Opening WD My Book 4TB

[yagopico]

Hi there,
I'm trying to find a guide online to open my WD My Book 4 TB external drive. I can't seem to find one for my exact model as all the ones available are for somewhat different drives. Mine is the USB 3.0 2014 model.
I was planning to use my drive on a NAS, and also I'm wondering if this drive can be removed from the case.

Thanks for your help!

Yago

 

[getochkn]

A lot of external drives now build the USB interface right onto the drive, so there is no sata interface to use it as an external drive. Think it's hit and miss on what model though.

 

[JPNpower]

I think it should be fine. I'd contact WD directly though. Be warned, it does void the warranty. However, I think, not sure, that it uses a Green drive inside, which is not very good for NAS purposes.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the community, Yago!

I wouldn't recommend you to open the WD My Book external drive. Unfortunately, tempering with the enclosure would not only void the warranty of your external drive, but it will also make the data stored on the HDD unaccessible. The WD My Book series incorporate a hardware encryption making the data unavailable for access from any other enclosure that is not identical to the WD My Book.
I'd recommend you to take a look at WD's warranty policy here worldwide: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=G8KhbX
Another thing that might be an issue as well is the fact that the 4TB models are configured with 4KB LBAs, using the HDD in an internal environment (via SATA) or in an enclosure that is not configured with the same sector size would again cause the drive to be unresponsive.

TL;DR: I think it's best to get a different NAS-specific drive like the WD Red for example, instead of voiding the warranty on your external WD My Book.

Let me know if you have any questions! Hope I wasn't too late with the response!
SuperSoph_WD