Questions about Samsung Spinpoint M9T upgrade

As we all know, this is currently the highest capacity laptop HDD on the market at 2TB. It can often be found significantly cheaper as an external drive--Seagate Backup Plus Slim or Seagate Expansion STBX2000401--than as a bare drive. I am interested in getting one, ripping the drive out of its enclosure, and replacing my current 1TB HDD with it. However, I would like to know:

How easy/difficult is it and what tools are required?

And more importantly, how safe is it? I would like to keep the enclosure intact if at all possible and repurpose it with my current drive to use as an external. The 1TB is a Spinpoint M8 if it matters.

Would love to hear the experiences of people who've performed this upgrade before. Thanks.

 

See here, for example.

John

 

There's at least one thread on this forum with all of the answers you need. Have you tried searching the forum?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I have, however I did not find the answers I'm looking for. Nobody has confirmed whether the enclosure is reusable after ripping the drive out.

 

These drives are sold in different enclosures, so I can't comment directly on the ease of opening all of them up. However, the ones I got, the Seagate Expansion Portables, aren't too difficult to pop open. I used a razor blade to get in between the two halves of the casing on one end. Then with enough of a gap between the parts of the casing, I put in a thin flat-head screwdriver that I worked all the way around popping the clips holding it together. The first time I did it I was really tense and worried about breaking everything. It did take a bit of force, but everything turned out OK.

It is as safe as crossing the street. You are not going to damage the drive inside. On one enclosure I cracked one and entirely broke off another of the clips that hold it together. However, the remaining clips hold it closed very well. I can't tell the difference between it and one that isn't broken.