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4TB WD Easystore External USB 3.0 Hard Drive Expired

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$199.99
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Update: This very popular offer is still available

Best Buy.com has 4TB WD Easystore External USB 3.0 Hard Drive (WDBCKA0040HBK-NESN) for $89.99. Shipping is free or select free store pickup where available. Thanks slickdewmaster

Note, availability for in-store pickup may vary depending on location.

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Edited April 13, 2017 at 08:34 AM by
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4TB WD Easystore External USB 3.0 Hard Drive [bestbuy.com] (WDBCKA0040HBK-NESN) $89.99
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Community Wiki

Last Edited by burner1515 April 21, 2017 at 07:07 AM
This drive does not use a proprietary connection and can be shucked for the bare drive fine. It will fit in your PC as a normal 3.5 inch SATA WD40EFRX (WD Red) Bare Drive drive would.

This drive does not have encryption on the pcb board itself.

Please see post

https://slickdeals.net/f/10049636-4tb-wd-easystore-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black-89-99-free-shipping?p=99111560#post99111560

and

https://slickdeals.net/f/10049636-4tb-wd-easystore-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black-89-99-free-shipping?p=99123296#post99123296

There are a few others, feel free to edit and add here.


If you shuck you lose the warranty. if you check the sn on the external enclosure, it is the same as the internal hard drive. When you register that SN it coems up as 'WD easystore Desktop' on their site. If you ever have to send it in for warranty service you have to put it back in the enclosure. They will know you opened the enclosure and will void the warranty.


IF for some reason WD's site said it was a bare nas drive, they would still not honor the warranty because your receipt shows you bought a external hard drive. You need a receipt for the bare drive. Really silly I need to explain this IF situation.



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372 Comments

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At $22.5 per terabyte this is pretty decent.
LOL, are you suggesting Western Digital would use Seagate drives inside their external drives? I guess that would be physically possible, but would make no financial sense; why buy a competitors drive and incur the overhead costs of their manufacturing process???

Anyway, you have any proof of this? I'd really like to know. Or perhaps I just got lured in by troll bait... shake head
So I went to the store because I have some in-store only coupons. However, the coupon won't work because their internal store price is higher ($109) and had to do a price adjustment. No luck on that.

Upon plugging it in, Hard Disk Sentinel reports that the model ID is WD40EFRX-68N32N0. Google searches indicate that it's a Red drive. YMMV.

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Joined Apr 2011
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> bubble2 2,098 Posts
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Chingu808
04-20-2017 at 11:07 PM.
04-20-2017 at 11:07 PM.
The 4tb HD is not on sale any more for $89.99. The price has gone back up to $109.99.
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Joined Jun 2008
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ericeod
04-20-2017 at 11:16 PM.
04-20-2017 at 11:16 PM.
I just checked the SN on the HDD with WD's online warranty checker, and the SN is tied to the WD Easystore Desktop enclosure. So once you pull it, you would have to reinstall it into the enclosure (good luck convincing them you did not void the warranty!) and send it back. I attached a screenshot.

I'm sure we all assumed this, but wanted to share.
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Joined Jun 2008
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> bubble2 35 Posts
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ericeod
04-20-2017 at 11:17 PM.
04-20-2017 at 11:17 PM.
Quote from Chingu808 :
The 4tb HD is not on sale any more for $89.99. The price has gone back up to $109.99.
I was going to buy a second one tomorrow. Oh well, at least I got one.
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Joined Mar 2010
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> bubble2 400 Posts
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mektarus
04-20-2017 at 11:33 PM.
04-20-2017 at 11:33 PM.
Quote from ericeod :
See attached pictures of my actual hard drive outside the enclosure. I used a small flat tip screwdriver to pry apart the plastic housing. Half the clips broke and cannot be re-used. Note the mounting screws for the HDD are T9 star bit. The drive is a WD Red NAS Hard Drive. The drive itself has standard SATA and power connectors, and has a manufacturer's date of 28 Feb 2017.

Attachment 5442744


And like I stated in my previous post, I connected via USB (no evidence of encryption), ran Diskpart to wipe and convert the drive to GPT, then used disk management to format NTFS standard volume. It took approx 2 minutes.

Did you power on the external enclosure before removing the drive? If so, did you install any of the WD software?
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Joined Jun 2008
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ericeod
04-20-2017 at 11:45 PM.
04-20-2017 at 11:45 PM.
Quote from mektarus :
Did you power on the external enclosure before removing the drive? If so, did you install any of the WD software?
I powered it on, connected it to USB, then used Diskpart to clean and convert to GPT. Next I NTFS formatted with Disk Management. I then copied the files from my old 1.5Tb internal HDD to the new drive. I then powered down, pulled the HDD from the enclosure, and installed the drive internally into my computer. I did not install any of the WD software.
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SlickityTrick
04-21-2017 at 12:38 AM.
04-21-2017 at 12:38 AM.
Quote from devz3ro :
These are Western Digital Reds with a normal SATA connector when taken apart. The USB "proprietary" connector the other reviewer is talking about is *NOT* this drive (he / she is referring to the 2.5 inch portable drive with the same name).

I bought a total of 5 (three from one store, and two from another - due to best buy's non-business purchase limitations) and they all turned out to be Western Digital Reds. The bare drive does show it has a 2 year warranty, but it's description is "WD easystore Desktop" with a model number of "WDBCKA0040HBK" when you do a warranty check on the WD website.

All of mine are model: WD40EFRX & have NASware 3.0, with a mfg. date of March 2nd, 2017.
Do I understand the above statement correctly? The extracted WD Red drives are under warranty for 2 years? I thought that if one opens the external case, that voids the WD 2-year warranty. Which is it? Is the bare drive covered or not? Does anyone know for sure?
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Joined Mar 2009
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dreamliner77
04-21-2017 at 02:21 AM.
04-21-2017 at 02:21 AM.
Quote from AkumaX :
The WD's traditionally have their proprietary connector. Boooo....

This thing requires its own power brick. Definitely not portable to me. If it was a 3.5" drive and was USB-powered i'd allow it.

WD's do not traditionally have proprietary connectors. There was a line of 2.5" externals that had the usb connector directly on the HDD PCB but this was a very small subset of their product line.


Show me a external drive with a 3.5" drive inside that is only USB powered.
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mektarus
04-21-2017 at 04:08 AM.
04-21-2017 at 04:08 AM.
Quote from ericeod :
I powered it on, connected it to USB, then used Diskpart to clean and convert to GPT. Next I NTFS formatted with Disk Management. I then copied the files from my old 1.5Tb internal HDD to the new drive. I then powered down, pulled the HDD from the enclosure, and installed the drive internally into my computer. I did not install any of the WD software.

Excellent to hear. Thanks!
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burner1515
04-21-2017 at 06:29 AM.
04-21-2017 at 06:29 AM.
Quote from teaberry :
Is the safe fire AND water proof? Lots of ppl overlook that part about safes.
Yes did I must have missed it in a rant revision lol.
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burner1515
04-21-2017 at 06:32 AM.
04-21-2017 at 06:32 AM.
Quote from piggychops :
I dont know if its a version of the external I received but my external had the self encryption enabled. I posted this experience earlier. Unless for some reason there was a glitch somewhere, the simple fact is that a non-encrypting WD drive should have all partitions readily available when mounted and connected without the PCB.

With the PCB all data on the HDD were readly available.
Stop lying, there is no documentation from WD on this and I am not going to contact the mfg for you to prove you wrong. Go get a statement from them to post here. All you are doing is making people who probably should nto be worried about encryption, worried about it. You are a troll at this point.

I trust the multiple others who shucked their drives are telling the truth that they were ALL readable outside the enclosure. Data was put on when inside the enclosure over the pcb, moved to a internal sata on their PC, and it was readable.

Go back and do your test with screen shots if you want but your not talking about this drive.

There is too much evidence this drive lacks the encryption of the my book line. Why put extra cost in what should be their bottom barrel cheapest external drive/enclosures? beyond me why they used reds. prob a very bad batch justifying them selling it so cheap.
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Last edited by burner1515 April 21, 2017 at 06:34 AM.
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burner1515
04-21-2017 at 06:41 AM.
04-21-2017 at 06:41 AM.
Quote from SlickityTrick :
Do I understand the above statement correctly? The extracted WD Red drives are under warranty for 2 years? I thought that if one opens the external case, that voids the WD 2-year warranty. Which is it? Is the bare drive covered or not? Does anyone know for sure?
The statement you read is incorrect and misleading like half the posts here.

If you shuck the drive the SN on the bare drive is the exact same as the external enclosure. if you try to make a warranty claim they are only going to warranty the external enclosure with the bare drive inside, untampered. It's obvious when you shuck these drives even if you make it look clean later.

Either way they will not honor the warranty if you shuck. Even if that said wd red nas instead of easy store external on their site, they would want a receipt for a wd red nas, not a easy store.
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burner1515
04-21-2017 at 06:44 AM.
04-21-2017 at 06:44 AM.
Quote from nwatwe :
I got one from BB today. Disassembled it right away and connected it via SATA to desktop PC. The computer detected it right away 4TB. Formatted it and we get 3.6TB usable space. I was reading thru posts all day and thought this might be useful. Also the drive is WD red and made in Mar2017
Since one guy is advocating this thing still has encryption somehow, when you inserted the drive to your pc did it demand you format before use or were you able to see the WD files they preinstall on the drive?
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burner1515
04-21-2017 at 06:51 AM.
04-21-2017 at 06:51 AM.
Quote from NewMaxx :
From the My Book manual (older model which this drive is based on): "Click Set Password to save your password and enable hardware encryption for your drive." (via the WD Security software) However, there is also a manual for an unencrypted variant, and the drive I received from BB does not come with WD Security. People are simply confusing the different models available.
The my book manual should not apply here at all even if this drive is based on that design. They changed the name for a reason. It's not a my book, this is an easy store.

I normally would be fine with clarifying things here, but EVERYONE has selective hearing in this thread. So noting this is a newer version of a my book is just going to add to confusion. I am not sure this is supposed to be a new version of that line especially with the different name.

Bottom line this is an easy store and many posts show no encryption this one is most helpful and should be TU'd

https://slickdeals.net/f/10049636-4tb-wd-easystore-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black-89-99-free-shipping?p=99111560#post99111560

One guy is going around screaming it has encryption and that they bought it, but they keep saying they are not a tech and they are copy/pasting from other websites that are not talking about this drive.
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teaberry
04-21-2017 at 06:56 AM.
04-21-2017 at 06:56 AM.
haha you're a little overboard but I do have an offline backup in the safe of my NAS as well. My friends (and wife) thinks I'm paranoid. When I was looking at safes and I notice all are fireproof for a few hours but not all were waterproof (either form firefighters needing to spray water all over or in TX, from flooding) so I had to go find one that's good for both. Smilie
Quote from burner1515 :
Yes did I must have missed it in a rant revision lol.
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nwatwe
04-21-2017 at 07:03 AM.
04-21-2017 at 07:03 AM.
Quote from burner1515 :
Since one guy is advocating this thing still has encryption somehow, when you inserted the drive to your pc did it demand you format before use or were you able to see the WD files they preinstall on the drive?
It did not have any encryption. I opened the case brand new without even powering it up.Then i connected it to SATA on my PC and I was able to see WD files. There was only 1 partition 4TB. All I did was a quick format. I am using a Windows PC.
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