[Warning] WD My Book enclosure reuse trick doesn't work anymore

[Majyk Oyster]

tl;dr : If you entend to reuse a WD My Book enclosure that's less than 2 year old (approximatively), maybe don't do it.

 

 

I've looked around for the info, but couldn't find it, so I'll share.

 

I've shucked several WD My Book hard drives in the past, and found it useful to reuse a couple of the enclosures with older WD HDs or other brands.

 

The trick, because WD had the brilliant idea to put a hardware lock, is it break 2 pins on a Winbond chip.

 

So today I got 2 new 8TB My Book, and thought I'd do it again to house a 4TB HD. Not only did it now work, but the enclosure doesn't work anymore.

 

As far as I know, here's the info I got to tell the old and new versions appart :

 

Functioning enclosures after the mod were all "WDC_WD80EZAZ-11TDBA0".

They use an Asmedia controller.

 

 

The new, non reusable, enclosures are "WDC_WD80EDBZ-11B0ZA0".

They use a JMS579 controller.

 

 

[Vr2Io]

Interesting info. and note WD use Jmicron chip. May be you could try use Jmicron MPT ( mass production tool )  to flash different firmware. 

[tjb_altf4]

I've got 2 mybook and 4 element boards from recent shucks that have manufacturer dates from this year, none have that damage shown on your pictures.

All have JMS579 chips too.

[Vr2Io]

36 minutes ago, tjb_altf4 said:

none have that damage

This mod aim to disable external firmware in the flash chip.

[tjb_altf4]

3 minutes ago, Vr2Io said:

This mod aim to disable external firmware in the flash chip.

Ah I misread

[Majyk Oyster]

Not sure where to put that info, so there it is : newish (2021-) disks shucked from Western Digital My Book run hotter than older ones. Could be a matter of regular air Vs helium or something.

 

[Vr2Io]

15 hours ago, Majyk Oyster said:

Could be a matter of regular air Vs helium or something.

Yes, as Helium lighter then air, so less friction with disk platter as result less loading to the motor. Nowadays, you should only got Helium disk if equal or more then 12TB.

 

In my country, high capacity disk i.e. 18TB consumer disk ( Helium ) now cheaper then shuck disk and have 5 yrs warranty, I hope this keep going on until I upgrade again. But drawback is it run hotter due to 7200rpm.

 

May be time to say goodbye to shuck disk.

Edited August 1, 2022 by Vr2Io

[tjb_altf4]

1 hour ago, Vr2Io said:

May be time to say goodbye to shuck disk.

Here in Australia, 18TB retail internal HDD is about AUD$1K
Buying an external HDD off Amazon AU costs around AUD$500

I won't be saying goodbye to shucks anytime soon 

[Vr2Io]

1 hour ago, tjb_altf4 said:

I won't be saying goodbye to shucks anytime soon 

 

My local dealer offer 18TB disk, Toshiba MG09 ( MAMR tech ) ~AUD 438 and WDC HC550 ( TDMR tech ) ~AUD 381.

 

I am thinking buying four WDC or not due to quite cheap

Edited August 1, 2022 by Vr2Io

[Majyk Oyster]

When I started replacing my old 3-6TB regular disks with 8 TB NAS ones, shucking was way cheaper. I paid 160€ for my first My Book in early 2020 on westerndigital.com. They're 50% more expensive today.

In the meantime it seams like the price difference between a WD My Book and a WD Red decreased a lot, not it's around 10%.

 

I bought my last 3 or 4 8TB drives used, for around 100€. Good thing is all of them except one were very lightly used (less then 100 hours). I'm pretty sure it's almost impossible to find used Reds that fresh. Not sure about the future of shucking, we'll see in a couple years when I need to hoard more data.