I picked up this USB drive from Argos (item number 248/9935) knowing that the internal drive could be removed and thus installed in a laptop or console ie the PS4. This differs from some others in the fact that it contains a true sata drive with standard sata connectors, other manufacturers use proprietary drive connectors to convert to USB thus removing the ability to use it outside of it’s enclosure.

Even though branded as seagate it acutally contains a Samsung M9T 2TB ST2000LM003 9.5mm SATA 2.5 inch Internal Hard Drive Now these sell in a standalone format at around £90 but the expansion combination is regularly on offer for around £55-60. You have to decide whether the £30-£35 saving is worth loosing your warranty. For me money was the biggest factor hence why I went with this.

The drive comes with some instructions and a hight speed USB 3.0 cable.

**** WARNING REMOVING THE DRIVE FROM IT’S CASE WILL INVALIDATE YOUR WARRANTY ****

Seagates Warranty And Replacement Policy

If your caeful enough you should be able to salvage the case and use it to put a spare drive in.

First thing I did was plug it into a windows machine to check it’s health status with crystaldiskmark

—————————————————————————-
(2) ST2000LM003 HN-M201RAD
—————————————————————————-
Enclosure : Seagate Expansion USB Device (V=0BC2, P=2312, sa1) – st
Model : ST2000LM003 HN-M201RAD
Firmware : 2BC10003
Serial Number : **************
Disk Size : 2000.3 GB (8.4/137.4/2000.3/2000.3)
Buffer Size : 32767 KB
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 3907029168
Rotation Rate : 5400 RPM
Interface : USB (Serial ATA)
Major Version : ATA8-ACS
Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 6
Transfer Mode : SATA/300 | SATA/600
Power On Hours : 0 hours
Power On Count : 5 count
Temperature : 16 C (60 F)
Health Status : Good
Features : S.M.A.R.T., APM, AAM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
APM Level : 0080h [OFF]
AAM Level : FE00h [OFF]

Good enough for me so now time to crack it open. I used a small hobby knife/scalpel and started at the corner where the Seagate logo is.

Once I managed to pry open enough of a gap I used a plastic card to keep it open.

Next I slid the card along and used a small flat headed screwdriver to pry open the end.

Continuing on I managed to open up the case expsoing the clips.

Pulling off the top reveals the drive.

The drives lifts out of the bottom casing

One both sides of the drives are screw covered by black caps.

Next carefully peel away the silver foil.

The usb/sata connector is now exposed which simply pulls away from the drive.

Job done you now have a 2TB drive to put into you console or pc.