I purchased a 1TB my book 3.0 and used it for about a month and a half until the connector pulled of the PCB. This seems to be a recurring problem with these drives. Fortunately I backed it up the night before this happened but I did add more files the next day. I decided that getting the content off the drive was more important than dealing with the warranty so I took it apart to re-install the connector. I am an electrical engineer with access to a microscope and experience re-working fine pitched electronic assemblies so temporarily fixing the connector isn’t much of a reach. I am also experienced in troubleshooting manufacturing defects.
I found that the connector came off due to cold solder joints. The connector is soldered to the PCB and several locations to provide support. Unfortunately the pads are connected to the ground plane and there isn’t sufficient thermal relief requiring a significant amount of heat to make a good solder joint. The solder joints on my drive were never heated enough so they broke with very little force applied. The poor soldering in combination with the stiff cable provided were the cause of the failure. The poor quality of workmanship makes it inevitable that many other users will have the same problem and I do not recommend this drive.
