Robin, I have not seen any sort of hardware encryption on this drive or my previous 120GB version of the same drive. I even took the entire 120GB drive apart to "see" what made it tick and nothing. It was nothing more than a SATA laptop drive with a very basic SATA to USB 2.0 converter board. I have never used their provided software nor have I run it since it is Windows based, so this software may magically turn the switch to the on position of this converter board and provide hardware level encryption but I doubt it.
As far as price I got lucky in that I hit a sale on newegg.com for the 400GB one for something like $69 USD with free shipping. This issue with Linux support did concern me and was the main factor for me going to Truecrypt since it is cross platform. - Robert (arch3angel) On 12/31/2009 5:25 AM, Robin Wood wrote: > 2009/12/30 Robert Miller<[email protected]>: > >> I went with the basic WD Passport Essential USB 2.0 Part Number >> WD4000ME-00 and just used Truecrypt, protected the entire space as a >> single partition with a really long passphrase. >> >> I did this so I could use it under Windows and Linux because I found >> little information on the topic when i researched it. >> >> Hope this helps, >> > That means you are ignoring the hardware encryption, if I were going > to do that I'd save the £10 difference and go for the Elements drive. > > The lack of linux support tallies with all the other research I've done. > > Robin > > >> - Robert >> (arch3angel) >> >> On 12/29/2009 11:33 AM, Robin Wood wrote: >> >>> I'm looking at getting a WD portable harddrive and my choice is >>> between the Essential and the Elements. The Essential has hardware >>> encryption but I can only find reference to it working under Windows >>> and Mac. Does anyone have one and know anything about its Linux >>> compatibility or lack thereof? >>> >>> Robin >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Pauldotcom mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://mail.pauldotcom.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pauldotcom >>> Main Web Site: http://pauldotcom.com >>> >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Pauldotcom mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://mail.pauldotcom.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pauldotcom >> Main Web Site: http://pauldotcom.com >> >> > _______________________________________________ > Pauldotcom mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.pauldotcom.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pauldotcom > Main Web Site: http://pauldotcom.com > > _______________________________________________ Pauldotcom mailing list [email protected] http://mail.pauldotcom.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pauldotcom Main Web Site: http://pauldotcom.com
