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For whatever reason external desktop USB drives are often cheaper than the equivalent sized OEM drive. They also seem to come with better warranties, in this case the drive has a 3 year warranty while most of the lower price OEM drives from Seagate only come with a 1 year warranty.

The 3TB Seagate Backup Plus drives above were on sale a few weeks ago for $89 a peace compared to the $120 price of the OEM drives. As I write this the price is currently at $105 which is still $15 cheaper than the OEM drives. I picked up two of these drives for a raid configuration and thought it might be helpful to document the process of removing the drive from the encloser.

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Remove the drive from the package. You’ll see a small strip at the bottom of the unit with the Seagate logo. Wiggle this attached base side to side and slowly pull it away from the drive.

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Taking a closer look at the base, you’ll notice it’s basically just a SATA docking station. You can use this as a USB 3.0 drive adapter in a pinch and it’s a handy item to have around.

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Using a small flat head screw driver, start prying at the silver facing. Start at the bottom of the drive and work your way up.

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Once you’ve worked up enough of the silver metal facing, you should be able to slide your screwdriver under it as shown. Work your way up to the top of the unit. This facing is lightly glued on and shouldn’t require a lot of force to remove.

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The top of the metal facing is glued to a plastic vent cover. This should snap off with a little bit of force, but don’t get to ruff with. If you keep the case intact, you can use it for another drive or save it incase a drive needs to be returned under warranty.

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With the drive facing you, slide your screw driver into the lip on the top right hand side where the vent cover used to be and apply a little bit of pressure to get the plastic clips to release. Work your way from front to back until all 3 clips have come loose.

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Once you have all three clips unfastened the side panel of the case should be pretty easy to remove.

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To remove the drive from the case you need to apply a little bit of force to the edge of the drive. Be careful not to shove your screwdriver in to fare while working your way from left to right across the drive.

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The drive comes out with 4 rubber spacers along the sides of a metal bracket. Pull these spacers off and you’ll find the 4 phillips head screws underneath. Remove this 4 screws and you’re ready to install this in your Freenas or desktop.

The removal process is pretty painless once you figure out where everything comes apart. I did a little bit of damage to the first case before I figured out the best way to get the drive out. Once I figured out how it was put together, the second case (pictured) came apart with ease. Prices on these external drives are always changing. Wait for them to go on sale and pick a few up. $89 a peace is a pretty good price to pay for a 3TB drive and i’m sure they’ll go back on sale sometime in November. If I see them on sale I’ll let you know.

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