WD MyCloud was my first NAS, as I found that (a) I didn’t want to leave my computer on to share across the home or outside (WD MB Live), and (b) the USB port of my router was very very slow, so I couldn’t make much use of a disk plugged into the router to be shared inside and outside the home.
This NAS is not expensive when you compare the cost of the WD Red disk inside.
It is a great way to test what a NAS is and what you want to do with it, but you need to feel comfortable going through a steep learning curve (SSH, Linux admin) if things don’t work for you out of the box.
There are many quirks, but no real showstopper if you have a top notch wireless and gigabit network at home. Using it to store unique copies of content is risky, because there is only one disk in the NAS (no Raid), and the backup feature doesn’t work at restore stage (manual workaround exist). Media serving is limited: the media server is OK, not great from a UI convenience perspective. The iTunes server is limited to Music sharing.
Performance is hampered by background media and photo scanning, but things settle down if you don’t have huge amounts of content moving around all the time. With all media and scanning features turned off, this NAS is high performance for file access and copy, but your mileage will vary depending on your network.
This NAS is fanless. Important if you have it in your room or media room. No noise.
Remote access is weak. The file remote access is super weak (files and video for example). The mobile app for photos is great.
After many small issues, there was the v4.0 upgrade, and that was the last straw for me. I purchased a Synology NAS and I use the My Cloud has a backup for the Synology, with all media and scanning features turned off.
If money is the issue, go for it. Worst case you will throw the thing away and keep the big disk for other purposes.
If you can afford it, go for a Synology. Much less headaches, much easier to use, much higher performance, but noisier (fans and spinning disk(s)).
