Can I use my cloud drive as a secondary drive.?

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud
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Hi guy

I own a Mycloud drive with OS 3 which I have been told that it will no longer be supported for updates so I was wondering if I bought a new drive like my cloud home or mybook nas drives, will I be able to attach the old drive to the new drive via usb like a normal external drive?

Thanks

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@Aauk25
Look at the User Manual, Chapter 12.
My Cloud Personal Storage User Manual (wdc.com)

You would need to know what other WD product you are going to buy and what it is capable of doing.

I plan to attach mine to my desktop computer and continue to use it as storage/backup.

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The OS3 My Cloud devices that cannot be updated to OS5 will continue to operate for local network access. It is the remote network access through WD’s servers that is being terminated along with firmware support.

My Cloud OS3 End of Service

Q: Will my device stop working if I can’t upgrade to My Cloud OS 5? Will I lose access to my data?
A: Once the services have been shut down, you will still be able to access the device on a local network. However, access through the My Cloud OS 3 mobile app or web app will not be possible. Email notifications also won’t be delivered. Devices that have auto-update enabled will receive a final firmware update to disable remote access and outbound traffic to cloud services. Then, support will end and you’ll have to use the local network to access the device.

Yes, one can extract the hard drive from the single bay/single drive My Cloud enclosure. One can then use a USB to SATA adapter (that supports 3.5 inch drives) to connect the My Cloud drive to another device. Note however that the My Cloud hard drive is formatted for Linux (EXT4). If one was expecting to read the data off their existing My Cloud drive one will need to use a device or software driver that can read EXT4 formatted drives. Otherwise one will have to re-partition and re-format the My Cloud drive (once extracted) to work in the new device. Re-partitioning and re-formatting will result in loosing all existing data on the drive. So backup the drive if planning on re-partitioning and re-formatting.

If you need a network attached storage device (NAS) then avoid the My Cloud Home line of devices. Those devices are not really NAS devices. Likewise the My Book Live drives are also not really full fledged NAS drives. There are a number of NAS manufacturers out there in addition to WD. Synology and Qnap are the other major brands of NAS devices.

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No you can’t connect the old drive to the new drive. But you can connect them both to your network and then copy back and forth between them.

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Please can you tell me how to connect to my desktop and continue to use as storage? I did try to connect it to my desktop but couldn’t find it? I’m not a techi (64 years young) but loved Mycloud. Thanks in advance

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@Decsnan
See my topic on this.

WDMYCLOUD 1st Generation now on my Network only - My Cloud OS 3 Personal Cloud Storage / My Cloud - WD Community
You’ll need the IP address and Netmask.

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Any reason you don’t want to just leave it connected to your network along with any new NAS you buy? You’d have two NAS on your network then, and could copy freely between them.

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You need a SATA to USB cable/converter, then you need to install Linux EXT4 file system reader.
Use Linux Reader in this site, it has good interface: Access to Ext 2/3/4, HFS and ReiserFS from Windows | DiskInternals

I used this sequence to recover my data from My Cloud old HD to my Laptop.

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In my case, I was not able to connect to my old My Cloud device, it blinks read with no hope of accessing the data through the old NAS My Cloud device

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@Abubaker
To whom were you replying? I don’t know why you sent this information to me. I’m not having any problems with any of my devices.

" You need a SATA to USB cable/converter, then you need to install Linux EXT4 file system reader.
Use Linux Reader in this site, it has good interface: Access to Ext 2/3/4, HFS and ReiserFS from Windows| DiskInternals

I used this sequence to recover my data from My Cloud old HD to my Laptop."

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I won’t go into the long story, but due to a known issue where all of a sudden, folders are marked as Access Denied for no reason and there’s no real fix, I’ve lost confidence in the EX2 ULTRA as a NAS.
So, I’m wondering, if there’s a way to use it as a simple “drive bay?”
Like, I can plug another drive into its USB 3 ports at the back and those are routed through the network and seen by windows as a normal drive. in fact, they are normal drives.

So I wonder, if I format the 2 drives that are inside with NTFS, can this be configured so that Windows can see them as standard windows drives?
For clarity, I mean, where, if necessary, I can take ownership of a folder or entire drive or change ownership as I would do with any drive, including the 2 connected to the rear?

Thanks in advance.

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No. The USB port(s) on the back of My Cloud devices are USB Host meaning you can only connect USB devices like USB hard drives to it. It cannot be used to connect to a computer to treat the My Cloud as an external USB hard drive.

Any USB drive you attach to a My Cloud USB port will typically show up as another Share on the My Cloud. You can configure that Share and access to that Share using the My Cloud Dashboard > Shares tab.

Note there is a specific subforum where EX2 Ultra issues are discussed and where people more familiar with at device can assist with issues. The EX2 Ultra can be updated to OS5 v5.x firmware.

My Cloud EX Series
https://community.wd.com/c/os5/my-cloud-ex-series/255

This subforum (My Cloud) generally deals with and discusses the single bay My Cloud devices running on the discontinued OS3 (v3.x, v4.x, v2.x) firmware.

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Thanks. I figured as much. I’ll check out the other subforum.
Just for clarity, though, I realize that I wasn’t clear.
Yes, I’m aware that if I plug in a USB driver (or 2) to the back, they do become shares and that’s fine for me.
The thing is, those USB drives are not “reformatted” and retain the NTFS partition/format. So there’s no problem then in disconnecting the USB drive and connecting directly to the computer and all works well.

So I probably should have asked if there’s a way to have the internal drives treated the same way… in that… I reformat them with NTFS (like the USB drive) put them back in and then have them treated as shares without the NAS reformatting them.

Come to think of it, it may be possible as long as I don’t allow RAID (If that’s possible). I’d be fine with the 2 internal drives being treated as 2 separate “shares” that could be popped out and connected to the computer and just work.

I’ll take a peak at that other form and post the question there.

Thanks so much, Bennor.

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No. Generally, the My Cloud operating system is run from, or uses, the hard drive and the operating system expects the hard drive to be a certain format and in certain cases have a number of partitions on them for the operating system to use. If you reformat the hard drive to a format the operating system doesn’t support (for it’s internal drive) it will likely not properly mount and use the drive.

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