Seagate 5 TB STDR5000101 External Hard Drive (Silver)

Good product

I wanted an external drive that drew low power and did not get hot. And although ti says it works from USB2 port, It does not power on unless connected to a USB3 port. And also ti gets hot, at 50C I disconnect it and I have to place it flat on top of the desktop case to keep temperate under that and runs under 40C normally when not in heavy use. I ordered this from the US site and got it in under a week but cost was a little more or same and it was confusing how all the ordering and warranty works going through this site and then the us site and all that and decided to just get it from the US site itself. Seems there is no warranty for this item unless you can get a US address for it. It came in a plastic bag unlike the usual box. The bag was small enough I was concerned and then saw the little retail box in it. Looks like a small 6 pack battery box and its light weight. The drive itself is held inside the box with a plastic container that prevents damage. Its available cheaper on this site but I am not sure of the firmware version which is important for drives. And especially when they use new special technology. I went through this with the 2TB drives where I ended up with substandard drives by buying them in the country while in other countries the drives were faster and better for identical model numbers and ended up with 2 good drives and 5 sub standard drives. (See why I ordered this from the US site itself than locally) although for some people the lack of warranty might be a problem doing this. The transfer speed seems to be on par with an average USB3 flash drive. Since this drive is not a normal drive but uses seagate's special format to cram more data onto the disk by over witting tracks. Which makes changes very slow as it has to rewrite a lot of data for any small changes you make. And a lot of small writes will lock up the drive until it finishes. So this is not a heavy duty drive and only for backups. I tried many places to keep it cooler.. Sides, inside the desktop, on the desk etc and ended up at the top near the power supply to keep it the coldest which seems to be around 42C during some use. The cable is only like 10 inches so you cant place it too far away but seems to work with similar cables that come with other USB3 hard drives. I would have got the 4TB drive since that uses 1 less platter and might be cooler.. But both of them use similar technology and are much slower than the 2TB and 3TB portables. The 3TB and higher are also taller than the 2TB slim drives and this seems to be the same height as a 3.5 inch drive although the box seems much smaller. It does come to life from sleep in like 5 seconds..And no problems yet and is very quiet and I cant even feel it operating except when it gets warm from heavy use. For using as a backup this seems to work better than the 3.5 drive version which are heavier and bigger.. Cost is similar for both and hopefully reliability is better as well. The top is metal and the glossy bottom and sides makes it look well looks like a modem and similar size. The single cable is a big factor for using this instead of a larger 3.5 HD version.