Difference between WD external HD Elements and My Book

[boneycat]

Been trying to do a comparison and find articles about the difference between these two external hds and can't seem to understand why the My Book is usually $20-30 more than the Elements version. The only thing I see that's different is that the My Book needs a power supply while the Elements gets its power through the USB connection. Any thoughts would be great. I'd use it purely for back-up purposes and not to carry around.

 

[drescherjm]

From my experience with both Elements are mostly 2.5 inch drives while my book is a 3.5 inch drive.

Edit:

On newegg there are 2 3.5 inch elements drives with power supplies but these are USB2 only.

 

[unholythree]

My Book Essentials has an annoying hardware encryption feature built in that would make me avoid it.

The PCB built into the drive's enclosure automatically encrypts everything wriiten with a unique key making it a huge problem if you ever need to pull out the drive and access it directly.

See: https://www.google.com/search?q=decrypt+my+book+essential&aq=0&oq=decrypt+my+b&aqs=chrome.1.57j0l3.6627&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8​

This is a big design defect IMO.

I was given a damaged My Book Essentials for data recovery and without fixing the PCB, and only that specific PCB, all the data on the drive was locked away and inaccessible.
If that PCB is messed up (even if the drive is good) you might be sending the drive back to WD for super expensive recovery.

 

[boneycat]

So basically I want to stay away from the Elements and stick with the My Book?

 

[Jinto]

You want to stay away from the MyBooks unless you must have hardware encryption.