WD My Cloud Home Duo review: super simple network storage
Table of Content
The EX2 shares the same Web interface as others in the My Cloud series, which is very organized and self-explanatory. That said, if you use the My Cloud EX2 with a group of computers with no need for data privacy among themselves, there's really nothing to setting up the My Cloud, other than plugging it in. Today, WD announced the latest member in its user-friendly My Cloud series, the EX2 NAS server, which turns out to be among the best of its type. Additionally, once or twice, cancelling copy procedures forced a restart of Windows Explorer, after which the My Cloud Home Duo was no longer available.
Customers might easily become disoriented in the face of so many choices. There are too many options, including low-quality knockoffs, on the market today. The drives themselves are WD Red models, which are pretty much the standard for NAS drives. They include a few extra firmware technologies over and above a basic drive, which allow for better power management, RAID management and streaming media delivery.
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Some brands are known for manufacturing much better quality products. As I’m sure you’re aware, brands like WD are really well respected for making great External hard drives. That means file transfers to and from your devices are handled over Wi-Fi, but it also means you can get at your data at any time from anywhere. You don't have to leave a particular desktop or laptop computer on for your files and folders to be accessible. We tested the 8TB, two-drive My Cloud Home Duo, which sports a single gigabit ethernet port and two Type-A USB 3.0 ports on the back. (There’s also a single-drive unit with only a single USB port.) Directly above those ports is a thin power button, and below is a reset button and the AC port.
Unfortunately, unlike the Seagate Media app, which can organize digital content into categories , the My Cloud App only supports browsing by folders and subfolders. This is fine for videos but for music and photos, it's such a pain, especially when there's no built-in search functionality. On top of that, while you can easily dig deeper into subfolders, there's no "back button" way to go back to the previous level of folder browsing, making it quite awkward for viewing content. On the front the device has one blue LED status light that stays solid when it's powered up and flashing when there is data activity. On the back are a Gigabit Ethernet port, a USB 3.0 port, and the power connection port. The My Cloud comes with a small power adapter, a network cable, and a Quick Setup guide.
Other options for External hard drives
In addition to all the other shortcomings mentioned in these reviews, I will add that you also cannot attach an external drive to one of the USB ports and expect to browse and manage those files. We also thought it would be useful for you to know how much the price of External hard drives can vary. Of the 27 products we found, the lowest cost that we found was £39.99 and the highest price we saw was £499.99. There is also a lot of benefit in checking out the brand of the External hard drives.
Links are presented on screen for downloading the required setup software. As should be the case with NASes targeted to home users, My Cloud is very simple to set up. Western Digital "dumbs down" the setup so much that the guide's instructions are all pictures. There are no words printed inside it anywhere save for, "WD My Cloud and wireless device must be connected to the same network." Wireless device refers to the device you use to set the NAS up. The WD My Cloud Mirror is low-cost, two-bay NAS drive ideal for home users looking to share their files around the house and access them from anywhere in the world.
WD 6TB My Cloud Home Personal Cloud Network Attached Storage NAS WDBVXC0060HWT-NESN
If you are technically savvy with Linux you may not have an issue. This thing is no different that if you were to sign up for an off site cloud storage. Requires special software to "see" the drive, and it does not allow you to simply assign an ip address like a normal device. All that’s left now is for you to head over to Currys to check out the 25 customer reviews. Simply hit the green button at the bottom of your screen to start. We’ve given a full list of features for WD My Cloud Home NAS Drive above.
As the names suggest, the Public folder is for storing public data, and the other two are for backups of Windows and Mac machines, respectively. You actually set up access to the cloud service when you first set up My Cloud. You are asked for an email address to which an activation link is sent.
You can do more than one of these tasks at the same time, making it an excellent backup server for those who love taking photos and video with their phones. The My Cloud range is a line of external 2TB, 3TB and 4TB hard drives determined to pick a fight with both traditional NAS and Cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive. They support traditional NAS features via a browser-based dashboard and DLNA support, while apps let you access your drive remotely via PCs, smartphones and tablets just like popular cloud services.
The most interesting tab is Cloud Access, which allows you to sign up for a WDMyCloud.com online account for each user account of the NAS server, and to create an access code for the mobile device app. When I tried it, the Setup software quickly found the My Cloud and asked me to create the first user account. This account will have admin privileges and you can use it to log in to create more accounts. Once each account is created there will be a new private share folder named after the account holder.
It ditches more advanced features to concentrate on core functionality like support for DLNA and iTunes servers, UPnP, and FTP plus multi-user support to set folder access and permissions. Whilst these won’t give you as much user feedback as the customer reviews, it does mean that you’re getting some expert opinions on the External hard drives. Companies like TechRadar are really well known for providing great reviews.
SUBSCRIPTION-FREE PERSONAL CLOUD – Store and back up videos, music, and photos and access them from anywhere without paying any monthly storage charges. Access, share, and sync your data easily across different operating systems and devices. Detailed performance data and recommendations are included in the review.
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