Any notable Pros/Cons of upgrading from OS3 to OS5 in 2024?

My Cloud OS 5 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud
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I have deliberately kept my 2TB single-bay My Cloud WDBCTLxxxxxxx-10 on OS v2.41.116 and it works fine on my local network. I suppose any wrinkles in the upgrade process to OS5 should have already been ironed out, but I wonder if there are any notable Pros/Cons of upgrading from OS3 to OS5? For instance:

  • does OS5 encrypt the drive and does it prevent shacking it and using it in a server in the future?
  • do we lose any apps on OS5?
  • are there any new features we gain? (apart from remote access)
  • are there frequent known issues in the upgrade process?

Many thanks

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Don’t think OS5 encrypts the drive.
As to any issues upgrading on a single bay second gen My Cloud, use the forum search feature to find many past discussions on upgrading to OS5 and issues (or lack there of) people had.
There are several WD Knowledge Base Articles that address some of your questions:
My Cloud OS 5 & OS 3, The Key Differences in Product Features
List of Compatible 3rd Party Apps for My Cloud OS 5

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@hjkbmk

I updated mine when OS5 was first available and haven’t had any problems. The image below shows the current firmware on it.
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This image shows apps available and what I have installed.

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image963Ă—534 28.3 KB

I also have a first generation My Cloud that I have connected to my home network.

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Thanks @Bennor and @cat0w - it seems there aren’t any downsides to upgrading to OS5, especially considering that one can sideload some of the missing apps: https://fox-exe.ru/WDMyCloud/WDMyCloud-Gen2/Apps-OS5/

This holds especially given that any potential benefits of OS3 (e.g. the app or WebDAV) are nullified after the shutting down of the servers.

Am I right and would you recommend updating?

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@hjkbmk

Updating is for you to decide.

I like it because I can use the mobile app and have access to what’s on my My Cloud when I’m away from home.

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The primary downsides in my mind are;

  1. For cloud access; the drive must be indexed. Indexing of this model is VERY resource intensive; and if the drive is very full with many small media files. . . . indexing could LITERALLY take a week. and the drive will be pretty unresponsive during that time.

  2. OS/5 seems to “phone home” to do various internet tasks WAY more that OS/3 ever did. You know. . .for your “security”.

The upsides are as follows;

  1. Better security. OS/3 was notoriously weak from a cyber perspective and is no longer being updated. OS/5 is probably not great. . . but at least it’s current and it does get occassional updates.

  2. A few minor (but annoying) bugs have been resolved.

My view;

  1. If you are hooked to the internet in any way; upgrade.
  2. If you care about privacy; you might not want this device exposed to the internet. In that case; OS/3 is probably fine. In my system; I run O/S 3 on a router that has no internet access. As an alternative (For those less paranoid); I would block the NAS unit from the internet from the router (i.e. router will refuse all internet traffic from the NAS to the internet in both directions)
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Thanks. Does the index take a lot of storage? Also, does it reindex at boot? How does it update new files?
I can imagine this sort of indexing could prevent the drive from sleeping or make it unresponsive on boot if turned off for an extended period.

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Nobody quite figured out what triggered indexing. (except turning cloud services off, then on. After that. . . seems like an almost random occurrence).

Normally; you would expect indexing to be incremental as you add files to the drive. So after the initial push to do the entire thing. . . .you done.

The indexing process (theoretically) creates thumbnails for previews across the internet. Much faster to serve a thumbnail; than an entire file. Storage size (I think) is nominal.

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So, if one keeps cloud access off, then it sounds like OS3 might be the more reliable solution. I hate unknown processes occupying my drive and preventing it from sleeping. I also noticed HTTP Download is one app without (GUI) alternative in OS5.

I updated to the latest release of OS3, but I might just stay there for now.

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From a security perspective; turning off cloud services on the OS/3 device is inadequate.

You need to actively BLOCK internet access from the router.

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OS5 isn’t perfect but I can’t think of any good reason not to upgrade from OS3.