Western Digital My Cloud Review (2024)

Western Digital's My Cloud($297.00 at Amazon) is a NAS (Network Attached Storage device) perfect for those unfamiliar with NASes. It is a practically foolproof device for network sharing. Western Digital cleverly avoids the admittedly off-putting term "NAS" anywhere on the device, in its packaging, or in the online information—instead opting for the almost ethereal-sounding "My Cloud" brand name. The device lets users not only share and stream files in a home network, but the private cloud capabilities lets a user access data stored on the device from anywhere at any time. Did I mention, My Cloud turns in absolutely smoking performance, speed that even tops that of our recent consumer NAS device Editors' Choice, the Seagate Central($0.00 at Amazon)? The one aspect in which My Cloud lags behind the Seagate Central is with a rather limited interface when connected remotely. Otherwise it's a high-performing, beautifully-designed piece of hardware.

Design and Setup
My Cloud has the design almost of an Apple product: it's a simple-yet-elegant white box with silver edges and accents. A blue LED for power is the only light in the front. The device operates upright and runs cool and quiet.

The rear panel has a Gigabit Ethernet port and a USB 3.0 port which only supports connecting USB drives, not printers. This is also where the Seagate Central has an edge over My Cloud; you can attach a printer (no multifunction printers, though).

My Cloud is available in a 2TB ($149.99), 3TB ($179.99), and 4TB ($249.99) models. Its 2TB version's list price is less expensive than the Seagate Central 2TB version which lists for $159.99. The price for both NASes is the same for each vendor's 3TB model and Seagate's Central is slightly less expensive with its 4TB version at $219 list.

As should be the case with NASes targeted to home users, My Cloud is very simple to set up. The device ships with an installation guide. 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 guide's images show how to connect My Cloud to a router. Once it's connected and powered, you simply open a browser to the setup URL provided in the guide. The URL redirects to a page with an image of the My Cloud device. Clicking the image starts setup. Links are presented on screen for downloading the required setup software.

A wizard walks you through the quick software installation and then you are asked to provide a username and password to access your personal cloud. The personal cloud is what My Cloud is all about. It's Western Digital's secured cloud service that lets you access your data stored on My Cloud from anywhere.

Once setup completes, you can create users, start uploading files to My Cloud, download mobile apps to access the device from Android or iOS, or backup your PC or Mac.

Using My Cloud

The WD My Cloud Dashboard has the same user-friendly, dark and modern UI that is consistent across Western Digital's latest line of consumer networking products including the My Net N900($44.99 at Amazon) and the My Net AC1300 routers.

The device comes with three preconfigured shared folders that from Windows, can be browsed from Explorer: Shared Music, Shared Pictures, and Shared Video.

Back in the interface, the Home Page is the first page users see. It shows information in widget-like boxes. One box shows free disk space. There's a an arrow on the square that opens the box to display even more information— a breakdown of how much of the My Cloud space is taken up by music, videos, photos, or "other."

Another box labeled Diagnosis shows information including system temperature, drive status, and firmware version.

There's another section labeled Cloud Devices. It's empty save for a plus sign. Clicking the plus sign generated an activation code for users to enter into devices such as smartphones and tablets so these devices can access the data on My Cloud.

The interface also provides information such as how many users are setup on the NAS; how many shares are setup; and the state of a feature called Content Scan. This is an option you can turn on or off where My Cloud will continual scan your home network for multimedia content.

You can set permissions for users for any of the folder shares. I did find setting permission a little unintuitive, although once I figured out what I had to do it worked fine. You can set permissions by accessing the User or Folder sections of the interface.

However, setting permissions' options were disabled in when I tried to apply permissions to a few test users and folders. I finally figured out that all folders by default are set with public permissions, meaning anyone has Read and Write access to all folders by default.

I had to disable the Public sharing on any folder and then I was able to configure permissions. It may take some users a bit to figure this out, as the need to disable Public sharing is not made explicit in the interface (I found out what to do in support).

Safepoints is a feature that allows users to take a snapshot of the entire My Cloud disk and restore the disk if needed. The snapshot is saved to an external USB drive attached to My Cloud or to another storage location on the network.

I tested the feature by attaching a Western Digital My Passport USB drive to My Cloud. I had to close the browser and re-open it before the My Passport drive showed up in the My Cloud interface. To start using Safepoints, a wizard walks you through selecting the device you want to save the snapshot, giving the image a name and description, and setting up the schedule for snapshot taking. The feature works very much like Apple's Time Machine.

In addition to the above capabilities, My Cloud supports SSH and FTP access to files, DLNA, iTunes and email notifications whenever there may be a system issue with the device.

Working within the interface and applying settings was a bit peppier in performance than with the Seagate Central. One aspect of the My Cloud that makes me leery is that you are not prompted for login when you click on the shortcut from the desktop to get into the dashboard and I did not see a way to add authentication. The interface just opens up.

The Cloud in My Cloud
The cloud in "My Cloud" is the remote access feature. The good thing about My Cloud is that data remains on the device in your possession and you are simply using Western Digital's cloud service to connect. Your data is not stored on its servers.

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. Once activated, you are given the link to log into the WD service. From this link, you can access the My Cloud from any browser no matter where you are located. There are mobile apps that allow you to do the same from Android and iOSwhich we will cover in a separate review.

Accessing the cloud interface, I saw an image of the My Cloud device and an option to access my share folders. When I clicked to do so, I received an annoying message that the Java plug-in was required to view my folders.

There isn't much you can do in the cloud interface. You are shown a listing of your folders and then given the option to open the folder in Windows Explorer (from a PC). That is fine, because you can do anything you need to do with your data from Explorer. However with Seagate Central, I was able to upload and download files; create new folders; manage user settings; and even view my images in a slideshow-- all from Central's cloud interface. I like the option of managing my data through the cloud UI or via the local operating system file manager. With Central I can do either. With My Cloud, I am limited to the OS's file manager.

Performance
Western Digital's My Cloud clocked the highest performance numbers tested to-date for a single drive, consumer NAS. It tested at 56 MBps for Writes and 63 MBps for Reads. This is great performance and beats Seagate's Central which impressed with its Read/Write speeds.

While you won't see this great performance when remotely connected (that speed depends on how fast your Internet connection is) for working within your network, the My Cloud is built for uploading and downloading large files and streaming HD video. It's a performance masterpiece. Here is a chart comparing it with other NASes in its class:

Lofty My Cloud
Western Digital's My Cloud has rock-solid hardware. Its performance bests that of the Seagate Central and the design is gorgeous. It never felt warm to the touch the hours I had it powered up whereas the Central felt a tad warm after a few hours.

Where the My Cloud lags behind the Seagate Central is its limited USB support; you can only connect external drives and the fact that you really can do nothing in the cloud interface with your data. However, the My Cloud is sure to win fans, especially heavy HD video streamers, and it's an easy four-star earner for consumer NAS devices, edged out only by the Seagate Central.