The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Opening up a WD my passport essential se 1tb

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by DietSushi, Nov 26, 2012.

  1. DietSushi

    DietSushi Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    56
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Anyone know if I can use the external hard drive in the topic as a laptop drive?
     
  2. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

    Reputations:
    21,580
    Messages:
    35,370
    Likes Received:
    9,877
    Trophy Points:
    931
    Not necessarily. Many don't have typical SATA connections. Only way to know for sure is to try it.
     
  3. Nankuru

    Nankuru Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    215
    Messages:
    592
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Until 2/3 years ago you could get the SATA hard drive out of a WD passport in a couple or minutes. Then they changed the design to a more compact connection which can't be used internally.

    External hard drives tend to perform less well than internal drives.
     
  4. ilovejedd

    ilovejedd Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    73
    Messages:
    230
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Assuming it's one of those new ones, then no. The new Passports don't have normal SATA connectors. The USB3 board is soldered directly to the HDD.
     
  5. DietSushi

    DietSushi Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    56
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Damn. Well thanks for the replies everyone. I was hoping to find another use for this and get a larger capacity external.
     
  6. Mobius 1

    Mobius 1 Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    3,447
    Messages:
    9,069
    Likes Received:
    6,376
    Trophy Points:
    681
    Get one of those seagate external HDD's

    They have a removable SATA connection for the connector/HDD