I’m hoping someone could tell me how i can identify if the drive inside the many variations of ‘passport’ ‘my passport’ ‘my passport elite’ ‘my passport se’ ‘my book’ etc. have a standard ‘non-proprietary interface’. It seems some have a standard sata connection and others only have the usb connection and some pins in the back. I love the form factor of the ‘my passport’ but i do want to be able to connect it directly to an internal sata port on spare netbook if it should need some repairs / data recovery. The goal is to be able to look at the box on the store shelf and know which type of drive I’m look at slash maby purchasing.
1) If the WD drive enclosure is 1.2" longer than 2.5" bare drive size, it has a separate USB > SATA bridge board and you should be able to use bare drive separately.
Also look for USB drives that do not offer drive security (Password Lock) out of the box.
3) The drive with drive security is more expensive and no separate USB > SATA bridge board in the enclosure.
Tip: Hardware encrypted drive security is realized via custom made encryption chip inserted between USB and SATA interface. Unauthorized personnel cannot retrieve data even replacing drive electronics board as data itself gets encrypted while copied to drive. But this type of drives are always slow and troublesome to people who needs just simple USB shuttle service.
Good luck for your adventure!
Mabikay - SLK
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