB is good and fast, so that's fine for OS/Apps/Games - but the rest is too high... way higher than most 5400RPM drives. Good for storage, but not so great for other stuff.
I'd try flashing the drive's firmware to see if that helps:
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/223651en
And if it doesn't, partition it in at least two. Make the first only as large as you need for games (or other active data on the drive), and then make the second for storage of anything that isn't accessed at the same time as your games. That should keep access times as low as possible when playing.

(I suggest this because if access times get too high, some games or engines will fail to load important models/textures/files before they are needed, which can cause stutters. Keeping all the data close together towards the edge should help prevent that.)

Some have burst speeds higher than that. If a drive were doing something highly sequential (video editing/encoding, benchmarking, etc.), then it might matter - but for Apps/Games and regular usage it does not.
Edit: Have you checked if you can adjust the AAM settings in HDTune? It looks like a pretty good drive for the price.

But if you can figure out how to drop those access times, it'll be way faster. That would take it from a good deal to a really great deal.

tried to update the firmware and it was up to date already,.I do not know too much about HDDs but I was going to ask about the benifits of partioning a drive, but looks like you beat me to it. I'll try and set up a 500GB partion for games and report back wiith the results.

Not sure what AAM settings are but I'll have a look around and see what I can find in HDtune

edit- well my drive doesn't support AAM settings, or at least not how it is currently set up. Partitioned it into 3 new volumes to see if that helps my times at all. Will post back some new results when HDtune is done. Any advice on how you could think to make it faster wopuld be much appreciated!

new bench with 3 volumes, didn't help much

Edit 2 - just saw this deal on Amazon. $90 for this drive
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0056YNA1Q

Kramy · Jul 8, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by xRehab

Not sure what AAM settings are but I'll have a look around and see what I can find in HDtune

AAM is Advanced/Automatic Accoustic Management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_acoustic_management

It makes drives less noisy when seeking, but the tradeoff is access times. Some drives have it turned on by default, and some have it turned off - your drive probably has it forced on, and doesn't allow it to be configured.
Quote:

Originally Posted by xRehab

edit- well my drive doesn't support AAM settings, or at least not how it is currently set up. Partitioned it into 3 new volumes to see if that helps my times at all. Will post back some new results when HDtune is done. Any advice on how you could think to make it faster wopuld be much appreciated!

new bench with 3 volumes, didn't help much

It "didn't help much" because HDTune tests entire drives rather than partitions. Notice the scale at the bottom of the graph? If you want to check how it performs for a 500GB partition, you need to enable the 'Short Stroke' option and enter in 500GB. I think you'll find it performs quite nicely when only dealing with a smaller amount of platter.

Looks like you got the sequential speeds fixed. 168MB/sec avg sequential... you'll be the envy of many people here once they see that.

They'll be even more envious if a 500GB test shows good results.

xRehab · Jul 8, 2012

read up on a bit on short stroking from a guide on here and that helped. here are the new results with a 500gb short stroke. yes im using a virtual keyboard cuz mine doesnt get here till monday lol.

edit from brother PC - got those access times way down compared to before, 13.3 I'll take that. and those sequential times went up even higher too

Breaking Down Seagate 3tb External Drive

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