Portable 4TB drive requires only USB power
#1
There's an interesting new drive out for people with USB3.0 connectors.

So far it has not been possible to buy ultra portable 4TB drives, because there are no 2.5" 4TB drives available.
This new drive from Seagate cheats by stacking two 2TB drives together, but importantly:

- Is only 1mm taller than existing, small, portable drives
- Uses only 1 USB3 port
- No external Power supply is required.

Size Comparison:
WD MyPassport Ultra 2TB - Length 111mm x Width 82mm x Height 21mm

Seagate STDA4000100 4TB - Length 116mm x Width 82.5mm x Height 22.3 mm

Price = $269 via Seagate website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwQWiM1ocPY

It may also provide an alternative option for people thinking of upgrading to a NAS to give them a larger media library.
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#2
Wink 
(2014-01-10, 13:40)joelbaby Wrote: There's an interesting new drive out for people with USB3.0 connectors.

So far it has not been possible to buy ultra portable 4TB drives, because there are no 2.5" 4TB drives available.
This new drive from Seagate cheats by stacking two 2TB drives together, but importantly:

- Is only 1mm taller than existing, small, portable drives
- Uses only 1 USB3 port
- No external Power supply is required.

Size Comparison:
WD MyPassport Ultra 2TB - Length 111mm x Width 82mm x Height 21mm

Seagate STDA4000100 4TB - Length 116mm x Width 82.5mm x Height 22.3 mm

Price = $269 via Seagate website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwQWiM1ocPY

It may also provide an alternative option for people thinking of upgrading to a NAS to give them a larger media library.

A couple of those babies would suit me right down to the ground. I only have one USB3 port in my laptop so I wonder if I can run two of these drives via an un-powered USB3 hub or if indeed I will need it powered?

Either way, I want at least two of these drives.
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#3
The drive needs power fed to it via the USB cable. An unpowered USB hub won't work.
If you have 1 USB3 port on your laptop, you can connect 1 drive to it.

There is a connector the drive comes with with that converts USB3.0 into 2xUSB2.0. So it can be powered by connecting it to 2 USB2.0 ports at the same time.
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#4
(2014-01-10, 13:40)joelbaby Wrote: So far it has not been possible to buy ultra portable 4TB drives, because there are no 2.5" 4TB drives available.
This new drive from Seagate cheats by stacking two 2TB drives together, but importantly:

And this is the point why you should not buy it. Twice the chance of loosing your data. Confused
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#5
(2014-01-10, 17:52)CaptainPsycho Wrote:
(2014-01-10, 13:40)joelbaby Wrote: So far it has not been possible to buy ultra portable 4TB drives, because there are no 2.5" 4TB drives available.
This new drive from Seagate cheats by stacking two 2TB drives together, but importantly:

And this is the point why you should not buy it. Twice the chance of loosing your data. Confused

And eight times that of a 500gb drive. You pick your drive and take your chances.Big Grin

(2014-01-10, 17:48)joelbaby Wrote: The drive needs power fed to it via the USB cable. An unpowered USB hub won't work.
If you have 1 USB3 port on your laptop, you can connect 1 drive to it.

There is a connector the drive comes with with that converts USB3.0 into 2xUSB2.0. So it can be powered by connecting it to 2 USB2.0 ports at the same time.

Currently, I have four 3.5inch 4TB USB3 drives running through a non powered USB3 hub all the drives have their own dedicated power cables. Just think, I could have a single power cable for the USB3 hub and then from there on only the USB3 cables. Needless to say, I hate cables. The fewer the better
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#6
(2014-01-10, 18:12)Shoober Wrote:
(2014-01-10, 17:52)CaptainPsycho Wrote:
(2014-01-10, 13:40)joelbaby Wrote: This new drive from Seagate cheats by stacking two 2TB drives together, but importantly:

And this is the point why you should not buy it. Twice the chance of loosing your data. Confused

And eight times that of a 500gb drive. You pick your drive and take your chances.Big Grin

Your statement makes no sense.

Seagate makes a raid0 / JBOD out of two disks an so double the chance of failure.

I've no idea how "And eight times that of a 500gb drive" came into your mind.
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#7
(2014-01-10, 18:32)CaptainPsycho Wrote:
(2014-01-10, 18:12)Shoober Wrote:
(2014-01-10, 17:52)CaptainPsycho Wrote: And this is the point why you should not buy it. Twice the chance of loosing your data. Confused

And eight times that of a 500gb drive. You pick your drive and take your chances.Big Grin

Your statement makes no sense.

Seagate makes a raid0 / JBOD out of two disks an so double the chance of failure.

I've no idea how "And eight times that of a 500gb drive" came into your mind.

I was making a silly comparison. You can loose more data when larger drives give out sure. It is about the convenience and having a good backup plan especially when non critical static data is concerned (i.e. movies, music etc). For me, I would certainly risk the double failure rate for convenience especially when I have a good backup system.
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#8
(2014-01-10, 18:32)CaptainPsycho Wrote:
(2014-01-10, 18:12)Shoober Wrote:
(2014-01-10, 17:52)CaptainPsycho Wrote: And this is the point why you should not buy it. Twice the chance of loosing your data. Confused

And eight times that of a 500gb drive. You pick your drive and take your chances.Big Grin

Your statement makes no sense.

Seagate makes a raid0 / JBOD out of two disks an so double the chance of failure.

I've no idea how "And eight times that of a 500gb drive" came into your mind.

Actually,....his statement made perfect sense to me,..and probably everyone else.
I was actually wondering what your point was, since we all should understand what single point of failure means.
We've all lost drives,....RAID0 in fact any raid is not going to stop the potential of you possibly losing data.

As he said,....you take your chances.
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#9
(2014-01-10, 18:40)Shoober Wrote: I was making a silly comparison. You can loose more data when larger drives give out sure.

That is right, but you should not mix single independent disk setups with combined disk setups in this comparison. Wink
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#10
(2014-01-10, 18:40)Shoober Wrote: It is about the convenience and having a good backup plan especially when non critical static data is concerned (i.e. movies, music etc). For me, I would certainly risk the double failure rate for convenience especially when I have a good backup system.

I agree. Movies and Music are easily replaced. My backups for these items are all stored at friends houses on USB drives.

If you have no friends who will store a USB drive full of the latest movies on your behalf, then you just backup from one drive to another ocassionally.

All my critical data is backed up (and synced across multiple computers) via Spideroak (much better than dropbox).
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#11
(2014-01-11, 02:22)CaptainPsycho Wrote:
(2014-01-10, 18:40)Shoober Wrote: I was making a silly comparison. You can loose more data when larger drives give out sure.

That is right, but you should not mix single independent disk setups with combined disk setups in this comparison. Wink

As I said, I was making a silly comparison. I did not feel the need to mention Raid0, it was implied within the context of the conversation. 8x500gb in Raid0 would give a Striped Volume of 4tb. There was no mention of independent drive setup only the inherent increased failure rate. I.e. 8 times. Wink
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