MyBook Essential and Encryption

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for Windows
1

In some discussions (e.g. this one and some others) it is mentionned that the external drive MyBook Essential (the models with hardware encryption) performs disk encryption at all times, even when the user has not taken any steps to enable such a behavior.

I have not installed Smartware, much less enabled any passwording of the data on the drive. If the information above is true, trying to retrieve the information from the disk by removing it from the enclosure wouldn’t work, its data would be unreadable.

Is there any reason for this?

If I only use the drive for external storage, and not a backup for sensitive data, this automatic encryption would be useless, and even problematic if I ever needed to retrieve the data from a dammaged enclosure (hasn’t happened to me, knock on wood).

Would a second enclosure be able to decrypt the contents after insertion, or do each enclosure boards have different internal hidden password independent of any user-entered password?

In the link I gave above, many people found themselves locked out of the drive, even without having used a password or Smartware.

Was there any definitive solution found, without using Smartware? Was it a firmware defect?

It would be annoying to be locked out of a drive, when one didn’t even set any password or installed Smartware.

Even more annoying not beeing able to remove the drive from the enclosure to retrieve the data (of course one could make backups… but obviously not on a MyBook Essential since there would be a chance of a wrongful lockout!).

Anyways… This is all disconcerting, and the question above still begs to be asked:

Is there any reason for WD to silently encrypt a drive when the user doesn’t even want to enable it by password/smartware?

(I didn’t see in the documentation where this detail is revealed. I only read that the data will be encrypted when smartware is installed and a password given by the user.)

2

Hello,

Please don’t get confuse with the drives encryption and password protection.

The drives encryption protects your data if someone removes the drive from the enclosure and connects to a motherboard. This encryption will prevent getting the data from the drive.

The password protection on the other hand, allows you to setup a password so the drive is locked and the users can not connect to the drive unless a password has been entered.

The thread that you refer to, shows user that had issues with the drives and the drives locked up. This could happen if the drives get corrupted or a firmware failure. However, this is not standard and has not happen to most of us here.

If you see the thread date  it was 2 years ago :smiley:

3

Wizer wrote:

The drives encryption protects your data if someone removes the drive from the enclosure and connects to a motherboard. This encryption will prevent getting the data from the drive.

But then that someone just has to leave it in the enclosure, and take the data. That kind of protection is useless, unless there is a password.

One can chose not to use a password, for different reasons. And one can prefer to use, say, Bitlocker to protect their data (whatever the opinions about Bitlocker). Or one could simply want to use the drive as a simple external drive.

If someone doesn’t use a password, he/she expects the drive to be unencrypted.
Is there any information in the documentation about this encryption of data even in the absence of a password?

I’m not a Mac user, but on p.56 of the user manual, there is mention of a password to “encrypt the backup disk”, and then leaving the other option:
“If you do not want to create a password to encrypt your backup files…” (emphasis mine);
perhaps this is only Mac specific, but it does make one believe that without a password the data is unencrypted.

Even the product overview says: “WD Security utility allows you to set password protection and hardware encryption for your drive to help protect your files from unauthorized use or access.”
So we are led to believe encryption has to be setup, which would imply there would be no encryption otherwise.

Aaaanyway, reading a bit more about this situation and some of WD’s lines of externals, I see they won’t fix (or recognize) some “problem” they intentionally created.

At least, I presume the drive itself (probably a 3TB Green) could be reformatted and used normally in a dock outside the enclosure: it’s still cheaper than buying the drive itself. I’ll decide that later, before putting too much stuff on the unintentionally encrypted MyB Essential

Wizer wrote:

The thread that you refer to, shows user that had issues with the drives and the drives locked up. This could happen if the drives get corrupted or a firmware failure. However, this is not standard and has not happen to most of us here.

If you see the thread date  it was 2 years ago :smiley:

Eek! Well, it wasn’t that far in the forum, p.3 I think. But it does show the importance of leaving the data unencrypted if it was not demanded: one expects to be able to retrieve the data from the drive once it’s removed from a malfunctioning enclosure, when no password was given and smartware not installed.

(And if one asks why one would buy an external which features encryption, and not use that feature… well, I don’t see any other choice for a 3 TB external drive with USB 3.0 in their line of externals, and they all seems to have this forcible encryption without user consent.
They really should make that “feature” clear to customers.)

4

Well you need to research a bit more before you buy

there are some drives that don’t come with encryption

5

Wizer wrote:

Well you need to research a bit more before you buy

There are some drives that don’t come with encryption

Well, true.

I did look in the product description and user manual (pdf’s available on their product page), but as stated above, it contains no indication about that behavior, and is even phrased in such a way to lead us into thinking setting the password is what enables encryption of the data. There’s no warning there will be encryption even without the password.

I would have expected to read some explicit warning, such as:

"Please note that wheter you create or not a password throught the SmartWare software, the data on the disk will be encrypted with an embeded passcode unknow to the user."

and/or:

 

“Even if the user decide not to use a password to access the drive, the data can only be read through the enclosure. The hidden decrypting key will not be made available to the user.”

That would have been direct, unambiguous; and frankly, much more honest.

You stated in an earlier post one shouldn’t “get confuse[d] with the drives encryption and password protection”. But where is this distinction made in their product documentation?

But in the end you are right, I should have come here to learn about this decision from WD.

When potential customers can’t trust companies to be properly informed anymore about such obscure decisions, one has to look into complaints from their existing customers.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against data encryption. I Bitlocked my main partition and its backup drive (disk & esata dock).

What I find dubious is to encrypt data without giving the user the decrypting key. The enclosure _ is _ the key! But if the enclosure fails for some reason in the future (usb connection crippled by accident, etc), one would need to re-backup everything, rather than be immediately accessible (in the case the user didn’t set a password).

As for other externals, I haven’t found an unencrypted 3 TB MyBook desktop model from WD. Any link to it on their web page?

As for drives from another manufacturer… well I still trust WD’s (internal) drives more than others. But I certainly don’t trust their enclosures now, nor their misleading documentation.

At least, nothing is lost really: the internal drive is still a good one, and buying such a standalone drive is still a bit more expensive than within an enclosure (although the situation is getting better now).

Anyway, thank you for your answers.

I don’t know if you’re an employee, or just a user who likes to roam the WD forums, but at least I got some answers WD wasn’t willing to give up front in their product description and documentation.

6

Well…

http://community.wdc.com/t5/External-Drives-for-PC/MyBook-Essential-and-Encryption/m-p/500706#M13938

Password protection for privacy
Gain peace of mind knowing that your
data is protected from unauthorized
access with password protection and
encryption.*
* A model with disabled encryption is
also available

7

hm… you linked the present thread.

Found a discussion here talking about such a non-encrypted version, but they can’t find it.

I didn’t find such a thing back in the store today either; nor on newegg. It’s perhaps reserved for another country/market as said in the link above.

Anyway, I decided not to extract the drive, and I returned it intact (no restocking fees too).

After reading many other discussions (which I should have done thoroughly beforehand, mea culpa), I’d rather distance myself from this kind of product (which might be acceptable to other though). I might reconsider if the non-encrypted version is made available, or if the encryption can be disabled on some other future model (which I doubt will happen).

I’ll accept message #4 as a “solution”, for the “research a bit more before you buy” bit, which I usually do, but sometimes one strays from rational behavior (no dire consequences in this case, happily).

(But I still maintain WD’s official documentation is misleading – e.g. the 2 examples in message #3)

Thanks again, and have a good day.

8

I think I’ve found one

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/external/desktop/

Check the Elements Desktop

9

Thanks, but I’d seen that.

In my message #3, I said:

"I don’t see any other choice for a 3 TB external drive with USB 3.0 in their line of externals"

but I forgot to specify again that USB 3.0 bit in my message #5, to which you responded with the link.

For a storage/backup unit as big as 1 TB or more, I always go with eSata, and was willing to go for USB3 since my mobo has such a port available.