It’s all very interesting but I don’t see enough of a benefit to void the warranty like that. Just disable the Virtual drive through the software after labeling the drive and uninstall the Smartware. Install the SES driver if you are getting a popup window and don’t like the error in Device Manager. Now it will work fine as an ordinary USB drive. If you want to add password protection you can always reenable that function .
Because your method voids the warranty and can’t be reversed it seems unnecessary. The amount of saved space in your procedure is minimal anyway.
This thread will probably be removed. 
