Western Digital spreads some sunshine in a cloudy world
Many people have an issue with ‘the Cloud’, or rather their lack of control over personal information stored out on the Internet. Given the poor attitude that both security services and commercial companies have to privacy these days, that’s probably not being paranoid.
The alternative, partly, is to have your own Cloud service, where you can centralise your files on an Internet accessible device that is located in your own home. That’s precisely the thinking behind Western Digital’s My Cloud range, and the entry level My Cloud 2TB is the first rung on this ladder.
This a single un-removable drive encased in a white plastic shell, styled to look like a bound book. The review device was a 2TB capacity model, though you can also get them with 3TB, 4TB and 6TB drives installed. Starting at just under £100, the best value is probably the 3TB model, looking at the small cost difference from the 2TB.
Getting the My Cloud working is just a matter of plugging it into your router using the provided Ethernet cable and connecting the small power block.
There is no power button, so the My Cloud boots immediately, and shortly afterwards you can see it on your network and access it via a web interface. The MY Cloud OS will be familiar to anyone who has used any of Western Digital’s NAS solutions in the past couple of years. It’s a very clean design that boils down the information to just the barest essentials; users, shares and controlled Cloud access.
Inherently the system is a DLNA 1.5 and UPnP server, and it’s also an iTunes and Time Machine service. What really blew me away, however, was the speed of file transfers; it hit 111.9MB/s reading and (a less exciting) 46.3MB/s writing. Through repeated tests I achieved slightly better writes, but the read speed was consistently great.
For remote access and wi-fi the speed is more than adequate, and there are a selection of iOS and Android apps to enable you to both remotely read and write data. There is also a selection of free software apps for Windows, though you could use any network aware tools to achieve the same results.
Of the branded utilities, probably the most useful is WD Sync, as you can use it to replicate specific folders from the PC to the My Cloud, and conversely to other computers. This tool works surprisingly well, and even allows for versions of updated files to be retained.
Once you’ve used up the available capacity there isn’t any way to upgrade the internal drive, but there is a USB 3.0 external port on which you could hang a My Passport drive potentially.
One oddity with this port is contrary to almost every NAS box solution out there, it can’t be used to share a printer. That choice seems in line with the general push to simplification, and there aren’t any box installable apps either.
If you want an affordable personal cloud product then the My Cloud is a strong candidate, though you might want something more flexible down the road. Mark Pickavance
A nifty NAS box and personal Cloud in one.