Easy Disassembly of Seagate Expansion 12TB USB Drive

If you want to extract the hard drive from a Seagate Expansion USB drive, we show you how to do it.

After we unboxed and disassembled our 12TB Seagate Expansion USB was a standard Seagate EXOS X16 drive ST12000NM001G. In the video the full disk spec is shown and prices of the identical bare drive are shown.

We show how to perform the disassembly with standard tools even though we had proper disassembly tools.

Pulling the hard drive out of a Seagate Expansion USB kit and then installing that drive into a PC was $100 less expensive that just buying the bare 3.5" 12TB Seagate EXOS Drive.

Introduction 0:00
Unboxing Seagate Expansion USB Drive 1:22
Disassemble Seagate Expansion USB Drive 2:32
Seagate Expansion EXOS Enterprise Spec 8:05
Outro 10:43

[nerkymusselman]

thanks for the very clear instruction. i just got exactly this in a 14tb at costco today for $99/each. got 5.

[fiereke]

Cool mine also had an EXOS x16 12TB drive in it. These are high end NAS drives! I shucked it out of sheer necessity, since the USB interface broke down.

[RockyBMusic]

Thanks for the instructions on how to open the case. I ordered 2 of them to upgrade my NAS..
I also didn't expect 7200s to be built in there.🙂

[wtsy]

Newer models are a bit more difficult to open. Thanks for showing us the way!

[espressomatic]

Pry the top open with a flat and narrow tool by placing it inside one of the vents and using leverage. That'll give you enough space to insert a guitar pick-style tool or credit card. Then you can use a spudger or the same metal tool in the opening, running it around the drive to pop the clips. When you're done, and if you ever need to return for service, not even Sherlock Holmes is going to know it's been opened. You may break or otherwise crack some internal clips, but these will all face the same damage if anyone at the factory attempts to open it for verification.

[lesliechin]

I have this exact same enclosure and been meaning to do this. Thanks for the video!

[SFD-Horses]

Thanks! Like you, i needed the drive for data expansion...but I also wanted to use the internals to read and recover data from past legacy drives. Consolidation! Other than boogering up the side seam like you did (hardly noticible), it was easy peasy following along with your vid. Thanks!

[terrapinflyer]

Martin Freeman sure knows his stuff about hard drives.

[iowagothic]

Great video, straight to the point! 👍

[bobbymoss]

I'm very surprised this man didn't end up in ER with his USB enclosure opening skills.

[jonathanparle]

How do you know what model drives they put in these things? They do not say on the website which might imply it is not always the exact same type as you found here.

[johnnydwicked]

Thanks for the the video insight on disassembling the hard drive enclosure and to also find out that it uses a CMR Exos model hard drive. Do you know which model of from the expansion line that also uses CMR model like Exos? Is like 12tb and up?

[PierreEXM]

Very useful ! Thank you for your video.
Kisses from Belgium ;-)

[peterwildbichler]

thx for the video, did the same with my 14TB Expansion, and now the drive doesnt dismount itself all the time, totaly stable

[Setola]

just for info: newer plastic chassis models are made to break closing pins on opening. So if you want to re-assembly the product to resell it, you will need a good amount of glue and a lot of patience :D

[SUJITKUMAR-kgwh]

thanks i am going to purchase this one

[sebastienlepage]

Are they SATA drives or SAS attached USB drive ?

[syed.finance]

How do you open apart the drive for stuck head? You stopped short of showing that on this version as there are no screws on 12tb to 18tb versions?

[gps-gps]

I was looking at buying one of these 12TB drives, but the reviews don't seem to recommend. Issues such as overheating or simply just stopping working seem to be common. You seem to know your stuff, are these drives any good? I want a large external drive to put all the information on, from the smaller external drives I have accumulated over the years. I am worried about a drive failing and losing all the data from years of photographs/videos from holidays etc. Thanks in advance..

[bbking]

If I wanted to take the metal shell off of that hard drive, what tool would I need?