WDBFJK0080HBK: Can hardware encryption be turned off?

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for Windows
1

Hello,

I am about to buy a couple of 8 TB drives from WD. However, I have read about “Drive Lock” and hardware encryption being featured (forced?) on the desktop drives such as the MyBooks.

Is the hardware encryption turned on by default on new 8TB MyBooks (WDBFJK0080HBK)?
If yes, can it be turned off, so the data is written unencrypted and can be read if the drives are removed from their original enclosures?

I simply want to be able to remove the drives from the MyBook enclosures and used in a HDD dock without having to format and rewrite 8TB of data!

Thanks for reading,

2

Disabling hardware encryption features is not possible at the time of this post.

3

If you buy the 8TB MyBooks and remove them from their enclosure before writing any data to them

and place them in your HDD dock and then write data to them … there should be no Encryption

From my understanding, the Hardware Encryption is on the Enclosure Circuit Board, not the HDD

More info and explanation … click this