Just had a 2TB Segate expansion USB 3 external HD fail - a few years (maybe 4) old but only used weekly for backup. The Seagate utils didn’t even recognise it as a Seagate drive. I thought I’d extract the drive from the case and reuse the case - not so - it is impossible to open without breaking it. Second such failure in the last year. The first was replaced under warranty but I cost 50% of the purchase price to return the faulty drive to Singapore. They are cheap but false economy it seems.
On the other hand the desktop drives in my experience are different - I have 4 x 3 TB in a QNAP NAS running 17/24 and good for around three years now.