this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 65 points 6 months ago (2 children)

These things (and Seagate's) have the usb interface soldered on, so if the drivd dies, forget about the data, no way to connect to another usb adapter to try to recover. Granted, it's usually the drive that dies, but in these cases, you have a 100% rate of non recovery . Any other brand's are standard drives. My favorite are toshiba.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Why would the USB electronics be particularly likely to fail relative to other electronics on the drive?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago

Because you flex and replug the interface often.

The thing you use to plug your phone, tablet, drives and other things with is very often the failure point unless you break screens or get water in them.

Normally you simply have a HDD drive with a SATA interface in there, so if the USB connector fails, you can still easily recover your data.

With these things, you're lucky if they even offer the possibility of repairing or recovering the drive.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

In my experience the drive fails more often than the adapter, but they do fail. Also, there is a good chance to recover data from a failed drive. With a soldered adaptor it's basically impossible. The worst part is that the externals are often used for backups.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Because that's usually the cheapest part that manufacturers can get away with cheapening iut further.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Not particularly, but it happens.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I solder new usb connectors and all manner of other connectors on to stuff all the time.

I’m at a 100% success rate getting data off stuff that just needs new connectors.

If you need data recovered, the literal best case scenario is that it’s just got a bad connector.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Soldering is not the problem, unless its smd or tiny, its getting a non standard usb interface.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

you mean in the case of a dead USB ic or something or do you mean the USB port isnt standard?