Be Careful with Manufacturer's Branded External HDs

As you or other users already done it in the past when purchasing a new external HD for its computer, one tends to switch the external unit with the internal one in order to offer more capacity to the computer. This is especially true for notebooks. According to the recent story published by a Mac user, you should pay attention when purchasing HD manufacturer's own products. The unit was an external HD, the Western Digital Passport 3.5", however when opening the case, one quickly gets disappointed:

AS with 2.5" models, this HD does not feature any SATA interface, but has a USB 2.0 interface directly soldered on it. This is not a rare case, and it is a rather new strategy developed by HD manufacturers to develop their own ports to save money by reducing cost on components (here SATA bridge).
OF course, if you intend to use the drive included i the external enclosure as an external HG it does not matter, however, if you plan to change this HD by a new model offering larger capacity, you will be facing a similar problem: There is no USB 2.0-based HD currently available.