WD My Book 6TB - Shucking Report

R

rudiv

Disciple
I shucked a Western Digital My Book 6TB model. If you're wondering what that means shucking is what some people call taking the hard drive out of an external hard drive to use internally.
The drive was a WD60EDAZ. From what I've found on the net - this post may be useful for other people: The HDD Platter Capacity Database: Western Digital - 3.5" (RE/Gold/Se/Black/Red/"Internal Use") (rml527.blogspot.com), the 6TB EDAZ is an SMR drive. The link suggests that TRIM support is a reliable indicator of an SMR drive - I find this believable, and can confirm that the drive shows TRIM support. From what I know, most WD external drives <8TB are SMR drives.
You can find a phot of the shucked drive attached.

As for shucking it, I figured it out based on what my friend told me, but I'm happy to explain what I did if anyone wants.
 

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nRiTeCh said:
Cool! but has it by any means voided the warranty of the actual external drive?
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If I needed to send it back for warranty service, it's quite easy to put it back inside the WD casing. The shucking process for this model is completely non-destructive.
Of course, external drives usually have a smaller warranty than a good internal drive.
 
rudiv said:
I shucked a Western Digital My Book 6TB model
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I'm running a WD 10TB shucked drive in my PC right now. It;s a rebadged WD Red drive with a white label and is helium filled.

Did you have to blank the 3.3V pins for the drive to be detected? I had to.
 
PradUp said:
Yeah pretty sure the warranty is voided.

I also bought couple of 8tb ones for shucking purpose since its cheaper than buying external 8tb drives.
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Well the onus is on the manufacturer to prove that you opened it. If you do it carefully without breaking anything, it would be undetectable if you opened it. These WD drives are pretty easy to open and fix it back altogether.
SunnyBoi said:
I'm running a WD 10TB shucked drive in my PC right now. It;s a rebadged WD Red drive with a white label and is helium filled.

Did you have to blank the 3.3V pins for the drive to be detected? I had to.
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I had to use the tape mod for mine to blank the pin.
 
SunnyBoi said:
I'm running a WD 10TB shucked drive in my PC right now. It;s a rebadged WD Red drive with a white label and is helium filled.

Did you have to blank the 3.3V pins for the drive to be detected? I had to.
Click to expand...
I didn't have to blank the 3.3v pins for my drive.
 
ibose said:
Well the onus is on the manufacturer to prove that you opened it. If you do it carefully without breaking anything, it would be undetectable if you opened it. These WD drives are pretty easy to open and fix it back altogether.

I had to use the tape mod for mine to blank the pin.
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Yup, I would assume the same regarding warranty. It's only a 2-year warranty though, so not much value to that. Only really useful for the edge cases of early failure.
 
never knew this was a thing. they are all the same sata drives. external ones just have a sata to usb adapter.
 
ibose said:
Well the onus is on the manufacturer to prove that you opened it. If you do it carefully without breaking anything, it would be undetectable if you opened it. These WD drives are pretty easy to open and fix it back altogether.

I had to use the tape mod for mine to blank the pin.
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Same here I too had done the same tape mod.
I'm using 10TB shucked from a WD Elements (US import) the drive inside was WD100EMAZ (helium filled), working fine since more than 18 months.
Generally these 5200rpm drives are less prone to failure when compared with 7200 drives.
@rudiv what's your drive capacity and model ? I can see you didn't required that 3.3v mod.
 
Nitendra Singh said:
Same here I too had done the same tape mod.
I'm using 10TB shucked from a WD Elements (US import) the drive inside was WD100EMAZ (helium filled), working fine since more than 18 months.
Generally these 5200rpm drives are less prone to failure when compared with 7200 drives.
@rudiv what's your drive capacity and model ? I can see you didn't required that 3.3v mod.
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6TB WD60EDAZ, SMR drive. It's in the OP.
 
No tape mods. 4x8TB shucked WD Reds running for 3 years now in my NAS. One of them recently developed a few bad sectors. I'll find out what WD thinks of my shucking :)
 
Does anyone know how destructive or non-destructive is shucking a Seagate 16TB external? and what's the chances if any on getting a replacement under warranty if some issue happens?

I am tempted to shuck couple of 16TB Seagate Expansion drives as the internal drive is Exos (which is nice) and difference between Internal (approx 42k) and External (approx 25k) is huge for same internal drive. Internal Exos comes with 5 yr warranty while Externals comes with 3 yr warranty.
 
vishals said:
Does anyone know how destructive or non-destructive is shucking a Seagate 16TB external? and what's the chances if any on getting a replacement under warranty if some issue happens?

I am tempted to shuck couple of 16TB Seagate Expansion drives as the internal drive is Exos (which is nice) and difference between Internal (approx 42k) and External (approx 25k) is huge for same internal drive. Internal Exos comes with 5 yr warranty while Externals comes with 3 yr warranty.
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Did you explore this further? I'm also looking for a 12/16 TB internal drive for storage needs.

BTW, on one of the Amazon US reviews for the Exos drives, some guy had mentioned that Exos are not suited for home use. Because they are meant to me 'always on' and generate more heat (which would be managed in a server environment, but may cause problems in a home PC setup. Any idea about this?
 
letmein said:
BTW, on one of the Amazon US reviews for the Exos drives, some guy had mentioned that Exos are not suited for home use. Because they are meant to me 'always on' and generate more heat (which would be managed in a server environment, but may cause problems in a home PC setup. Any idea about this?
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we use exos drives in our product. 18tb ones. they are enterprise grade(expensive) but i don’t think they have heating issues.
They are “designed” to be always on and not “meant to be”. i mean we abuse them with vdbench constantly. we use algorithms to monitor heat and smart errors etc...

i would say if you can spend the money it is always good idea to buy enterprise drives as they have higher mtbf.
 
booo said:
we use exos drives in our product. 18tb ones. they are enterprise grade(expensive) but i don’t think they have heating issues.
They are “designed” to be always on and not “meant to be”. i mean we abuse them with vdbench constantly. we use algorithms to monitor heat and smart errors etc...

i would say if you can spend the money it is always good idea to buy enterprise drives as they have higher mtbf.
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How is the value proposition in terms of shucking the devices and loosing the warranty compared to the cost you save from buying the internal drive outright. Has HDD technology improved to a point where it will not just die out of the blue one fine morning? I still remember that infamous period where Seagate drives were dying left right and center. Has it improved to the point that I can shuck these drive and live with the non warranty?
 
I am looking for a new PSU, so just curious any specific thing or specs version etc. to look for - to avoid this 3.3V masking mod / using molex to sata ?
 
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