Why is the maximum capacity of a USB-powered external hard drive are 5tb?

buklu · May 7, 2021

Is Lacie's external hard drive reliable?

jaslion · May 7, 2021

Technically as large as you can buy drives.

However there is a limit of what is reasonable. A external hard drive will usually be moved around a bit and well the big boi 10tb helium drives really don't like that. So you can get an enclosure and put in your own drive but you will have to be careful with bigger drives as they are more fragile. As far as the lacie 5tb sure it's fine but also be careful with it.

Another reason is that most users do not have more than 5tb of data. Any reason you need this much? What will the drive be used for? Do you have a desktop? If so just get an internal drive if it is an option. Can get larger for cheaper.

flibberdipper · May 7, 2021

Most portable drives work around the limitations of USB 2.0's power delivery (around 2.5 watts), and I can very well see that being a limiting factor for how much shit they can cram into a drive, not to mention you can only cram so many platters into a drive without killing durability and size.

Also we can't forget that most of the 3TB+ portables use a "bog standard" 15mm thick 2.5" HDD (albeit usually with a USB-only PCB), and there are only so many manufacturers who make those. Hell, Seagate is the only company I know of who makes them (or at least the only company who lets you buy a bare drive).