5 TB MyPassport - drive only?

Hi. I’m looking for a 5TB or 6TB 2.5" drive. The only one I can find for sale anywhere is the Seagate ST5000LM000. But I see a 5-TB MyPassport WDBPKJ0050BBK for sale for significantly less than the price of the Seagate drive (the bare drive).
My questions:

  • Can I buy a 5TB bare 2.5" drive from WD? What drive is used in the MyPassport?
  • Is it possible to remove the drive from the MyPassport and reformat and use it as a bare drive? I don’t care about the warranty. What I need to know is if the connectors are standard SATA.

A big thanks in advance.
Les

if you mean “Shucking” it … ie. removing it to use in a Laptop / Desktop Computer / NAS Bay / 3rd Party Enclosure

then … No.

WD 2.5" Portable USB drives (Passports, Passport Ultras, Elements etc) do Not have a standard SATA Interface … they use a USB Interface only.

IMG-20120930-002502

Only 2 options …

  1. wait until WD start selling 5TB 2.5 Internal Drives (or “bare” as you described it)

But, don’t be shocked or surprised if the cost is the same as the Seagate 5TB … or more

  1. or buy the Seagate … i personally don’t like Seagate drives, but … it’s your money

Thanks! In fact the drive will be connected to a Wandboard (running Arch Linux), which has USB and SATA ports. Currently a 3.5" HDD is attached to the SATA port to serve as as storage. What I want to do is replace it with a 2.5" drive to save power.

As you may have gathered, I want to avoid the proprietary stuff on the Passport and just reformat the drive. Can I do that if I just connect the Passport to the USB port as intended? The silver connector in the picture doesn’t look at all familiar…

TIA

You can reformat the the Passport without any issues … but you won’t be able to delete the VCD Partition (which is used by the “proprietary stuff” WD Smartware).

I believe you can ‘hide’ this partition … but you can’t actually ‘delete’ it.

Forum topic here

WD Elements Portables i believe do not have a VCD Partition as these drives feature No Encryption or Password Support.

I have a few WD Elements Portables (2TB, 4TB) and they don’t contain this VCD partition and i’m able to format/parition the drive to the fullest capacity it allows.

Hi. I’m about to commit to buying Seagate but the Elements drives look interesting. However, I can’t seem to find out whether the 5 Tb Elements uses a 2.5" drive or not. None of the specs on the WD sites says so, though given the size I assume it’s a 3.5" drive. Can you help?

WD Elements Portables are 2.5"

listed as 2.5" on this site as well

WD Elements Desktops are 3.5"

https://shop.westerndigital.com/products/external-drives/wd-elements-desktop-usb-3-0-hdd#WDBWLG0060HBK-NESN

P.S. If you’re planning to use a 5TB 2.5" hard drive as a “Boot Drive” you better make sure your Laptop/Desktop PC supports UEFI otherwise using the old BIOS standard, you’ll only be able to use 2TB of the 5TB drive.

Thanks. No, it’s just a storage drive, replacing a NAS that ran four 3.5" drives plus cooling with one 2.5" running off the USB port.
I went with the Seagate because I couldn’t find a reputable dealer for the WD Elements Portable here in France (I don’t consider Amazon reputable) that had it available, including the French WD Shop. If I decide to buy a second drive I’ll go with the WD.
Thanks for your help!
Les