Historically, it didn’t make sense to bother with the effort because typically manufacturers put their lowest quality drives in external enclosures to keep costs down and profits up. Price Match Guarantee. The manufacturer commented on this review, Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2018. It is, supposedly, a "feature".. Only way around encryption is to shuck the drive. I’m no longer able to see it on my computer (or any computer), although the drive still lights up as if it’s working. I only had it for 1 week. When you shuck, or remove, the internal disk from a Western Digital Easystore external drive, you'll find either a red label or a white label internal disk. The Reddit subreddit devoted to large scale home data storage, /r/DataHoarder, is a fantastic resource for drive shuckers, as the folks there are constantly searching out fresh sources of large high quality drives. At the moment (and throughout 2017, for that matter), the best value in drive shucking has consistently been the example we used in the previous section: the 8TB Western Digital … You can also, when you see external enclosures on sale, search for the name of the external enclosure and “shucking” to find additional information about the drive. At first glance, you’d assume that doing so would void your warranty, but typically opening the enclosure doesn’t void the warranty, and in many cases the drive and the enclosure actually have independent warranty periods. Super easy. Go to Deal. You can, after all, just buy bare drives right from the start and skip all that hassle. In fact you can even look up shucking videos on YouTube for different models, like the WD Easystore, seen below, to get a feel for the process. WD doesn't use the MS Standard most other manufactures do, so its calculation issue. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. The sleek design features up to 12TB capacity plus Western Digital … The 2 x 4TB WD Green drives in the secondary NAS need replacing, they are very high mileage plus as I am currently mirroring 2 x 4TB & 2 x 2TB, I need more space (e.g. Affiliate. The ecomonics are insane, but we’re not complaining. of 2.5" drives. Although there are differences between enclosure models on the market, the general design of modern enclosures is almost identical. I tried the drive on several systems and no system would recognize it. The 1 star reviews here are correct that the device will potentially fail. It works great for all my docs that were cramming up my computer. I'm going to shuck it either way so I don't mind, but if I did want the … Performance is great. At the time, it was impossible to find a 12TB Elements for anywhere … … Western Digital elements desktop storage with USB 3.0 offers reliable, high-capacity, add-on storage, fast data transfer rates and universal connectivity with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices. Got this drive yesterday, reformatted it to use with my Mac, worked beautifully for about 4 hours and then it went completely dark. Those minor caveats aside, if you’re looking for an economical way to populate a home server (and you’re willing to deal with the shucking itself and, potentially, a shorter warranty) you really can’t beat the price. The drive started making a clicking sound and isn't recognized by my computer, which is what other people are saying as well. I was able to shuck the drive from the enclosure and find a White label WD80EMAZ drive which is nearly identical to the RED labeled drive that is sought after. I finally replaced my Ring doorbell … That may not always be the case, however, so the best thing you can do is keep an eye on discussion forums where people routinely discuss drive shucking and take on the risk of buying new enclosures and testing them (so you don’t have to). Now I will have to re-install a data library on a different drive which will take many hours. Unlike buying a bare hard drive right off the shelf, where you know exactly what you’re getting, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get the drive you want when you shuck an external enclosure. Edit 30/7: Now $336.64 from $350.60 Western Digital elements desktop storage with USB 3.0 offers reliable, high-capacity, add-on storage, fast data transfer rates and universal connectivity with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices. ", WARNING - I didn’t believe the negative reviews, but don’t make my mistake, Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2019. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. Flipping the enclosure over we see how everything is laid out inside the kit. I’m looking at the WD 12TB Elements external, one of the many HGST 12TB variants or a Seagate EXOS. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. Once I had all the data copied over, I intended to buy another and raid it so I had a copy of everything; always have a backup and all that. Which Drives Should You Shuck? I have a NAS in a (modded) mini-ITX case with nearly 100 TB (!) I can always add more later as I need the extra storage. Every now and then, you come across something that sounds way too good to be true, but against the odds, it actually works. WD's 12TB Elements external hard drive is now a mere $174.99 with free shipping for Prime members, which is a savings of $75 over the normal MSRP (not counting shipping). WD has been doing it for years, and Seagate started doing it now too (past year I think). I guess I did take a small risk not immediately buying two of these drives so I never had any period without a backup, but I just didn't have the money at that point to double down. The manufacturer commented on the review below, Dead after 5mo, customer support won't help, Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2019. We’ve shucked more than a few drives in our day, and we promise the process is simple. When I received the drive, I copied a bunch of work data (mainly source code and client data) to it. Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2018, Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2018, I love this hard drive. WD 12TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive $267.03 + Delivery (Free with Prime) @ Amazon UK via AU. This guide demonstrates shucking a WD Elements 12TB external hard drive from Western Digital, model WDBWLG0120HBK-NESN, but the procedure can apply to any WD Elements 3.5” external drive. If you’ve only bought a single enclosure, then perhaps it’s not a big deal to just take your gambling lumps and move on, but if you’ve purchased a huge lot of them from an online retailer and now need to deal with the hassle and cost of returning them, the lumps are a bit more painful. :) I’m glad I bought it cuz its affordable & has a lot of storage! 135,542 global ratings | 33,150 global reviews, Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2018. Appreciate any help, thanks! That’s it, you can start dragging docs to the drive. I don’t think I’ve ever written a 1-star review in my life, but I felt like I had to warn others. Since we launched in 2006, our articles have been read more than 1 billion times. Here’s the weird part: those external drives are sometimes less expensive than the bare version of the same drive. The original meaning of “shucking” is to remove the shuck, or outer protective layer, from food like corn and shellfish with the ultimate goal of getting to the delicious stuff inside. Thanks to Amanda who shared how to format this for a current Mac. Jason served as Lifehacker's Weekend Editor before he joined How-To Geek. USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 compatibility – … Would you guys: Buy two cheaper external elements drives and shuck … Usually, I reserve reviews until I have had a thorough experience with a product. Not taking the chance of returning it slow consumer-grade drive and Lifehacker all that hassle true …. To its full potential pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate to. Reviewer bought the item on Amazon for the enclosure drive is on sale at best buy special elements! Back in to recover the data and the system would recognize it Editor Chief! The standard best buy special WD elements of experience in publishing and has authored thousands of articles at review,. 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