TL;DR Beware of malware; may be too risky unless firmware & software can be corrected.
Unfortunately this is unlikely because WD itself doesn’t make small NAS type disk enclosures as mass market items, but how could it and should it stay competitive in retail?
The mass market is moving away from 3.5" HDD storage, towards 2.5" SSDs and even Western Digital Corporations itself is being sold off and merged with the Japanese semiconductor company Kioxia (formerly Toshiba). The future of WD’s consumer division may be in flux and it is hard to predict how Kioxia would change the direction of Western Digital corporation as a whole and whether Kioxia would even pursue a retail business.
Mass market SSDs are dropping in prices as they have never done before, with 2 TB SSDs as low as $62 (June 2023). Together with this type of enclosure and app support, a home consumer or hobbyists and even small companies can own a SSD Nas device with personal cloud access for about $130 for 2TB SSD.
About this item
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Family Storage & Sharing: Safely store photos, videos, movies, up to 8TB(15mm 2.5" SATA HDD/SSD). Separate privacy from shared content. -
Permanent Free Private Cloud: Share photos and videos to different devices and systems anytime, anywhere without paying any monthly fees. -
Duplex Mode: Global NAS APP-Connect, and the mobile phone photo album is automatically backed up. As external hard drive, using the USB3.2 Type-c interface, the speed of backing up computer data is up to 5Gbps. -
Tool-free Installation: This nas case comes with magnetic case. After installing the hard drive, press the switch button with the blue LED light up. -
You Will Get: Quad Core Cortex-A55 CPU NAS storage with Gigabit Ethernet, USB3.2 Gen1 Type-c and user manual. Orico offers a 18-month warranty and lifetime service support.
This item is widely available online and has been tested to be somewhat effective and in some ways superior to the personal cloud hardware that is currently available. These are the summary of pros and cons:
PROS
- user removable 2.5 SSD SATA, it takes 1 minute or less to swap disks. Swapping disks does not break the operation system which is running from the built in 8 GB emmc.
- Mostly secure remote access*
- USB c can directly access the internal SSD/HDD when GbE is unplugged
- USB c can read and access an external disk via Weline software to share content remotely when GbE is plugged in and connected to the internet.
- 1Gbe Ethernet SMB share w password security
- ‘free’ Lifetime VPN security for remote access of device
- Realtek RTD1319 quadcore A55, 1 GB DDR4, 8 GB emmc for program storage
- Sync desktop, mobile
- Automatic backup of folders
- iOS, Android, mac,Win, Android TV
- Multiuser sharing
- Win, mac OS desktop support
CONS
- Shenzen, China based
- little tech support, no forum support, no sign of GPL code
- immature apps, little or no user base
- Poor SATA performance in the range of 60 MBps read sequential. This is slower than similar devices using the USB port for samba.
- File sharing link functionality via weline elink is broken in every version as of July, 2023
- Factory 1.10 firmware most likely has malware; UPGRADE to latest US firmware, ASAP
- torrent ports opened by default in UpNP in firmware 1.60
- multiple ports opened in UpNP by default
- iOS app required for transmission & other app management and changing default settings.
- remote access not available in some countries
- little or no user programmability such as Docker even though hardware is capable
Poor performance of SATA of CD2510 even with SSD drive
This performance could change with future firmware upgrades as we have seen for many personal cloud storage systems.
There is a CD 3510 “coming out in Aug 2023” that supports 3.5" HDDs according to O*** Direct US Store support team, price unknown is most likely in the $100 USD range.
This feature is undocumented by this company, but it could be used to for desktop access of remote SMB drive via a VPN assigned device managed subnet ip address. ** This represents a replacement of desktop features of WD Discovery for example.
After more testing, it was found that malware persisted and the unit continued to contact malicious sites around the world even after updating to latest FW 1.82 (as of July, 2023). This unit is not recommended until changes to firmware is completed.
It is possible that the Android APK may be part of the problem because after installation of Weline apk (app support for this CD2510 device) to an Android TV, malware activity was detected and the Weline app was apparently disabled by the Android TV OS.
