I have always been a big fan of WD products, and when I started my quest for an inexpensive NAS, this seemed to be the perfect choice. I purchased this 18 months ago, so I've had some time to put this review together.
First of all I have to say that the My Cloud is incredibly slow. I transferred my music library across to it (some 60,000 music files), a process which took several days, and this was followed by 4 or 5 days of database and index building, so from it's initial set up to actually working took over a week.
I then discovered that the version of the Twonky media software that comes installed on the My Cloud does not support sorting by Album Artist, so I spent several days learning how to edit XML scripts to get the results I wanted.
The My Cloud then worked faultlessly for several months, until I decided to add a 4Tb WD My Book to it as a USB backup. The My Cloud failed to recognise the My Book. After many days of correspondence with the excellent WD user community, and the WD support desk, the problem was diagnosed as a faulty USB port, and the My Cloud was duly replaced by WD with a new (reconditioned) My Cloud. After another 5 days reloading, rebuilding and recoding, the second My Cloud started work.
For 3 or 4 months the My Cloud / My Book combination worked as expected, until we went away on holiday. I turned them both off as I didn't want them running needlessly while we were away. On our return they were both powered back on, and the My Cloud again failed to recognise the My Book. A few choice words with WD Support and the second My Cloud was also diagnosed with a faulty USB port, and was swiftly replaced with a third My Cloud.
Again, a few months of happy media streaming, and then a power cut. When the power came back on, the My Cloud spent 2 days trying to initialise itself, but couldn't, because this time the Ethernet port had failed. This of course meant that all my data on the My Cloud was inaccessible. Thank goodness for the backup on the My Book.
Just before Christmas WD Support sent me my fourth My Cloud. I immediately took it to pieces and stuck the 4Tb HDD into a shiny new Synology NAS and I haven't looked back since.
Perhaps I was just unlucky, as other users seem very happy with their My Cloud. However, judging from the very large number of 1 star reviews I would say that there are serious quality control issues which WD need to address.
Thank you for listening to my story
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| Customer Rating | (1783) | (749) | (562) | (966) | (2363) | (678) |
| Price | Unavailable | £93.57 | £319.62 | £222.73 | £309.98 | £243.03 |
| Shipping | — | FREE Delivery . Delivery Details | FREE Delivery . Delivery Details | FREE Delivery . Delivery Details | FREE Delivery . Delivery Details | FREE Delivery . Delivery Details |
| Sold By | — | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.co.uk |
| Colour | White | — | Black | White | — | Enclosure |
| Connectivity Technology | Ethernet LAN^USB port | USB, ISCSI | Wake-on-LAN ready^Ethernet LAN^USB port | — | Ethernet, USB | — |
| Data Transfer Rate | 5000 Mb per second | 0 Gb per second | 0 MB per second | 625 Gb per second | 1 Gb per second | 112 Mb per second |
| Hard Disk Size | 4000 GB | 0 | 8000 GB | — | 0 | — |
| Item Dimensions | 17.1 x 14 x 4.9 cm | 22.4 x 7.1 x 16.6 cm | 9.9 x 15.7 x 16.5 cm | 22.56 x 16.51 x 10.01 cm | 23.2 x 10.8 x 16.5 cm | 23.3 x 10.8 x 16.5 cm |
| Model Year | 2013 | — | 2016 | 2017 | — | 2018 |
| Size | 4 TB | Enclosure | 8TB | 2-bay; 512MB DDR3 | Enclosure | Enclosure |
| Special Features | Cable lock slot^External power adapter^LED indicators^Operating temperature range:5 - 35 °C^RAID support^cooling:Passive | — | Cable lock slot, DHCP client, DLNA certified, External power adapter, Jumbo frames support, LED indicators, Link aggregation, Operating temperature range:5 - 35 °C, RAID support, Security algorithms:256-bit AES, iSCSI support | — | — | — |
| Style | 1-Bay | Enclosure | — | DS218j | Enclosure | Enclosure |
From the manufacturer
Compatible with PC and Mac computers
Works well with all the PC and Mac computers in your home, right out of the box.
Keep it at home. Access it anywhere.
Cloud is a private, personal storage unit that plugs into your home network. It automatically backs up and centralises all your content in one safe place that only you control. And because it’s online, you, friends and family can quickly access and share whatever you want with any device, anywhere you have an Internet connection.
- Centralised, whole-home storage.
- Mobile and remote web access.
- Photo and video backup for smartphones and tablets.
- Sync software to keep content up-to-date across all your computers.
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Store it all in one placeCentralise all your photos, videos, music and files in one secure place, at home and under your control. |
Access it from anywhereIf you have an Internet connection, your photos, videos and files are just a click away. Sign in to MyCloud or use the My Cloud app on your phone or tablet to connect directly to your personal cloud. |
Sync your favourite contentWD Sync automatically synchronises content across all your computers and your My Cloud unit, so your important files are always up to date and accessible from all your devices. |
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Backup for all your computersAutomatically back up all the PC and Mac computers in your home to your My Cloud device. |
Photo and video backup for smartphones and tabletsAutomatically back up all the photos and videos captured so you can easily free up space and never miss a shot. |
Collect and share photos in onesimple placeCreate one simple place for you, friends and family to collect and share memorable photos so nobody misses a thing. |
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| My Cloud | My Cloud Mirror | |
| Personal Cloud Storage | 2-bay Personal Cloud Storage | |
| Fit for | Storing everything in one secure place and accessing it anywhere | Keeping all your stored content twice as safe and accessible anywhere |
| Capacity | 2 TB – 8 TB | 4 TB – 12 TB |
| WD Sync – file synchronisation app | ✓ | ✓ |
| My Cloud mobile and web access | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mirror Mode (RAID 1) for two copies of all your content | ✓ | |
| PC/Mac ready (no formatting required) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Automatic backup for PCs with WD SmartWare Pro | ✓ | ✓ |
| USB 3.0 expansion port | 1x | 2x |
Customer Questions & Answers
Customer reviews
Top reviews from United Kingdom
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 January 2017
Verified Purchase
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 September 2016
I've not given the product 5 stars because there is no Linux support (in spite of this being a Linux product!) and I had to spend a few hours working things out for myself and the designers have removed the button to shut down the unit meaning you either have to leave it on permanently, power it off while running - hoping nothing important was being written at the time or write you own script to shut it down. Crazy!
Capacity: 2 TBStyle Name: 1-BayVerified Purchase
Neat, Quiet and Quick
By Streagan on 21 September 2016
This is a neat little network available storage unit. Very quiet (even next to our solid state, fanless mini PCs!) and neat looking. I include a picture as a reference re the size. We have one set up on our home network with each PC mounting shares on the server. We have a shared area for movies, music, photos and shared docs and a private space for each of us. We are only using Linux Mint 8 OS on our i7 mini PC's at home and it works well. The NAS is a server running one of the Debian Linux OSs. It allows for NFS network access and ssh remote shell. I've put together a blog with a step-by-step guide for setting up a home network using this product with the cheaper Western Digital Elements USB drive (also available on Amazon) as a mirror drive automatically recognised and powered by the My Cloud NAS when you plug it into the NAS USB socket. The guide's at: [...]By Streagan on 21 September 2016
I've not given the product 5 stars because there is no Linux support (in spite of this being a Linux product!) and I had to spend a few hours working things out for myself and the designers have removed the button to shut down the unit meaning you either have to leave it on permanently, power it off while running - hoping nothing important was being written at the time or write you own script to shut it down. Crazy!
Images in this review
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 November 2017
Verified Purchase