Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Bought this to replace the WD My Book 4TB which is full. One obvious issue is that the temperature kept rising with continuous access and I had to disconnect it at 55C (room at 22C), just 1C away from tripping the "BE Airflow Temperature". The Seagate specification states it worked up to 60C but I didn't push it because heat kills hard drives based on my experience. The triangular patterns on both sides aren't heat dispersing vents. Only the bottom and the rear are. Spent three hours to drill all the holes on both sides of the case but didn't help to lower the temperature at all. I have to run the drive w/o the plastic case for it to cool properly. Stick 4 rubber feet on the metal bracket so that the heat from the bottom can escape. Under the same condition, it stays at 42C. At room temperature 26C, the WD/Seagate have stayed at 45/49C respectively (42/44C with air circulation) after hours of copying from the WD to Seagate. It is surprising Seagate would have used such an ill-designed case for their hard drives for so many years. The bottom vents are basically blocked by the drive itself and the heat from the top cannot escape. Since the case is plastic, you cannot tell how hot the drive is without checking the smart data. This should explain why so many Seagate drives have failed. By comparison, the vertical design of the WD lets the heat escape from the top and the cool air is drawn in from the vents at the bottom naturally. It creates an airflow without any active cooling. My advice is that if you plan to run it as is, stay away from any Seagate external hard drives with those heat trapping cases. However, if you don't mind running it without the pretty but useless case like I do, the Seagate 8TB is hard to beat for $300 right now.