MyBook Essential 1130 3 TB: Not recognized as USB 3.0 device

I bought a 3 TB MyBook Essential 1130 a few weeks ago.  I also bought a USB 3.0 interface card for my desktop PC so that I could take full advantage of the USB 3.0 speed.

Unfortunately, I only got to use the drive at full USB 3.0 speed a handful of times.  I got a USB 3.0 connection for the first day or so, but since then, Windows keeps giving the “This device can perform faster…” balloon popup whenever I connect the drive…despite that I am plugging it directly into a USB 3.0 port!  The drive will only perform at USB 2.0 speed, which is pathetic (~33 MB/s) compared to the drive’s full capability (I was getting around 100 MB/s over USB 3.0).

Could there be a problem with the drive or cable?  I have not been able to rule these things out, because the MyBook is the only USB 3.0 device I own, and the cable supplied with it is the only USB 3.0 cable I own. 

FWIW, I tried the USB 3.0 card in another computer with the MyBook and had the same problem: it would only connect as a USB 2.0 device.

Not sure if it matters, but I am primarily using the MyBook with Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.  I have the same “connects as USB 2.0” problem in Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit (Linux has supported USB 3.0 since late 2009). 

Any ideas?

A related question: Been reading some scary stories about people not being able to recover the drive contents in cases where the enclosure fails.  Does the MyBook do some kind of funky data encryption by default, without user intervention?  I would think that if the enclosure ever fails, I could simply remove the drive & put it in another enclosure, or install it internally in my computer.  Any reason that wouldn’t work?

Yes it does hardware encrytion and there is no way to change it. The encryption is handled by the circuit with the USB port on it. Without that board the data is encrypted and useless even it you can get access to the data another way. Remember never trust important data to just one drive no matter who makes it, one copy is not a backup.

Joe

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Really?  That’s nuts.  Why would anyone want to do that?  If the enclosure ever fails…well, there goes your data!  Somehow I missed that important message on the box (well, not really, it isn’t there).

I can understand offering encryption as an option, but I don’t understand tying the drive to the enclosure, always and forever, without even asking.

Silly me thought I was buying a 3 TB drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure, not some overcomplicated nightmare device.  If I want my stuff encrypted, I’ll use TrueCrypt.

I had an enclosure fail twice on another brand of external drive, so I know it can happen.  Scary.  Glad I found out now, before I put anything important on the drive. 

I’m doubly lucky, in that I paid about the same for the MyBook as I would have for just a 3 TB drive by itself.  I guess it’s time to order a sane, non-hardware-encrypting USB 3.0 enclosure and “roll my own” external drive.

Thanks for the heads up!

Still wondering why the drive can’t connect as a USB 3.0 device.  Not sure whether it’s the USB 3.0 card or the MyBook, or the cable even, where the problem lies.