I read the reviews. “This is absolutely terrible and slow,” is how most ended. I came to this support forum and saw the same ridiculous claims, issues, and “solutions.” So I bought it anyway because there isn’t really anything else out there that accomplished what this does, in this price range. So is this device as bad as people make it out? No.
Writing this to cut through the BS and help people get up and running quickly by putting all the relevant info in one place.
4TB My Cloud
v4 Firmware
Expectations
Large, local networked attached storage with SMB (windows sharing), NFS, FTP, and DLNA (streaming) support for personal files/media and ocassional backups. Real world speeds for wired gigabit are as follows:
SMB - 18MB/s average (never higher than 25MB/s–ever)
NFS - 95MB/s average (50MB/s - 110MB/s)
If the above speeds are unaccepatable (wireless will be worse), return the MY Cloud.
If you expect anything else including remote access, smartphone support, itunes, etc, return the MY Cloud.
Prerequisite
Some basic knownledge of computers and networking is required or adjust your expecations.
- You will need to SSH into the drive to “fix” certain issues.
- All the routers, switches, hubs, computers, etc should have GIGABIT (10/100/1000) networking cababilities.
If you do not have gigabit support for all wired connections, return the MY Cloud.
Basic Setup
1. Plug in device and connect it up. Device will be located: http://wdmycloud.local2. Create a WDMycloud account and login. (can’t skip it; you will disable this in the very next step)
- Settings
- Settings → General
Disable “Cloud Access” (sorry I don’t trust WD to expose this cloud to the internet securely)
Disable “Mac Backups”
- Settings → Network
Now is a good time to set a static IP address
Turn SSH on and agree to the warning. USERNAME: root PASSWORD: welc0me (yes, that is a zero)
- Settings → Media
Disable Media Streaming
Disable Itunes streaming
- Settings → Firmware
Disable Auto updates
-
Setup users and “shares”/folders. Turn off media scanning.
-
Transfer over your data over the network or USB
-
Done.
DLNA (Twonky) Setup
“Fixing” DLNA so the drive doesn’t slow down. Use a terminal window in linux or Putty in Windows.
- SSH to Mycloud using the user/pass from before.
$ crontab -e
2. Once the text editor opens up use the arrow keys and enter the following lines exactly as written as new lines at the bottom:
@reboot /bin/sh /etc/rc2.d/S86wdphotodbmergerd stop
@reboot /bin/sh /etc/rc2.d/S85wdmcserverd stop
e.g
# Edit this file to introduce tasks to be run by cron.
#
# Each task to run has to be defined through a single line
# indicating with different fields when the task will be run
# and what command to run for the task
#
# To define the time you can provide concrete values for
# minute (m), hour (h), day of month (dom), month (mon),
# and day of week (dow) or use '*' in these fields (for 'any').#
# Notice that tasks will be started based on the cron's system
# daemon's notion of time and timezones.
#
# Output of the crontab jobs (including errors) is sent through
# email to the user the crontab file belongs to (unless redirected).
#
# For example, you can run a backup of all your user accounts
# at 5 a.m every week with:
# 0 5 * * 1 tar -zcf /var/backups/home.tgz /home/
#
# For more information see the manual pages of crontab(5) and cron(8)
#
# m h dom mon dow command
@reboot /bin/sh /etc/rc2.d/S85wdmcserverd stop
@reboot /bin/sh /etc/rc2.d/S86wdphotodbmergerd stop
More information:
http://blog.cloud-client.info/?p=1365
3. Press ctrl+x → Y → ENTER (This saves the file and closes the text file)
These two services will bog the drive down once DLNA is enabled. They index files and create thumbnails. They are completely pointless and kill performance.
- Return to the MYCLOUD GUI to turn on DLNA scanning
- Settings → Media
Enable Media Streaming
- Twonky is the name of the DLNA server. You will notice that is has started running. It may take a a while to scan your media. Wait for it to finish.
6.Twonky settings
http://wdmycloud.local:9000 or the IP address you picked early with the “:9000” port part added on.
You can change scanning intervals and how your media is presented. Settings may change when firmware or the main MYCLOUD GUI settings are channged.
Backups?
I don’t trust this device to do automated backups. I would just plug in a USB hard drive of equal size and sync that way.
What the $@$! is my drive doing?
If the drive getting slow or unresponsive when transfering/streaming/etc, this is how you diagnose what is causing it.
-
SSH to the drive using terminal or Putty in windows
-
$ top
-
Once top is running you can see what is running and eating the most CPU. The two services you killed above should not be seen.
-
Press Q key to exit.
Bonus: XBMC NFS export fix for blank media directories:
- SSH to drive
$ nano /etc/exports
Add to new empty line at bottom:
/nfs/Media 192.168.0.0/24(rw,subtree_check,secure)
Obviously change to where your media directory is and if different IP address.
- Reboot drive through GUI.
