In the past I have always used TrueCrypt to secure my backup on an external HDD. This time I bought a 1 TB Western Digital drive called "My Passport Essential USB HDD" that has "hardware encryption". It uses their WDSmartWare program to set a password. Thereafter, when the drive is plugged into the USB port, it is recognized as a CD in order to run their Unlock.exe program to gain access.

I was thinking that this eliminates the need for TrueCrypt. However, scanning some messages on this forum seems to indicate that people in the know might be able to defeat the encryption built into to drive.

So, my question is, do we trust that a drive protected with the Western Digital encryption will remain secure unless someone can guess my password?

Thanks,

Dave

I would place my trust in TrueCrypt rather than "hardware encryption". TrueCrypt is open source, so you can be certain that there are no backdoors. If Western Digital were to publish the details of their encryption and password strategy, then perhaps we could decide if it could be relied upon. Until then, one would have to assume that it is not secure.

That said, I believe that the only known methods are brute force or dictionary based attacks. These can only succeed if the password is weak.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

I've studied the WD hardware encryption scheme and think it is very robust.

There are some password-related problems that can be resolved. However, I don't believe that anyone on this forum has cracked the PW if it is unknown or lost.

Basic info on the encryption process is available by looking at the patents filed by the various chip makers; it is in the public domain.

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

WD encryption is the stupid thing they ever done. it's just nightmare not encryption

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Tawfeek Mokhtar
http://alsafwapc.net
Alsafwa Data Recovery Egypt

I wouldn't trust WD HW encryption.
At least because you could easily lose your own datA.

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Angel Data Recovery

100% Agree with last 2 posts here

why should i use it? useless

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Kuwait Data Recovery - UNIX GTC
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. By: Albert Einstein