Please help to choose: My Book Live 3TB vs. My Cloud 3TB

Hi!

Please I am so confused with these two items:

My Book Live 3tb vs. My Cloud 3tb

Which are pros and cons for both of those items?

Thank You so much for sharing your experiences!

Hi.

I have / had both of them (both 3TB).

In my opinion My Cloud is better and has more / better possibilities. It is worth to pay little more, but not so much.

If you cannot afford My Cloud and My Book is in your range - take it. It is simple and good disk. I liked it.

My Book Live

1 core processor 800MHz, 256MB RAM

Read speed was about 90MB/s (I do not remember for sure, but it was reported in some reviews, that it is a little faster than My Cloud, but both are probably the fastes in this price and volume range).

No USB (no possibility of expanding cloude storage space).

Disk backups only to other My Book Live device (or you may just copy by hand to any device).

Some lacks in users / shares management (you may live with this if we talk about home use).

Soundless (mostly). Even during hard work it is really quiet.

Fanless (I like it).

Very low power consumption (you should not turn it off).

The same mobile application as My Cloud.

Only a little worse web user interface, with a little less information.

Previously had Twonky, than changed to DLNA.

Older product.

Black only.

My Cloud

2 core Cortex-A9 processor 650MHz, 512MB RAM

Read speed was about 75MB/s, write about 40-60.MB/s. Of course it depends, but it is still one of the fastes devices in its class. Of course you may read a lot bragging about NASes and their possibilities and speed, but why to pay twice or more for such devices if speed is enough to watch movies on TV etc.? In my opinion it is better to spend this money in the future for next (and newer) disk, to have second backup / cloud device, and keep it in other place, just in case.

USB 3.0 (possibility of expanding cloude storage space; you may plug in you camera and share images; use your friend’s pendrive; whatever; Without browsing with administrator rights you cannot delete or add anything to such USB device - pleasant security).

Disk backups (snapshots) to any other My Cloud or to USB devices (or you may just copy by hand to any device).

A little better user management (e.g. added read only rights, instead of read/write and no acces only).

Soundless (mostly). Even during hard work it is really quiet.

Fanless (I like it).

Very low power consumption (you should not turn it off).

The same mobile application as My Book Live.

Very nice and fast user interface.

Has Twonky.

Newer product (from half of this year or something like that, maybe even from September)

White only.

Both work great and fast enough in local LAN, cloud (internet or home WiFi), TV with WiFi Android device etc.

Remember that video through WiFi vary on your WiFi devices, not disk. HD may be too big to be watched smoothly.

Use fast WiFi or LAN.

Probably both have WD Red inside. My Cloud probably for sure (WD staff on this forum).

It looks real, because My Cloud is a little slower, so probably this is WD Red’s IntelliPower (adaptive speed, to avoid overheating, without significant performance loss).

But remember - slower does not mean slow!

Cons? For both:

No print server (buy router with this function).

No possibility of IP camera monitoring.

No www server, etc.

Until you do not play with servers and web services you do not need this. And mostly those functions may be realized in other devices (e.g. router).

I have My Cloud now and do not want to change back to My Book Live.

In both cases (disks) - beware of firmware upgrade.

Always download file by yourself, directly from WD web page, put it on your computer (or even on USB device if you have My Cloud) and update it directly through web browser user interface.

To avoid any problems, connect your drive directly to this computer, where firmware file is placed. Check any possible power failures, and do nothing more (turn off / close all other applications etc.).

Earlier you should can enable ssh, just to leave backdoor open - just in case. You will find simple instructions on this forum how to do it.

Turn off automatic updates.

And update only if you are sure, that this version of firmware is checked and confirmed by many users as correct and working fine.

If something will happen, think before RMA (replacement). You will get used (probably repaired) drive as re-certified.

Waranty will be the same, but it is used (somehow) device and such devices are sold in official shop with 6 months waranty, so probably your disk (until physical damage) will be better. Just avoid updating without being sure and safety steps.

Other companies have the same policy of RMA, and slower disks (e.g. Seagate - check their support forum).

If you buy and will have problems - you may ask me. Or search this forum.

2 Likes

Thank You for your great answer! :slight_smile:

I will read it more in details at home!

Have a nice day! :slight_smile:

Thanks for Kudos!

If you have choice and can see few boxes of the same product, select higher serial number (this is my guess only).

Both my devices were / are with serial number WMC.

I have seen in shops WCC also, and I get for replacement used (re-certified) WCC series, which was probably older, and disk head was noisy.

This is my guess only.

One difference more:

My Book Live - 3 years warranty

My Cloud - 2 years warranty

But you do not want to use your right to warranty (mostly the only way is replacement) to replace device to one with uknown history (other manufacturers do the same).

Take care of it and prepare for possible recovery (there are ways on forum).

Hi! :slight_smile: Sorry it took some time to get back, Christmas time you see!

How fast home net(web inside your home) do you have?

My Cloud will possible arrive on Thursday and now I am a bit worried while reading many news posts about very slow My Cloud and problems with power saving.

How so extremely much that this year all would be OK!

Last Christmas My Book Live was to be sent back while it was just too slow in the most basic use.

My laptop has Lana 10/100/1000

and Axel Wall modem has Ethernet 10/100.

I have tried to figure out which device would I need to speed my home net to a gigabit home net?

Have a nice time before holidays! :slight_smile:

@newsamsunguser - No worries!

Power saving - someone wrote it has to be set to Static IP (no DHCP), and I see that is true.

But it works for me on DHCP as well (disk connected to router).

At first hours or days indexing of data may keep your disk busy. Then it will go to sleep.

Just configure everything, get familiar with disk, and when you will be sure what are you doing - set Static IP. That’s all.

Speed - is good or even better.

I see you have only 10/100 modem, so buy simple Gigabit (1000) switch with Full Duplex mode and energy saving (whatever from any known manufacturer). Connect modem to it, and connect My Cloud and laptop to switch as well.

In case of any problems you will find picture in your instruction or just in internet.

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Of course it depends of your hardware (LAN card, router, switch, WiFi, cables, etc.) and sometimes of configuration.

I am almost sure that anyone that has problems with WD My Cloud speed has something wrong with his network or just low speed hardware.

Be sure to have Gigabit devices (e.g. switch with My Cloud and your computers connected to it) to have Gigabit LAN at your home. Your router or other device that provides internet should be connected to this switch and it will work.

If you have Gigabit router - no problem, just forget about switch.

Some routers, especially older ones, have only Fast Ethernet connections. I guess that some users forget about it (or just have no idea what it is).

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Read reviews on internet - you will see that at this price probably you would not get faster disk with simple NAS features.

And another thought - happy and satisfied users probably do not use this forum so much (or at all), because they have no reasons. So it may look like My Clouds are slow, defective, etc.