TBFGhost wrote:
So, after a week any word on what went wrong…and for all those who are mad, wd mycloud is a cheap NAS, so it performs like one as I am finding out. If you want more reliability, check out the other options from other manufactures. There are a TON
This is a “personal cloud” product and service sold by probably the largest and most respected player in the data storage industry. Price has nothing to do with it. Product features are listed in the product descriptions and we purchase the product based on that. Even if a fully loaded 16TB EX4 was listed for $500 total, if they state it has certain features then they should provide those features and back it up with a warranty. Service outages can happen at any time and WD really only owes you “best effort” service but their lack of communication and transparency is what upset many users that were frustrated they couldn’t access their data, myself included.
I’ve seen many users upset over the remote connectivity speak of taking their business elsewhere and that’s always an option for anyone. I even suggested that as an option for those that seemed beyond upset. I’m a WD fan because in 15+ years using their drives I haven’t had one go bad unless it’s many years past the warranty and close to the MTBF lifetime for the drive. I may decide to vote with my feet and purchase other NAS and Cloud solutions from other vendors if WD can’t address and help me resolve the few issues I’ve had with my EX4, but I will still continue to purchase their drives as WD provides far superior drives than their competition.
In terms of product reliability for WD… I’ve owned MANY various WD NAS devices and I’m usually one of the first few to invest in these products. I still have one of the first WD Netcenters that runs great other that the fact it only holds 320GB of storage and I don’t use it anymore. I haven’t had many issues before with WD products so I continue to invest in them. The EX4 was the first device I’ve bought from WD that really had issues. Maybe that’s my fault for purchasing it as soon as it hit the market, but based on the previous WD devices I’ve purchased I didn’t think it would be this much of a nightmare. I will rethink this if the remote access continues to be unreliable and slow and if WD cannot address the CPU issue I’m having.
In terms of product reliability for the MyCloud product line and the EX4 I own outside of the CPU and remote access issues I’m having… These are NOT the highest rated NAS in terms of performance and sheer read/write speed and users should research this before making a purchase. As far as the numbers of features and functionality, they have a lot of options to use them many different ways. Sure I have my own wishlist for firmware updates and new features but I’m not lacking anything major. I bought my EX4 based on the features they advertised. I haven’t purchased the older MyBook or MyCloud standard NAS because they don’t have the features I’m looking for.
The MyCloud app itself needs a major overhaul. It only really reads one single format for video and audio files (.mp4 and .mp3 files) and the app itself is poorly laid out. The settings are severely lacking and the remote access is extremely sluggish. The few times it actually streams my media files which may be due to the server issues they’re having, it actually plays those media files faster than the media I’ve downloaded direct to my phone. I’d rather use the VLC app any day but it can’t connect remotely like I want. WD is a hardware company in my opinion and that’s what they do best. Hopefully someone will design a better mobile app that is capable of connecting remotely to my EX4. If so I will delete the MyCloud app and never look back. Maybe with the release of the WD SDK someone will develop a much better app or maybe WD can partner up with VLC who specializes in this. Either way the MyCloud app stinks and it’s so ugly I hate just looking at it but it’s the only option I can find at this time.
I’m sure someone will reply and say the limited ability to playback various file types is due to my iPhone but I don’t buy that. The VLC app can outright play files types such as (.avi, .mkv, .flac, etc.) that the MyCloud app cannot. This means it’s all about the software and not the limitations of my phone.
STATUS UPDATE FOR MY REMOTE CONNECTION: My EX4 has switched back to Port Forwarding on it’s own. I can connect now and browse my files but it’s too sluggish to even use as far as streaming even the smallest amount of audio. I have a 3mbps upload at my home and office and 50mbps download on my phone which is more than enough to stream basic audio. Something in the app or way the remote connection is established is causing the connection to be slow in my opinion.