WD My Cloud Home Duo Review - A Very Different My Cloud Product
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- Опубліковано 7 лип 2024
- Buy it at Best Buy - lon.tv/0ny93 (affiliate link) - The WD My Cloud Home is a very different product compared to the previous My Cloud Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. It's simpler and more consumer friendly. See more NAS - lon.tv/nas and subscribe! lon.tv/s -- Too long? See my index below:
VIDEO INDEX:
0:00 - Intro
01:05 - Comparison to other My Cloud Devices
02:00 - Ports and connectors
02:15 - USB ports do not work as a backup
02:46 - Servicing the drives
03:18 - Advertised space vs. actual space on duo due to RAID
03:43 - My Cloud Home Duo vs. Single Drive Version
04:06 - Pricing
04:52 - Required software for PC and Mac
05:17 - Web interface to the My Cloud Home
05:27 - Video playback & transcoding on the web
06:05 - WD Discovery software
06:22 - No direct connection to a PC
06:50 - My Cloud Home runs like a local drive when home or away
07:26 - Syncing like DropBox
09:22 - Offline sync
09:54 - Creating publicly accessible links
10:43 - Mobile app
11:03 - Accessing files from phone or tablet
11:42 - Adding photos and videos from a iPhone / Android
12:26 - Browsing and viewing photos / videos
12:49 - On the fly video transcoding
14:24 - Searching for files from mobile app
14:41 - Administrative settings
15:04 - Changing RAID option
15:20 - Other users and limitations
15:46 - Users are in silos
16:25 - Adding new users
16:48 - Connecticut external USB storage
17:32 - All users have access to external storage
17:56 - Commentary: lack of full NAS backup
18:23 - My Cloud Home Apps (aka Services)
20:28 - Plex App
22:15 - Overall Plex stability
23:40 - Plex transcoding performance
24:52 - Read and write performance
25:36 - Conclusion and final thoughts
Links:
PR2100 Review (better Plex support / performance):
• WD My Cloud PR2100 / P...
Plex Videos:
lon.tv/plexhdhr
This is definitely a new direction for the My Cloud line that is clearly aimed at simplifying the complexity of NAS devices for general consumers. And it appears to achieve what it sets out to do. It's very easy to get up and running: plug it in, set up an account, install some software on your PC or mobile app, and you're done. But all of this ease comes at a loss of control that advanced users will want. And there's not backup functionality yet.
Unlike the prior My Cloud devices this will work the same on a local network as it does remotely. So Mac OS and Windows will see this as a regular drive even if you're halfway across the world. It will of course run slower remotely due to available Internet connection speeds but it is a lot easier to use as a cloud device vs. the previous consumer models.
But a lot of sacrificed for this simplicity for advanced users. The drive requires an account with WD and will not work standalone. It will not be available as a network drive to computers without the software running. Multiple users are supported but they exist in their own silos and cannot share files with each other. The owner of the drive cannot see what files other users have stored on it.
The biggest omission I see so far is that it has no way of backing itself up automatically. This was a key feature of the original My Clouds and allowed copying data to an external drive for backup. Not here. So while external drives can copy data TO the My Cloud Home, data itself can't be copied out unless it is done manually over the network.
I'm sure we'll be doing more with this in the coming months as new features are added.
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He does a BETTER job explaining their product than the actual WD employees.
I love that it is an unbiased review!
realized this review is over 3 years old, slightly regret putting my time into watching because a lot can change in that time. I wonder if newer review are available or if the product stayed the same. but thanks for your time producing this good quality video
Great video dude! Just what I was looking for. Nice runthrough of all the features. Love the bookshelf btw :)
Thanks for adding timestamps to the older videos!
I glad review this product, I watching other videos that can not shut down the drive and if do not format right lose all your data.
This is by far the best (and very thorough) review I have watched- Many thanks for taking the time and putting in the effort for making this video.
This person is the best for explanations, very straight forward and concise.
well said
I like your full disclosure, great videos!!
Very cool device. I’ll be sure to grab one once I outgrow my current solution. Terrific overview
does anyone know if you can use apple time machine with this NAS?
you can
Very informative! Thanks, exactly the review I was looking for.
Great review, helped make sense of these WD products that are confusingly named!
Your amazing and thoughtful video index in the video description made me subscribe. I wish others did that. Thank you.
I changed the router, it was not working on fibro-optic one!!. Now I wish to understand how to monitor gigabit usage consumed? I have a limited package usage
I was hoping it would be a more robust system. Oh well, I'll wait and see if/when WD makes improvements. Good overview Lon!
As always, a very thorough review. The user silo approach seems very odd in that you can't see what they are storing or control how much space they use.
I would love to have seen this review before. It was a gift and the end user was aware of all this problems and under perfomance over the old my cloud. So, Its going to be my first amazon return, and its going to go unpacked...
Very cool background. All you need is an eight-track tape.
Love how this thing looks, but the software seems too restrictive for my liking
I like your disclosure 😊
this was very thorough and helpful. thank you.
Bought it Because of this info !! Thank you! +1 sub
Thanks for this comprehensive review! Is there still no backup functionality on external HD or maybe another NAS (I have a My Book Live)?
Thank you for the review. Late question if you allow - do you think this product is still worth it?
Is it still accessible only Ethernet/internet, not directly plugged in?
I am a photographer, looking to backup my files (twice, on other hdds). Currently i've only 1 HD lol :(
I have had my My Cloud Home running on an Arris gateway for about two months with no issues. Since the gateway was a rental from my internet provider I bought a Motorola gateway and installed it today. Everything with the gateway worked perfectly until I eventually connected the cloud drive with the ethernet cable. It instantly killed both wifi bands. Turns out if the Plex app is enabled on the drive it can play havoc with gateways/routers. I had to reset the My Cloud Home to clear the account, reinitialize it from scratch, then connect it making sure Plex was not enabled and everything worked fine.
Lon, You said that you would be doing updates once they added new features or corrected some of the issues you had, however, I do not see any updates from you. Did they ever make this thing better?
Thanks for the review, Lon. I was waiting for a review before I bought. Looks like I'll be getting the old model
Hi pal I put the To 2tbs off it and on my as-302t- working perfectly.
does the Plex server in this nas allow to add existing (older) my cloud directory in the library ?
I bought the 4TB single drive which for me is more than plenty. My primary concern at this point is security -- the WD Security suite apparently is not compatible with this even though preinstalled. So is the MCH already encrypted? Should someone break into one's home and steal the physical drive itself, could they pull the data off the drive or is it already encrypted with something like bitlocker?
Can you download multiple photos to mobile devices from the app? I have my cloud but thinking of upgrading to my cloud home especially if this allows you to download multiple photos to my phone
hi!, I have a question, what are the differences between the sync folder and have a offline access? is it possible to have a offline folder, work in it and after reconnect to my cloud and sync the changes that I did it when I was offline?
Hello
Can we see photos horizontally on iphone? The app allows screen rotation?
Thanks for the video :)
Thanks for the video! Any update on the capability of backing up of the my cloud home? I find that a dealbreaker, perhaps I should get the mycloud?
Hello, I want to ask if the product has no problem with going to sleeping mode / stand by mode. I had before the older Mycloud and it went only one time in 7 days to sleeping mode. Thank you.
Question.. You were showing how to sync a folder for the My Cloud Home, but do you know if you can do that same thing with the My Cloud units (specifically the EX2 Ultra)? What I would very much like to do is have a folder on my work computer that is synced to my home folder, and one on my home computer so that I can just easily store files in one place..
Hello, when activating photos and videos auto backup, if the photos are deleted from our phone, the photos in hardrive also deleted? Or remains. Thx!
I connected a 8tb to the USB port and the app found the drive but when I selected to choose which folders to upload it took for ever thinking and never did anything, I hit the back button and kept trying with no luck. I have uploaded movie files through the wifi mode but it doesn't let me upload anything larger than 5gb. I noticed on your video you uploaded that Star Wars movie of 32gb, how did you do that? Do I need to get a smaller external harddrive to connect to the USB port of the WD my Home?
@ LonTV - Between the EX2 Ultra and the Home Duo, which is a better product for storing Movies, Photos, files, Media Server, and multi-computer back up?
Can content from an iPhone be automatically deleted within the My Cloud apps once synced with My Cloud Home or My Cloud NAS?
Amazing review/demo.. will the my cloud work with Roku TVs to pull content from the drives(s) ? thanks again
hi got a few questions: 1. In the homepage it says "Tailor your My Cloud Home device to fit your personal needs and preferences using downloadable services, including Plex Media Server™, Dropbox, Google Drive™, IFTTT and more" but I dont see the dropbox and google drive app? 2. is the adapter 110-220w? thanks
I have a 16GB Nvidia Shield TV and it's running out of space. If I erase and do a factory reset on my 2TB WDMyCloud and attach it with usb will it work for external storage?
Thanks for your advice
How does it cope with music files? Can you get it to play your entire music collection on shuffle to my iPad/iPhone or computer?
I am trying to decide which one to buy : My Cloud Personal or Home. Please tell me :
1. Do I have to login each time I start WD Discovery App when using My Cloud Home?
2. After the initial setup of My Cloud Home and logging in WD Discovery app both of which need internet, after that can I use the NAS in an offline (without internet) LAN?
Thanks in advance.
For middle-class people using the PC platform, OneDrive is probably the way to go over this product especially if you know people that might use it with you as you can share an Office 365 subscription and make the yearly fee more economical. These drives are good for sending video files to connected SmartTVs and streaming them. This new drive uses Plex and the old WD MyCloud uses DLNA. I still find myself wanting to upgrade to this DUO to ensure my data is safeguarded.
Question! I have an apple tv 4th and I want to watch movies on it via a NAS device. I know for a fact that the older My Cloud works perfectly with Plex and other softwares. Does this work the same way?
Thank you for the honest review. might i know how to know when or is there any indication will shown that if one of the drive faulty?
Hi, I miss the information about how it is for editing docs. for example, I want to work on a specific doc, save it (from one computer) , then go to work, and from the web , work on the same doc and update as well. how does it work ? will I need to download and then upload it back ? in this way I'll have two kind files, which I want to avoid.
This is really an excellent review and presentation. I have the older my cloud. It’s going out of lifetime. WD is giving us vouchers either for the single my cloud home 8tb or for the my cloud ex2 ultra starting at 16tb.
Questions: Is the ex2 ultra going to be more configurable? Is it more like the older my cloud? Are both these devices going to have a similar product lifetime? And finally although this is subjective, I’d appreciate your opinion - which would you more recommend? Neither is also an answer if this is what you feel.
Thanks. As people have stated, you do seem to explain much better then WD does !
Hi Lon, enjoyed the video about the WD My Cloud Home. I'd like to ask a question... I'm thinking of buying one, but just want to find out, if I can still map a network drive on to my desktop or make a network location on my Windows 10 PC
Hey there how's it going, Have your managed to come across with their "Backup on another external USB hard drive" services?
Is it possible to have a sync folder on a Mac desktop? This video is great except I'm on a Mac and I could do with knowing how to set it up.
thank you very much for the video! i apreciate also the detailed explanation, because i am a noob with this topics and your video cleared a lot of doubts i had. Thanks!
What do you think is the best solution for scheduled, automatic, wireless iPhone & iPad FULL back-up? Not interested in streaming video and such; just a painless replacement for manually plugging iOS devices into iTunes. Would like to bypass Mac altogether, and host back-ups on a dedicated storage place Needs to be FULL, incremental back-up, not just pics/vids. Does such a system exist?
hi i just replaced my cloud home's storage and its not detecting either displays that the firmware update is in process but it took more than two days and still on the same position,
will appreciate if there's a solution
I can not transfer video 8Go from my laptop to home cloud , i see an error during transferring ? i know if i transfer to usb i have to change the format NTFS to FAT 32 but i do not know if is it applicable to the cloud . if yes how can i do it ?
Thanks, this Video helped a lot. I thought i have an issue with my TS3 because it is slower than USB 3 5g. I mean there is no reason to use Thunderbolt 3 when all port connected are slower den USB 3. So ther is no performance advantage switching from TS2 to TS3 exept ther is a DP on the TS3.
Thanks for your excellent presentation on wd my cloud home and sort of comparison with the my cloud version. In my opinion, Wd my cloud seems better than the wd my cloud home. I am using wd my cloud single bay for about 3 years. It is working well except the power adapter broke once and I had to replace it. Now it is working fine again. I can view stored videos on my Android Sony TV and on other local devices. I can access my docs from anywhere. Public folders containing media may be played on any devices at home. The most important is that I have connected a usb drive with the cloud and backup materials there. This cannot be done with home version as far as I know. Only I dislike the design of the container box. It is very difficult to open the cloud storage and bring out the hard disk. Also a standard hd cannot be used in the cloud. If my cloud break I would like to buy another my cloud not home version. But I am afraid that the production of my cloud has stopped.
when you placing data off your PC onto mycloud , and you are not remote , but home. does it used data off your data plan ? I have a cell router
Great review. I love the one I have. My problem with the WD is I can't seem to log out of the app on my android phone.
Any difficulty using it for PC and Mac backups? I heard it can work with both TimeMachine and FileHistory. I wasn't sure how seamless a cross platform backup solution would work.
sorry if you already answered this, but does it means I can only access my files if I have an internet connection?
Hello, need to ask a question about WD My Cloud home as I am thinking of buying it. With respect to Plex, is this device capable of streaming 1080p videos on 1 screen only that too on Apple Tv??
thanks , but how i eject safely usb from my cloud ? please help me
Thank you so much for the video. May I know if My Cloud Home and My Cloud Home Duo could receive or transfer a file over 5GB? Is there a limit to file size?
I have a WD MyCloud Home 4TB. I am using a end-to-end gigabit connection with the router. But only able to get 15-20MBps highest on LAN. Whereas with the same connection setup I'm getting more then 80-100MBps consistently with other PC's on the LAN. Are there any settings on the MyCloud Home device that I'm missing ?
Thanks for a great review! I am thinking of buying one of these to use with Apple TV (4th gen) for streaming Plex. I know you said that this device didn't work well with plex but the files you are using are enormous while mine are all less than 2gb, most around 1gb. So I'm still wondering if this will be good enough since the better WD NAS you recommend is out of my price range.
Hi Lon, very interesting vid. Looking for a easy to use though fully featured nas product, until now this wd mycloud home (1 bay) looked interesting to me, but this week Synology released a new nas, the ds118. Any ideas about this one, assuming that you don't seem to be fully convinced of the features of the WD mycloud home.. Thx
How do I create a back up or see whats in my cloud why I have to ask this questions if it is so easy?
Is there any feature to use the USB port for Expanding the Storage?
is it possible to upgrade each drive to something MUCH bigger? i like a raid1 setup, but I'd like much more space. could i upgrade each drive to say, 16t or 20t each??🤷♂️
how to safely remove an external usb drive? from the Nas. is there a safe way like you do windows? or is it safe just to pull the usb out??
update: lol I'm my case with my cloud home I have to shutdown the cloud drive to safety remove an external hdd from it.. but as I'm typing this I think I just can go to the WD pc desktop app and eject the external drive from there.......
I bought this product yesterday and I'm already thinking if it was a right choice. I'm currently working on small movie production and need a machine like this to upload all materials cause it is really a lot. Second purpose was to be able to share all contents with the people I'm creating the movie with. Unfortunately: it is EXTREMELY slow, i can't upload files bigger than 5GB what is ridiculous and finally - I can't watch the movies on my computer or other devices due to unsupported codec which is MOV. I am deeply disappointed. I found an information that putting the files into "plex" folder could help - it didn't. Should I give it back?
Go for Synology NAS instead.
Ive had mines for a few days now.. just small things right now I'm trying to figure out but for as speed no big issue yet I moved an 100gig+ file from my wd hdd to my cloud home roughly around 20 mins? I guess for this its ok.. I ve seen a review where a person moved 700gig and it took 2 days.. so, rough calculation if it took me 20 mins to transfer 100gig it would take me approximately 2hrs 20 min to move 700gig vs 2 days.. a lot varies I guess when it comes to speed..
for as you taking it back.. if its not doing what you needed to do yes, take it back... If its very important that you play your files on the web server and you cant... take it back.. Plex only support certain files and from Lon review big files like 4k it wont play. I'm not sure how big your files are.. but I feel your frustration...
Do the drives in wd nas auto defrag time to time like they do in windows?
Can this NAS work with NFS or SMB server so it can be used to receive & write video from security cameras ?
Is there storage sharing units like these I find Synology Nas units just Far too complicated to use And this is just too basic Are there some middle ground Nas units.
Great video Lon!
My 2017 LG E7 will not recognize my cloud home drive that is connected to the same network as my tv. I am running the plex server from the cloud drive and on my tv, I’m using XPlay (plex) and it recognizes the drive then but not from the tv’s built in music, photos and videos apps. Help please. Thanks!
Unfortunately the new My Cloud doesn't work with DLNA the way the old ones did.
good for you Chamod. I got screwed with the My cloud shit from WD. It worked a while. now it keeps disconnecting from the network and it is very slow... unusable!
So when uploading your files to it, is that done through internet or what?
Thanks for a great video Lon...... can you please post a comparative video of My Cloud Duo vs My Cloud EX2 Ultra?
very disappointed, doesn't show. I tried everything? restart, reconfigure, disable protective software, share on...etc?
I bought one of these a few months ago. It took too 30-minute remote sessions by WD staff to make the thing run. A couple weeks ago, I very briefly law an error code which suggested that the thing might not be working.
Okay, people, does anybody know how to determine if the My Cloud Home is actually online and functioning properly. Sure, a white linear light is flashing on the box, but somehow I doubt that really must mean the thing is working right.
Lon getting his Qbert game on.
Please can i ask you if there are a ways to connect my cloud home via any thing like ethernet or usb ? any thing except wifi ! many thanks in advance.
I work on SAP ERP. Can I store my sql server 2012 and window server 2012 on this cloud instead of install it on my laptop? So that I can easily use software from my laptop in good speed.
Not on this one
Does it deletes photos from the source phone after backup?
Will this is drain data? Lets say, Im connected to my wifi via my phone and viewing videos from my Cloud Home or will it know that request is coming from within the wifi network?
Is it only Plex that can see the media files, or will RPi's running XBMC, chromecasts, smart TVs etc be able to see the files too?
HI lon, we got this device after the old wd my cloud died and so far not impressed, playing movies on my iphone works great but when trying to play music in any format will not work. The only way to do this on the iphone is via plex which sucks because it wants me to sign up for a one off subscription, not interested in paying even more money for something i should already have access to do. it does allow me to play the music file but still pops up with a box to subscribe. am i doing something wrong? i'll be returning this product if i can find a solution
Does the single driver model have the same processor as the duo(for transcoding)? Thanks
Hello,
How can I stream videos from My Cloud Home to Android TV ❓
Hi
Sir please make video on my cloud home duo vs my cloud ex2 ultra which one is better
Judging by the age of this video it is safe to assume WD never made the backup option for this line of Home NAS machines. Does the WD My Cloud Home support the same features that Plex has? Does it choke on the large video files? Does it look up the movie posters, publication date, actor/actress data, directors, etc? Like their old WDTV Live Hub does? As a streaming media player this would make it super easy for my tech challenged family members to enjoy movies in their homes and on the go assuming there aren't any problems with power storms or loss on Internet.
Greetings, can I use my cloud home as an external hard drive using the usb port or is it just for backup?
Can I use my cloud home without internet, in case I do not have an internet?
No you can't plug it to usb. This is made to be used through a router, that is said on the video, just watch it. If you don't have an internet connection you will be able to use it without any problem inside your home (local network), but you won't be able to access its content remotely (outside your home) because you obviously don't have an internet connection to do it.
I am worried by the web only interface. Do WD retain logs or more importantly have access or audit, log my contents or activity? I would like to store private personal and business files.
Thank you for the great information! PS: is that a ZX81 in the background there??? My first “pc” ! 😀😀
Can I connect the storage via Wi-Fi. Or do i need an Ethernet cable?😶
Can we add external hdd box to USB port to expansion NAS storage like WD My Cloud ?
No for this home version. You can do that on wd my cloud (older version of wd my cloud home).