omg...after watching this video, I'm REALLY kicking myself for not just getting one of these instead of the 4TB USB WD drive I bought in November. On the bright side, I can always buy one down the road and use my USB drive as a backup to the My Cloud. Great video!
I'd say it's very reasonable to tell people that they will get an invalid certificate warning. it generates a SSL cert which is self signed. these are not recognised by the browser/device but your connection is still secure. better this than not saying it an have users worried when it pops up
Thank you for this great video! I've read a lot of negative reviews on the WD My Cloud, and honestly I've been very worried about getting one and it crashing or being incredibly slow. You made it all look so easy though! I think I'm going to buy one and also attach a secondary WD My Book (4GB) to it later on down the road. Thank you again!!!
Thanks Lon! Based on this review and the one you did of the Seagate, I went ahead and bought the 4TB version of this drive. What put it over the top was the amount of control you have over shares with this drive.
Hi Lon. I'm new to streaming music having just purchased a Bose Soundtouch 30 II. At the moment to listen to my huge iTunes library I have to have the Windows Laptop booted. I use Bose's Soundtouch app on my Android smartphone and the Laptop where the iTunes library is located to browse for my music, does a NAS device allow the streaming of music to the Bose system without the need to have the laptop on? In other words, if my music collection was on the NAS, does it have the ability to stream to the Bose? Thank you.
Hello from London, just got the 4TB and instead of reading the included instructions - watched your video....GREAT, thank you for the time and effort. So far, so good....yeah, there are some questions to clear over the time. I configured my TRANSFER SPEED as was shifting large amounts of data and the the approx. write speed from my PC hard drives is 580MB per minute [calculated over hours of transfer 300GB]. Would be great if you create some videos how the device could be useful to people with specific needs...creatives, photographers, musicians, film makers
3+ years later and I find this review is still helpful. Answered all my questions before I even knew I had them. I do have a question about something different. I notice you control the camera from a tablet. How and what? How are you able to do that and what is needed? Or am I just seeing things? I've searched your channel as to a possible tutorial but no luck. Thank you ahead of time.
Lon.TV awesome thanks after some more research and googling I found your review on the Multicam app and just downloaded it. Thank you very much for the quick response.
Lon, just wanted to say great video dude. I'm an IT Support & Services Manager, but defo no network specialist or fully fledged techy...So I always appreciate a clear, (jargon free) overview/explanation. Great job mate! You have a new subscriber :)
Hello. Regarding the certificate error, I believe it is based on the fact that when you access the device locally from inside the home network, the certificate will not be used but when you use the domain externally , it will be secure. I am not 100% sure but that is how it works with the Windows Home Server live domains. The errors come internally but externally the certificate is served properly. Thanks for an another amazing review!
Thanks Lon, I bought mine on the strength of all your reviews. I do like it. It ticks all the boxes for me, but I'm still unhappy with the unreliability of the remote access side of things. It does lock up/freeze quite often. And since you can't reboot remotely, you normally have to wait till you get back home to reboot the device. Or switch off and on again the remote access switch...... But my workaround is, I plug my NAS into a smart WiFi plug.... I can then remotely switch off the power to the NAS, then switch back on again. Once it's rebooted and initialized, about 5 mins, I can access the device remotely again. Just my little 2 cents worth, towards your great reviews. Thanks.......
Hi Lon, I saw this device for the first time tonight at Best Buy. I was really interested in what it can do and I am glad I found your video. 4TB cloud device for $220 is a really good deal. Not bad at all! Thanks for the review, and it is very helpful.
You explain things so clearly and succinctly that (after your review persuaded me to buy this) I used your video instead of reading the operating manual. Thank you!
thanks Lon for the review (as well as the Seagate equivalent). based upon your reviews, I decided to go with the WD MyCloud, that is until I got to the WD website to place an order. sadly, 76 reviewers rated this a 2.7 (out of 5), which is a very low rating for any electronics/technology product. the individual reviews we pretty bad (many failures of hardware and software). only 30 out of 73 (41%) recommended buying the product, which is also very low. so, while the product seemed like a perfect fit for my needs, having that many negative reviews will keep me from buying it.
Thanks Lon, I just purchased this and have not received it yet but you have answered a lot of questions I had about this product. Thanks so much for posting.
Thank You... I purchased this because I thought it was a great product. Installation was a nightmare (and that's coming from someone familiar with tech). After contacting support and walking through it, it turned out my wireless printer shared the same IP address?? Hey I'm a software developer... I deal with hardware... but I can say troubleshooting hardware is not what I do. I was able to follow along with the Western Digital Support Tech and together we got the issue resolved... BUT IT WAS A FAIRLY EXTENSIVE FIX. I was sitting their trying to imagine my grandma trying to figure this out!! Anyway the Support Tech was very friendly and knowledgeable and considering I called on a Saturday I do have to give it to Western Digital that they have support readily available. He did have a heavy accent as he was obviously from India, but unlike some people I have no problems with that. I did have to request that he repeat words at times but together we figured it out. So we got it up and running and I was like wow... do I really want to trust something like this to back my important files up?? I was on the verge of returning this hard drive even before I started using it when I came across this video... and I have to say thank you!! I really appreciate you taking the time to introduce this product because it is extensive... but it can be great if it works. A product like this should come with video tutorials... but doesn't. I know they do have a support forum but I feel you shouldn't need to learn how to use a product through a support forum... so I really thank you for this as it has convinced me to at least give the product a try!
You can use airplay on your Mac or iOS device (provided they able to do airplay) to mirror your screen and play that on the apple TV. you can't stream content directly from your WD my cloud to your apple TV, AFAIK, but you can bounce it off of your ipad or mac and it works flawlessly. If you want to stream directly you need a DLNA capable TV or a set top box like WD Live, Roku (which takes some doing) and anything else you can rig up a DLNA connection.
I just joined to the channel and thanks for the great review. I was already convinced in getting the WD My Cloud, but your review removed any doubt that I might had. Keep up the great work.
Seems like a great product! I'm thinking of getting it. I don't know why this product was only rated 4.2/5 stars. It seems like a full 5 star product to me. Great review!
I believe the security cert error is required for SSL encryption however authenticating the My Cloud to a certificate authority might be cost prohibitive for all the My Clouds. The error just means it is a self signed cert and is not centrally authenticated. Even though the process works as it should, operating systems still flag it as problem.
Thank you so much for this review. My husband mentioned this item and I wanted to know more about it before buying it.... now off to the shop to get one !
Thanks for the informative review. This a better review than the WD vids which I found to be mostly promo. Thanks for explaining the features at a "why-do-I-need-this" level. Thanks for the speed benchmark. Mine did not initially show under the Network tab (Win7) but I am good now. I got it at a price I couldn't refuse(less than an internal 2TB drive). I expected marginal performance but your tests give me hope that this will fulfill my needs. Thanks again.
I have owned the 6tb version for 2 months now. It is fantastic!!! I have two Sony Bravia TV's connected and the only issues are 1; The Sony inbuilt media player wont play all file types, 2; The Sony inbuilt media player cannot recognise folders, so its a very busy looking directory of media files lol. Both issues are Sony fault. VERY EASY FIX!!! I bought a WD Live TV streaming device for each Sony. End result, i have a amazingly stable server (never crashed) that will play any media file to not only my two TV's but i watch mp4 files on an old iphone4 i waterproofed for in my spa. The Iphone mycloud app works well. However, i found the WD software to transfer files for the apple is garbage. No problem, i just open the server in finder and drag files over. Very quick! When using the WD transfer file software all my files got stuck on 999mb, so drag files is better. Further, i am a computer idiot and i could set it up in about an hour. In a nutshell i can download any vid file, transfer it to sever, watch in on my 60inch TV without leaving to couch. 6tb version cost me $450 Australian, and it was worth every cent. Oh, and i am loving the ability to transfer my large indesign work files about. ONE ISSUE Lon, please can you answer my earlier post about connecting a 2tb self powered drive to the WD live TV and being able to expand storage that way
Dude, nice review. Duuuuuude! I wish they would integrate a lot of this remote access functionality into their routers so that you could just hook up a USB drive and effectively have your own My Cloud drive. I guess that would eat into their My Cloud drive sales but it would help out router and external drive sales!
I seen this is an old video, but as of 12-13-2015 the online setup and software is the same. LOL Thank you for making this video and the one where you compare this unit to the Seagate, and also the one with 8 usb flash drives connected to this device. This video was very helpful and saved me the hassle of installing the unnecessary links during setup.
+Tony D As soon as I said the UI looks the same after all these years they changed it. 12-15-15 I updated the firmware and the UI looks a little different now. this video is still going to be pertinent
Thank you for this, and the follow-up reviews. I was reading user reviews on the unit and they basically put me off buying it. However, after watching (all) your videos on the WD My Cloud I went ahead and ordered one. Plugged it into the Airport router and was up and running in no time. Thanks to your videos I knew exactly what to do and how to set it up. Keep up the awesome work!
I appreciate the quick reply. Thanks again. I was just looking for a centralized storage device to store my Lightroom catalogue. I will just stick with what I have for now unless a better solution comes forward.
Thought your review was brilliant, full of all the info that people required when buying this product and I will be thanks to you. I wanted to say well done as your review is best to what I normally see online.
lon I just realize this videos are from 2013. I purchase mycloud because I like the review you gave it. I was able to installed on my PC, program to backup files and also connected to my android phone. I am not sure if after some hours or a day some thing happen and I was not able to connect from my cell phone to mycloud. I called tech support and stage 1 (I don't know how they called it) level was not able to made the connection or fix it. Stage 2 help me and after he spend 90% of the time explain me how the software or dashboard works and made some changes in my share files to public and other changes made something from start automatic to Auto. When I asked him about the problems I have he said it is your ports 80 and 443 who need to be open by your local cable internet provider. At the end I was not able to connect from phone and I played with port forwarding and didn't work. Later on i was able to make it works.
Hi Lon, Can I ask a few questions about the MyCloud? It would be really cool if you could give me your opinions. 1) Will the WD MyCloud work simultaneously as a backup device for a Mac, a Microsoft PC, and several android phones? 2) Is there some auto-backup mechanism for android (with android+mac it is a catastrophe)? 3) Also how secure is my data both on the device and also while being transferred? 4) What kind of encryption protects the transferring data? 5) What happens if I have confidential tax info or other proprietary information I don't want anyone seeing? Kind regards Jim
I purchased the MyCloud 4tb version and am reasonably happy with it. Still using it so will give my final thoughts in a month. However, I was a bit surprised that the Ethernet cable that they provided was a cat 5e cable of less than 1.5m!! While I can ignore the length on account that it is meant to connect to a router which is supposed to be right next to it (or to a computer for a direct network connection to bypass a potentially slow router), I don't understand why they couldn't provide a Cat 6 cable. It cost me only a few dollars (less than $1 in local prices), but the bother of having to get a cat6 cable could have been avoided. Thoughts?
***** You're absolutely right. But at the moment I'm trying to figure out if I'm actually more impressed with the Lima (meetlima.com). With the MyCloud I miss the option you have in DropBox where you just share a public link to any single file. Adding new users and giving them access to folders with MyCloud seems like a lot of work.
I have 3 of the clouds now adding up to 14TB of storage, one thing that frustrates me on a day to day use is when streaming mp4 and mkv files off these on windows. I use VLC and it stops randomly saying file not found. Works fine on MAC.
Hi Lon. Thanks for taking time to review. I purchased 2 TB version. I am able to see the drive when I connect by Ethernet but am unable to see it on wifi in my home network.
***** thanks for prompt response. My setup is like this...Dlink DSL-2750U ADSL2+ N300 router, Ethernet wire leading to D-Link DES-1005A 5-Port 10/100 Switch and the WD mycloud is connected to this switch by ethernet. When connecting laptop to N 300 router with ethernet, I see the cloud but when I connect with wifi I do not see.
***** wdmycloud address works in my browser on windows as well as the IP address, when I am on LAN. as soon as I go on wifi both stop working. NAS is connected to router via a switch. I do not know how a switch works and if this problem is occurring because of that. the name resolution for wdmycloud is 192.168.1.44 but works only when my pc is on LAN.
this is a great video, and it helped me a lot. so far my unit is great, and you get a big bang for your buck, but i have one thing i don't like. when i use media streaming it can't read any kind of subtitles, and that is a major set back in my country. apparently there is a way around this by installing alternative firmware(or something like that) but it requires some linux experience, and it most likely voids great warranty.
I respect your opinion and you seem to be very prolific about reviewing the latest gadgets. I listened to your review about this product - and I liked it enough to buy the product. Several months into it, I am having hard time with the software, hard to get into the drive to delete a file (especially if they are very large files) and there is no easy reset button. I appreciate the reviews but one could say they can be very misleading as the products don't seem to be as great as maybe they are portrayed.
The security certificate will always happen with a secure connection where the certificate is self-signed. Happens with a lot of appliances that generate their own web certificates, and doesn't really hurt anything, especially on a local network. It potentially makes you susceptible to man in the middle attack, but you're usually okay, especially - again - on a local network that you control.
Why does it make noise all the time, like its constantly writing files? It might be quiet for a few seconds, then It starts up again. My computer is not on, I haven't used the wd drive for 8 hours and it's still clicking away. it's quite irritating in a quiet room. None of my other drives make noise like this.
You can connect this direct to PC or Mac using the Ethernet cable, I just loaded mine that way after set up, miles quicker Transferred 2TB in around 6 hours
Thanks so much for this video Lon. Nice job, as a broadcaster I gotta say you know how to present it and I bought this product after watching this video. Will subscribe.
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1=worst, 10=best), how secure do you think it is? Your review made me think of buying of a 6TB of this device, but I'm concerned about its security.
This is working pretty well for me mainly for uploading photos to free up space on my iPhone. I wish there was an auto upload feature in the app. Biggest problem is the iOS app seems to be consuming memory with no way to clear it. Up to 1.5 gb so far and growing. Clearing the cache makes no difference. Dont see much discussion of this in the WD community.
Hi Lon. You mentioned NOT downloading WD’s utility to access your network when at home but then leap to talking about an ‘app’ to accrue the WD drive remotely. What is this app? Can you expand on this please?
You mention you can't connect this directly to your computer but that's not true. I've connected the 3TB my Cloud directly to a 2015 Macbook Pro via the Gigabit port and it works perfectly. I ran the my cloud app for the mac and it shows you the Ip of the my cloud. Once you have that you can connect via safari, finder or the Transmit app. The reason why I connected directly is because I filled all 3TB my cloud with 100,000+ video files from 16 security camera's all using FTP but the drive halted when I hit zero free space. The direct connect allowed me to delete 10,000's of files to free up space much more quickly.
Great demo. Thank you Lon. I am a fan of WD products. What do you recommend in 4tb to 6tb WD My Cloud Personal Storage device that is capable of streaming movies to a Surface Book and or Samsung Smart TV. I can sort of do this with an older WD MYBOOKLIVE, but it is starting to be too noisy for my liking. I think it is time to upgrade.
Happy days! western digital did an update on the drives firmware today which has fixed the SRT subtitle not showing problem so everyone update your drives, there was also other tweaks in tonights update!
***** The subtitle issue seems beat now thank god, when watching shows in which they speak in a different lanuage i.e spanish and there was no english translation it kind made you lose track of what was happening :/ but thankfully that is now resolved. Connection to the drive seems a little faster now too, Although i have noticed that file name sorting is off again episodes 1,2,3 are now at the bottom of the list >.< not a major issue though
Very helpful review My question is... If the hard drive fails... Is it possible to disassemble /teardown this NAS and then replace the hard drive? ... As like in the mirror... We can directly swap em... But if this fails... Would it be a waste?
Lon I got more comfortable with the drive after watching the video. I am replacing a hard drive and I am currently transferring files by wireless. If I made a hardwire connection would I get a faster transfer?
Hi, I'm so glad I found you! Hopefully you can answer my question(s). I just bought the Airport Time Capsule 3TB. It's up and running just fine. But, I wanted a product that I can save my many thousands of pictures on and have access to them at all times. I am wondering whether or not the WD My Cloud 4TB is that product? If not, then do you have any suggestions? I have thousands of pictures saved to hundreds of discs and would like to put them all in the same place so I can easily get to them in order to work with them.
great review. one question, when you connect an external usb hard drive to the back, is the external usb drive accessible on the local network? or does it just act as a backup drive for the mycloud drive but not visible on the network?
This was very informative, I am planning to set up a small business NAS for 20 of my clients and i am planning to provide data storage using WD my book live. Just want to confirm whether, remote users can access thier data remotely from any PC laptop mobile or tablet once they have access to WD cloud? and not necessary they are tied down to one particluar PC to access it?
Great Videos! I have had a 2TB WD My Cloud for almost a year. Now I want to add about 4 more TB of space. Do you recommend getting a second My Cloud (4TB) or just adding a 4TB drive on the USB?
During the video Lon suggests not using the recommended configuration utility and that he recommends using a different one - unless i missed it, he never mentioned which one to use or where to get it. Please advise.
How do I turn off the indexer? It was quiet for a while and status showed 'idle'. now it's rescanning 50,000 files again! How do I turn off scanning completely?
Hello, you are the most knowledgeable person out there on these NAS devices so I’m asking for your help. I have a WD MyCloud Home device. It is a few years old and I’ve now uploaded about 40 years of photo history onto this thing as I became more confident in it. Well as of last week and the last WD update it simply stopped working. Now when I try to log in using the app or the website it says Device is Off Line. I’ve done all the usual stuff to try to reboot including about two hours with WD Tech support. I also tried to connect directly to my PC with an Ethernet cable. The box sits there with the Sleepy Steady blinking, whitish blue. Do you have any suggestions? And thank you for your time!
The fact that you see the SSL warning is normal and NOT CONCERNING AT ALL. WD can't issue a certificate for every customer. Just not possible. Just because the certificate can't be 100% verified doesn't mean it isn't safe. It's still A LOT safer than plain HTTP (or whatever it uses).
***** I don't have a WD MyCloud so I don't know, but is the OpenSSL on there still vulnerable to heartbleed? Haven't they fixed it in a firmware update yet?
Tks Lon for the quickly answer and the good information, can you tell me the model of you router ? I think the problem with my connection with the drive is my network(dosnt have 5ghz connection and isn't a really good router)
5:17 Setting up a back up external for your back up external with cloud storage back up. Nice.
Detailed, concise, no computer voice overlay. Video cuts were perfect. Great instructional video.
This review is really in depth. Thank you!
omg...after watching this video, I'm REALLY kicking myself for not just getting one of these instead of the 4TB USB WD drive I bought in November. On the bright side, I can always buy one down the road and use my USB drive as a backup to the My Cloud. Great video!
I'd say it's very reasonable to tell people that they will get an invalid certificate warning. it generates a SSL cert which is self signed. these are not recognised by the browser/device but your connection is still secure. better this than not saying it an have users worried when it pops up
Thank you for this great video! I've read a lot of negative reviews on the WD My Cloud, and honestly I've been very worried about getting one and it crashing or being incredibly slow. You made it all look so easy though! I think I'm going to buy one and also attach a secondary WD My Book (4GB) to it later on down the road. Thank you again!!!
Your videos are so usefull ! Keep going, good job
Thanks Lon! Based on this review and the one you did of the Seagate, I went ahead and bought the 4TB version of this drive. What put it over the top was the amount of control you have over shares with this drive.
Hi Lon. I'm new to streaming music having just purchased a Bose Soundtouch 30 II. At the moment to listen to my huge iTunes library I have to have the Windows Laptop booted. I use Bose's Soundtouch app on my Android smartphone and the Laptop where the iTunes library is located to browse for my music, does a NAS device allow the streaming of music to the Bose system without the need to have the laptop on? In other words, if my music collection was on the NAS, does it have the ability to stream to the Bose? Thank you.
Yes. it is very simple to do.
Hello from London,
just got the 4TB and instead of reading the included instructions - watched your video....GREAT, thank you for the time and effort.
So far, so good....yeah, there are some questions to clear over the time. I configured my TRANSFER SPEED as was shifting large amounts of data and the the approx. write speed from my PC hard drives is 580MB per minute [calculated over hours of transfer 300GB]. Would be great if you create some videos how the device could be useful to people with specific needs...creatives, photographers, musicians, film makers
Hi, Is it possible to install Plex Media Server at WD MyCloud?
No the 1 drive bay has limited capabilities, you want a 1 or 2 drive nas from synology for plex.
3+ years later and I find this review is still helpful. Answered all my questions before I even knew I had them. I do have a question about something different. I notice you control the camera from a tablet. How and what? How are you able to do that and what is needed? Or am I just seeing things? I've searched your channel as to a possible tutorial but no luck. Thank you ahead of time.
At the time I was using a blackmagic ATEM system : lon.tv/atem
Lon.TV awesome thanks after some more research and googling I found your review on the Multicam app and just downloaded it. Thank you very much for the quick response.
Does the laptop/PC need to be switched on for us to access the MyCloud drive from your phone or from the TV? Thanks.
It runs independent only needs the network to be live.
Lon, just wanted to say great video dude. I'm an IT Support & Services Manager, but defo no network specialist or fully fledged techy...So I always appreciate a clear, (jargon free) overview/explanation. Great job mate! You have a new subscriber :)
Hello. Regarding the certificate error, I believe it is based on the fact that when you access the device locally from inside the home network, the certificate will not be used but when you use the domain externally , it will be secure. I am not 100% sure but that is how it works with the Windows Home Server live domains. The errors come internally but externally the certificate is served properly.
Thanks for an another amazing review!
Took care of public responses. Sorry about that! Thanks for any advice your videos are thorough and very helpful on buying/decision making.
Just got the 4 TB version in part thanks to your review.
*****
So far so good. Everything set up the way it should - easily.
Thanks Lon, I bought mine on the strength of all your reviews. I do like it. It ticks all the boxes for me, but I'm still unhappy with the unreliability of the remote access side of things. It does lock up/freeze quite often. And since you can't reboot remotely, you normally have to wait till you get back home to reboot the device. Or switch off and on again the remote access switch......
But my workaround is, I plug my NAS into a smart WiFi plug.... I can then remotely switch off the power to the NAS, then switch back on again. Once it's rebooted and initialized, about 5 mins, I can access the device remotely again.
Just my little 2 cents worth, towards your great reviews. Thanks.......
***** Thanks look forward to it.
Hi Lon, I saw this device for the first time tonight at Best Buy. I was really interested in what it can do and I am glad I found your video. 4TB cloud device for $220 is a really good deal. Not bad at all! Thanks for the review, and it is very helpful.
*****
Thanks, Lon. May be I missed it, but how fast is it? You did say that it is reasonably fast in the video.
You explain things so clearly and succinctly that (after your review persuaded me to buy this) I used your video instead of reading the operating manual. Thank you!
thanks Lon for the review (as well as the Seagate equivalent). based upon your reviews, I decided to go with the WD MyCloud, that is until I got to the WD website to place an order. sadly, 76 reviewers rated this a 2.7 (out of 5), which is a very low rating for any electronics/technology product. the individual reviews we pretty bad (many failures of hardware and software). only 30 out of 73 (41%) recommended buying the product, which is also very low. so, while the product seemed like a perfect fit for my needs, having that many negative reviews will keep me from buying it.
Thanks Lon, I just purchased this and have not received it yet but you have answered a lot of questions I had about this product. Thanks so much for posting.
Thank You... I purchased this because I thought it was a great product. Installation was a nightmare (and that's coming from someone familiar with tech). After contacting support and walking through it, it turned out my wireless printer shared the same IP address?? Hey I'm a software developer... I deal with hardware... but I can say troubleshooting hardware is not what I do. I was able to follow along with the Western Digital Support Tech and together we got the issue resolved... BUT IT WAS A FAIRLY EXTENSIVE FIX. I was sitting their trying to imagine my grandma trying to figure this out!!
Anyway the Support Tech was very friendly and knowledgeable and considering I called on a Saturday I do have to give it to Western Digital that they have support readily available. He did have a heavy accent as he was obviously from India, but unlike some people I have no problems with that. I did have to request that he repeat words at times but together we figured it out. So we got it up and running and I was like wow... do I really want to trust something like this to back my important files up??
I was on the verge of returning this hard drive even before I started using it when I came across this video... and I have to say thank you!! I really appreciate you taking the time to introduce this product because it is extensive... but it can be great if it works. A product like this should come with video tutorials... but doesn't. I know they do have a support forum but I feel you shouldn't need to learn how to use a product through a support forum... so I really thank you for this as it has convinced me to at least give the product a try!
You can use airplay on your Mac or iOS device (provided they able to do airplay) to mirror your screen and play that on the apple TV. you can't stream content directly from your WD my cloud to your apple TV, AFAIK, but you can bounce it off of your ipad or mac and it works flawlessly. If you want to stream directly you need a DLNA capable TV or a set top box like WD Live, Roku (which takes some doing) and anything else you can rig up a DLNA connection.
I just joined to the channel and thanks for the great review. I was already convinced in getting the WD My Cloud, but your review removed any doubt that I might had. Keep up the great work.
Seems like a great product! I'm thinking of getting it. I don't know why this product was only rated 4.2/5 stars. It seems like a full 5 star product to me. Great review!
I believe the security cert error is required for SSL encryption however authenticating the My Cloud to a certificate authority might be cost prohibitive for all the My Clouds. The error just means it is a self signed cert and is not centrally authenticated. Even though the process works as it should, operating systems still flag it as problem.
Thank you so much for this review. My husband mentioned this item and I wanted to know more about it before buying it.... now off to the shop to get one !
I just enabled the reply feature and also sent you a message. So sorry about the troubles Lon!
Thanks for the informative review. This a better review than the WD vids which I found to be mostly promo. Thanks for explaining the features at a "why-do-I-need-this" level. Thanks for the speed benchmark. Mine did not initially show under the Network tab (Win7) but I am good now. I got it at a price I couldn't refuse(less than an internal 2TB drive). I expected marginal performance but your tests give me hope that this will fulfill my needs. Thanks again.
Just got mine, can't wait to set it up.
I have owned the 6tb version for 2 months now. It is fantastic!!! I have two Sony Bravia TV's connected and the only issues are 1; The Sony inbuilt media player wont play all file types, 2; The Sony inbuilt media player cannot recognise folders, so its a very busy looking directory of media files lol. Both issues are Sony fault. VERY EASY FIX!!! I bought a WD Live TV streaming device for each Sony. End result, i have a amazingly stable server (never crashed) that will play any media file to not only my two TV's but i watch mp4 files on an old iphone4 i waterproofed for in my spa. The Iphone mycloud app works well. However, i found the WD software to transfer files for the apple is garbage. No problem, i just open the server in finder and drag files over. Very quick! When using the WD transfer file software all my files got stuck on 999mb, so drag files is better. Further, i am a computer idiot and i could set it up in about an hour. In a nutshell i can download any vid file, transfer it to sever, watch in on my 60inch TV without leaving to couch. 6tb version cost me $450 Australian, and it was worth every cent. Oh, and i am loving the ability to transfer my large indesign work files about. ONE ISSUE Lon, please can you answer my earlier post about connecting a 2tb self powered drive to the WD live TV and being able to expand storage that way
Dude, nice review. Duuuuuude! I wish they would integrate a lot of this remote access functionality into their routers so that you could just hook up a USB drive and effectively have your own My Cloud drive. I guess that would eat into their My Cloud drive sales but it would help out router and external drive sales!
I seen this is an old video, but as of 12-13-2015 the online setup and software is the same. LOL Thank you for making this video and the one where you compare this unit to the Seagate, and also the one with 8 usb flash drives connected to this device. This video was very helpful and saved me the hassle of installing the unnecessary links during setup.
+Tony D As soon as I said the UI looks the same after all these years they changed it. 12-15-15 I updated the firmware and the UI looks a little different now. this video is still going to be pertinent
Excellent review, Lon. Thanks.
Based on your video I bought the 3T unit and am very happy with it.
Thank you for this, and the follow-up reviews. I was reading user reviews on the unit and they basically put me off buying it. However, after watching (all) your videos on the WD My Cloud I went ahead and ordered one. Plugged it into the Airport router and was up and running in no time. Thanks to your videos I knew exactly what to do and how to set it up. Keep up the awesome work!
I appreciate the quick reply. Thanks again. I was just looking for a centralized storage device to store my Lightroom catalogue. I will just stick with what I have for now unless a better solution comes forward.
This worked just fine when hooking it up straight to my computers Ethernet port
Thought your review was brilliant, full of all the info that people required when buying this product and I will be thanks to you.
I wanted to say well done as your review is best to what I normally see online.
Thanks for the very clear product review and for covering all the different applications. Very thorough!
lon I just realize this videos are from 2013.
I purchase mycloud because I like the review you gave it. I was able to installed on my PC, program to backup files and also connected to my android phone. I am not sure if after some hours or a day some thing happen and I was not able to connect from my cell phone to mycloud. I called tech support and stage 1 (I don't know how they called it) level was not able to made the connection or fix it. Stage 2 help me and after he spend 90% of the time explain me how the software or dashboard works and made some changes in my share files to public and other changes made something from start automatic to Auto. When I asked him about the problems I have he said it is your ports 80 and 443 who need to be open by your local cable internet provider. At the end I was not able to connect from phone and I played with port forwarding and didn't work. Later on i was able to make it works.
thanks mate! bought one 2 days ago and was getting frustrated with the lack of instructions ;)
I love your videos mate :). This has taught my more about the MyCloud than anything Western Digital has produced.
Great video, it's a lot information, but it's pretty easy to operate. I think WD did a great job in this HD
Hi Lon, Can I ask a few questions about the MyCloud? It would be really cool if you could give me your opinions.
1) Will the WD MyCloud work simultaneously as a backup device for a Mac, a Microsoft PC, and several android phones?
2) Is there some auto-backup mechanism for android (with android+mac it is a catastrophe)?
3) Also how secure is my data both on the device and also while being transferred?
4) What kind of encryption protects the transferring data?
5) What happens if I have confidential tax info or other proprietary information I don't want anyone seeing?
Kind regards
Jim
I purchased the MyCloud 4tb version and am reasonably happy with it. Still using it so will give my final thoughts in a month.
However, I was a bit surprised that the Ethernet cable that they provided was a cat 5e cable of less than 1.5m!!
While I can ignore the length on account that it is meant to connect to a router which is supposed to be right next to it (or to a computer for a direct network connection to bypass a potentially slow router), I don't understand why they couldn't provide a Cat 6 cable.
It cost me only a few dollars (less than $1 in local prices), but the bother of having to get a cat6 cable could have been avoided.
Thoughts?
Thanks for this.You saved me from buying the Seagate version.
you can really feel how enthustastic you are about the product, great device though :)
***** You're absolutely right. But at the moment I'm trying to figure out if I'm actually more impressed with the Lima (meetlima.com). With the MyCloud I miss the option you have in DropBox where you just share a public link to any single file. Adding new users and giving them access to folders with MyCloud seems like a lot of work.
I have 3 of the clouds now adding up to 14TB of storage, one thing that frustrates me on a day to day use is when streaming mp4 and mkv files off these on windows. I use VLC and it stops randomly saying file not found. Works fine on MAC.
Hi Lon. Thanks for taking time to review. I purchased 2 TB version. I am able to see the drive when I connect by Ethernet but am unable to see it on wifi in my home network.
***** thanks for prompt response. My setup is like this...Dlink DSL-2750U ADSL2+ N300 router, Ethernet wire leading to D-Link DES-1005A 5-Port 10/100 Switch and the WD mycloud is connected to this switch by ethernet. When connecting laptop to N 300 router with ethernet, I see the cloud but when I connect with wifi I do not see.
***** wdmycloud address works in my browser on windows as well as the IP address, when I am on LAN. as soon as I go on wifi both stop working.
NAS is connected to router via a switch. I do not know how a switch works and if this problem is occurring because of that. the name resolution for wdmycloud is 192.168.1.44 but works only when my pc is on LAN.
this is a great video, and it helped me a lot. so far my unit is great, and you get a big bang for your buck, but i have one thing i don't like. when i use media streaming it can't read any kind of subtitles, and that is a major set back in my country. apparently there is a way around this by installing alternative firmware(or something like that) but it requires some linux experience, and it most likely voids great warranty.
Got one today at Asda ... £29! Because it didn't sell, so they put it on sale! Fab price
Excellent review. One question: can it be used as a time machine backup device?
I respect your opinion and you seem to be very prolific about reviewing the latest gadgets. I listened to your review about this product - and I liked it enough to buy the product. Several months into it, I am having hard time with the software, hard to get into the drive to delete a file (especially if they are very large files) and there is no easy reset button. I appreciate the reviews but one could say they can be very misleading as the products don't seem to be as great as maybe they are portrayed.
The security certificate will always happen with a secure connection where the certificate is self-signed. Happens with a lot of appliances that generate their own web certificates, and doesn't really hurt anything, especially on a local network. It potentially makes you susceptible to man in the middle attack, but you're usually okay, especially - again - on a local network that you control.
Sorry, Lon. I just saw your other video that answers this exact question. Thanks so much!
Great Video! WD really didn't give us any info on this device.
Why does it make noise all the time, like its constantly writing files? It might be quiet for a few seconds, then It starts up again. My computer is not on, I haven't used the wd drive for 8 hours and it's still clicking away. it's quite irritating in a quiet room. None of my other drives make noise like this.
Great review! Very thorough and professional. I'm subscribing to your channel.
Great review and very professionally going over everything. Thank you.
You can connect this direct to PC or Mac using the Ethernet cable, I just loaded mine that way after set up, miles quicker
Transferred 2TB in around 6 hours
Thanks so much for this video Lon. Nice job, as a broadcaster I gotta say you know how to present it and I bought this product after watching this video. Will subscribe.
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1=worst, 10=best), how secure do you think it is? Your review made me think of buying of a 6TB of this device, but I'm concerned about its security.
Very useful tips. Now im 100% sure that im gonna buy this External drive thanks to you m8 :)
This is working pretty well for me mainly for uploading photos to free up space on my iPhone. I wish there was an auto upload feature in the app. Biggest problem is the iOS app seems to be consuming memory with no way to clear it. Up to 1.5 gb so far and growing. Clearing the cache makes no difference. Dont see much discussion of this in the WD community.
Finally deleted the app from my phone and reinstalled. Went from 1.5 gb to a few hundred kb. I hope WD corrects this story some point.
Which app? The McCloud.. Or the app itself. Would you help with step by step instructions? I appreciate you responding so fast.
Quick question.
Would I be able to put my entire iTunes library on the hard drive and access them using iTunes?
Awesome review by the way.
I love your reviews. Very informative and easy to follow. Thanks a lot.
Hi Lon. You mentioned NOT downloading WD’s utility to access your network when at home but then leap to talking about an ‘app’ to accrue the WD drive remotely. What is this app? Can you expand on this please?
You mention you can't connect this directly to your computer but that's not true. I've connected the 3TB my Cloud directly to a 2015 Macbook Pro via the Gigabit port and it works perfectly. I ran the my cloud app for the mac and it shows you the Ip of the my cloud. Once you have that you can connect via safari, finder or the Transmit app. The reason why I connected directly is because I filled all 3TB my cloud with 100,000+ video files from 16 security camera's all using FTP but the drive halted when I hit zero free space. The direct connect allowed me to delete 10,000's of files to free up space much more quickly.
***** what is your setup for filming all the various devices (mobile device, mac, etc.)
Great video by the way!
Thanks Lon, you made it simple. Wish you could cover Android and My Cloud use for dummies....thanks again!
Great demo. Thank you Lon. I am a fan of WD products.
What do you recommend in 4tb to 6tb WD My Cloud Personal Storage device that is capable of streaming movies to a Surface Book and or Samsung Smart TV. I can sort of do this with an older WD MYBOOKLIVE, but it is starting to be too noisy for my liking. I think it is time to upgrade.
Perfect! Very informative series. Just orders one...hope it does all I need.
Happy days! western digital did an update on the drives firmware today which has fixed the SRT subtitle not showing problem so everyone update your drives, there was also other tweaks in tonights update!
***** The subtitle issue seems beat now thank god, when watching shows in which they speak in a different lanuage i.e spanish and there was no english translation it kind made you lose track of what was happening :/ but thankfully that is now resolved. Connection to the drive seems a little faster now too, Although i have noticed that file name sorting is off again episodes 1,2,3 are now at the bottom of the list >.< not a major issue though
Gary A you use a smart tvto play your movies with subtitles? You use mycloud app for that?
DAVID BRAVO nah i rip my media to mp4 and then extract the subtitle to the srt file and then watch it with subtitles turned on via the tv :d
Very helpful review
My question is... If the hard drive fails... Is it possible to disassemble /teardown this NAS and then replace the hard drive? ... As like in the mirror... We can directly swap em... But if this fails... Would it be a waste?
Great video!! I just have a problem, after I plug in my cloud into my network. It doesn't show on my finder, like yours.
You answered every question I had for this. Thank you very much.
Lon I got more comfortable with the drive after watching the video. I am replacing a hard drive and I am currently transferring files by wireless. If I made a hardwire connection would I get a faster transfer?
Your videos are so useful. Thank you so much for all you do.
Hi, I'm so glad I found you! Hopefully you can answer my question(s). I just bought the Airport Time Capsule 3TB. It's up and running just fine. But, I wanted a product that I can save my many thousands of pictures on and have access to them at all times. I am wondering whether or not the WD My Cloud 4TB is that product? If not, then do you have any suggestions? I have thousands of pictures saved to hundreds of discs and would like to put them all in the same place so I can easily get to them in order to work with them.
great review. one question, when you connect an external usb hard drive to the back, is the external usb drive accessible on the local network? or does it just act as a backup drive for the mycloud drive but not visible on the network?
Great video! This doesn't use "data" when you are at home and uploading video right to the cloud right? Just when you are away from home?
Great video, thank you! Very informative. I wasn't exactly sure what personal cloud storage was and this video did a great job of breaking it down.
+Lon Seidman Very helpful, thanks!
Hey Lon, this video is trending now! :)
This was very informative, I am planning to set up a small business NAS for 20 of my clients and i am planning to provide data storage using WD my book live. Just want to confirm whether, remote users can access thier data remotely from any PC laptop mobile or tablet once they have access to WD cloud? and not necessary they are tied down to one particluar PC to access it?
Where do you connect the Storage Unit? To the PC or to the USB port in your WiFi Router? Sorry for my noob question. Like your video tutorial.
Excellent video! Thank you. Going to get my 4TB Cloud soon.
Great Videos! I have had a 2TB WD My Cloud for almost a year. Now I want to add about 4 more TB of space. Do you recommend getting a second My Cloud (4TB) or just adding a 4TB drive on the USB?
I found a way to setup my cloud from Linux. Great Device! Thanks for the videos.
dear Lon, many thanks for your quick answer,.
Nice review! I was wondering what the app you are using on the tablet to change between your cameras? That is pretty awesome!
During the video Lon suggests not using the recommended configuration utility and that he recommends using a different one - unless i missed it, he never mentioned which one to use or where to get it. Please advise.
How do I turn off the indexer? It was quiet for a while and status showed 'idle'. now it's rescanning 50,000 files again! How do I turn off scanning completely?
Great informative video. I would set up the WD using a private browsing feature in my web browser application.
Hello, you are the most knowledgeable person out there on these NAS devices so I’m asking for your help. I have a WD MyCloud Home device. It is a few years old and I’ve now uploaded about 40 years of photo history onto this thing as I became more confident in it. Well as of last week and the last WD update it simply stopped working. Now when I try to log in using the app or the website it says Device is Off Line. I’ve done all the usual stuff to try to reboot including about two hours with WD Tech support. I also tried to connect directly to my PC with an Ethernet cable. The box sits there with the Sleepy Steady blinking, whitish blue. Do you have any suggestions? And thank you for your time!
The fact that you see the SSL warning is normal and NOT CONCERNING AT ALL. WD can't issue a certificate for every customer. Just not possible. Just because the certificate can't be 100% verified doesn't mean it isn't safe. It's still A LOT safer than plain HTTP (or whatever it uses).
***** I don't have a WD MyCloud so I don't know, but is the OpenSSL on there still vulnerable to heartbleed? Haven't they fixed it in a firmware update yet?
Tks Lon for the quickly answer and the good information, can you tell me the model of you router ? I think the problem with my connection with the drive is my network(dosnt have 5ghz connection and isn't a really good router)
Great videos and tutorials. Can you designate how many gigs you allocated on an addition external hard drive for a safepoint. Thanks
Thanks, Ron. Saved me having to spend the time and money to find out its not what I want/need. Great videos, btw.