So I only use external docking stations now. OTOH, bare drives in external docking stations that I've used are compatible with the SATA ports on a motherboard and with other external docking stations. Was able to backup the drive and restore it to a new bare drive.
Put the drive in a working Seagate enclosure and then it worked. Removed the HDD from the enclosure and connected it directly to a SATA port on the motherboard and it wouldn't work. What happened is that a Seagate spinner that came in a USB2 enclosure failed after about a year of use. I discovered that a Seagate spinner that came in a USB2 enclosure used a proprietary method of writing to the drive that is not compatible with the SATA connectors on a motherboard.
įor spinner 'desktop' hard drives that most people buy, my experience is that it's either a bad batch or the luck of the draw whether a drive is more reliable or not.īut even more importantly, I've found that there is a crucial difference between bare and enclosed hard drives. A very simple question, based on your experience - 2.5' vs 3.5' external hard drives, which is more reliable?.
