# What External USB3 Hard Drive?

## jagdpanther

I am looking for a 2TB external USB3 hard drive for my Gentoo system.  (Mostly for backups.)

I was going to buy a Seagate STBV2000100 but read some reviews that state the Seagate has issues with non-windows OSes like Linux and Mac.

Any recommendations for a USB3 2TB (or 3TB) external hard drive?

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## Jaglover

I like WD, I look for WD drives with 5 year warranty.

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## creaker

I have usb3.0 Seagate. I noticed only one issue: impossibility to boot system from usb-drive if usb-drive connected to usb3 port. If usb-drive connected to usb2.0, system from usb-drive booting fine (I have a bunch of systems installed on my usb drive).

If drive used only for saving and reading data - all works fine.

At usb2 port transfer rate is 35MB/sec, at usb3.0 port 75MB/sec

I'm not complaining about my Seagate drive.

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## jagdpanther

Thanks I'll look at WD.   I originally was looking at Seagate USB drives because I have had very good luck (ie. no disk hardware failures) with the commercial internal SATA Seagates with 5-year warantee.

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## d2_racing

I have 2 WD for my backups.

1. Western Digital Black serie 1 TB inside a NexstarCX case USB 3.

2. Western Digital Passport 1 TB USB 3.

Never had a crash and it's lightning fast at least on my box.

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## Jaglover

Once a WD failed on me and I had to request RMA, it was the easiest RMA I ever had. I just had to go to their website and type in the serial. No receipt was needed. OTOH I hear Seagate makes it real hard to have the drive replaced.

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## Anon-E-moose

I don't like seagate. I had one of their 500 gig drives and it was fine for a couple of years, but it went bad.

It was under warranty, but the drive that they sent to replace it was a POS "rebuilt" one. I've had nothing but trouble from it.

It has been so much trouble that I just bought a WD to replace it and put the seagate on the shelf.

YMMV

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