WD Elements vs. WD My Book--which to buy?

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

I can buy a 3TB Elements for Mac hard drive for $10 less that a 3TB My Book. Is there a good reason to get the My Book anyway? Thanks.

1 Like
2

The My Book comes with additional backup software. Unless you really want that, get the Elements drive.

My Book drives encrypt everything on the drive even if you don’t specify a password. This means if you take the drive out of the enclosure and connect it directly via SATA or put it in another enclosure, the data you read will be scrambled and unusable. If the USB interface circuit board fails, you would need another board of the same model to recover your data. I don’t think the Elements drives have this “feature”.

1 Like
3

what dreamlayers said is correct.

and yes the “Elements” range does not have any encryption … so you can remove it from the enclosure and place in another without losing your data.

1 Like
4

Thanks for this information. I just bought the WD Elements 3TB from Tiger.Direct for $89.99.