Good. I buy a USB (2 or 3) to SATA Adapter for under 10 euros I thought then. Well. Too bad that you do not know whether the converter chips from USB to SATA cope with 3TB. Linux has it no lists and Amazon there are unfortunately no information products with USB or PCI ID or ID tags as "Can-not-3TB-plates" which also do not always agree.
Perhaps USB 3 adapter also are generally suitable for 3TB and so you would be on the safe side. But buy and settle back to sample and go to the post office with limited opening times and is not fun.
If you include the drive internally or eSATA uses it's probably mostly stress free. Everything else such as USB can cause trouble (AHCI, driver, ...). Even TV or PVR with USB port come maybe not well handle it, or you have the partitions up to 2 TB in size do to utilize the FAT instead exFAT. Some PVRs or BluRay player or TVs can also NTFS but the other can not play.
DC WD external model with USB port sounds nice and costs probably not really much more, but if you have not all USB 3 eSATA but would have been nice.
I also have the feeling that the plate vibrates more than a WD 2TB 20 EARS with the problems with USB-2 runs in two docking stations and is fully recognized.
It was certainly not a bad buy, but had for the 3 TB a few unexpected traps and lack of available information so far I could not buy the matching USB adapter.
The WD20 2TB, however, was virtually stress-free use.
