External HDD USB Port is Loose

[Djmonsters]

Hello!

I have had this Seagate Expansion HDD with me for almost 7 years with no other trouble. The thing is lately the drive's data port (USB 3.0 Micro B) has been very loose resulting in flaky connections where:

 

a) The drive is powered (There is a green indicator light at the top when connected) but can't transmit/receive data.    

b) The drive fully works but "ANY minute" cable wobble at the port side will instantly knock out the transfer  (Annoying when transferring large files like steam games or a photo library  )

c) Same as b) but instead of KO'ing the transfer, the speeds will sometimes wildly fluctuate or just slow to a crawl     

 

The best I can do at the time is to orient the drive in a particular manner or apply some force upwards from the cable just to maintain the connection. 

 

One workaround I tried is using a Micro USB 2.0 cable to the drive and the connection somehow works and is secure but bottlenecks the performance. 

(From 120-130 MB/s reads and writes with USB 3.0 to just 40 MB/s with USB 2.0)

 

Any suggestions? Cause I am initially planning to open the drive and use a pair of nose pliers to "gently" tighten the port with the cable inserted.

   

[Djmonsters]

Any idea where can i buy a spare port like that? I can't seem to find it on amazon or newegg