Does the "lock" on a My Passport drive actually encrypt the data on the drive?

WD External and Portable SSD Portable SSD
1

I have a brand new WD My Passport 1TB drive (WD product code [Deleted]).

Does putting a “lock” on the drive (using the WD Security software) actuall ENCRYPT the contents of the drive?

If so - follow-up questions:-

  • is this truly hardware based encryption? or a software encyrption?
  • what type of encryption is it? (AES?  WD proprietary? ???)
2

Drives that come with Smartware are hardware encrypted whether you install it or not.

Joe