Review on 💻 Black WD My Book 4TB Desktop External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBFJK0040HBK-NESN by Jeff Addison

the 6TB hard drive that Revain sells is a $223 Caviar Green model. How/why could this external drive with enclosure, USB 3.0 interface, power adapter (12V @ 1.5A) and USB 3.0 cable be sold for $40 less than a mere hard drive? Are those extra mounting hardware worth minus $40? That makes you think that if anyone, anywhere, sold a 6TB drive in this thing as a "bare drive," it must have sold for around $150. Do not you think? I took a chance and ordered it on Saturday evening. This afternoon, Tuesday, 3 days after ordering, it arrived at my doorstep with a "Revain Prime" sticker. I was pleasantly surprised as I am not a Revain Prime customer. But hey, I'll take it. The first thing I did was connect the drive to my Mac using one of my micro USB 2.0 cables since my Mac doesn't have a USB 3.0 port. I also have to say that I have a very old Mac OS (10.6.8) as I am suspicious of later versions of Mac OS. The hard drive light blinked a few times and after a few seconds the drive installed. I ran Disk Utility to verify the drive and, unsurprisingly, it shows up as Mac's interpretation of FAT32. Since I don't care about formatting the PC or the bundled Acronis True Image utility, I erased the drive and formatted it as a Mac OS drive with enhanced journaling (standard Mac format). The hard drive spun for about 30 seconds and immediately the hard drive was reformatted and installed on my desktop. I knew then that the drive was alive and well. I had no intention of returning it due to any imperfections so it's time to take it apart which means it's mine now! I searched the internet for information on how to disassemble the My Book hard drive and found many videos. . Everyone pointed out that there are latches, not screws to loosen, and loosening them means the latches will break. That means if you disassemble the case, don't expect to be able to return it! It turns out that there are 2 latches at the back on each side. The position of the latches is not symmetrical as they are offset from each other. However, prying with a couple of small screwdrivers broke the four latches, allowing the two halves to disengage and separate. Separating the two halves is easy. There is a small USB 3.0 daughter card that plugs into a standard ATA drive interface and is secured with a single, easily removed screw. There are four rubber bumpers that require a Torx T-10 screwdriver to remove (or you may be able to use a thin-bladed screwdriver). And besides, you have a hacked hard drive. And what did I find? Heck, there's a Western Digital Caviar Green drive, model WD60EZRX, 64MB cache. The label on this disc is exactly the same as what you will find if you purchase this Revain bare disc for . $40 MORE! There is no difference between the drive in my hands and the 6TB WD60EZRX Caviar Green shown on the Revain site. I've thought long and hard about buying multiple 6TB drives, but the price of a bare drive put me off. If you're willing to rip open the case on that external drive and throw away everything but the drive, you could save $40 per drive compared to the cost of an empty drive. Find out! I found my bare 6TB hard drive at a discount. I'm ordering my order for a few more tonight! UPDATE 1: Bought additional units and all are Caviar Green. And the deal is often $52 cheaper than buying a raw disc! (223 - 171 = $52). I've also found that when disassembling My Drive, it's worth keeping the USB3.0 to SATA interface card and power adapter to access a blank drive. These two make a great simple adapter to interface between any SATA drive and your computer! I'm still confused as to why a bare drive is so much more expensive than My Drive which is loaded with so much more stuff around it than a bare drive. UPDATE 2: Bought more rims and now they are all Caviar Blue rims. ! As a result, there is no consensus as to what type of drive WD installs in their cases. However, there were no perceptible changes in performance, noise, or performance.