Configuring a direct ethernet connection between 4Tb My Cloud and Laptop

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud
1

Dear all,

I have purchased a WD 4TB My Cloud, and I am trying to connect this to a Dell Inspiron 5523, running Windows 8.1.

Although I know that it is not how this device is typically intended to be used, what I would like to do is directly connect the My Cloud to my laptop via the ethernet cable.

There are several reasons why it is not possible for me to connect the drive via the network I use for the internet and why if possible I’d like to avoid using a network switch.

I’m struggling to find a tutorial on how to set up the drive in this configuration. If anyone could give me some pointers, or directions to a tutorial, it would help me alot.

Many thanks for any help you can offer,

Luke

2

the main issue would be getting the IP address set

could you connect it to a network with a router for the initial setup? If so set a statics IP address on the mycloud and the PC that are different but on the same subnet, 192.168.1.2 on one and 192.168.1.3 on the other with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. most devices have a default IP if DHCP is not available I just don’t recall what it is

once the IP is set it should work fine on that PC but you have no network or cloud services available.

If this is truly your goal I would return this drive and get a USB 3.0 drive, much simpler for what you are saying you want. If you are trying to achieve somthing else someone here may be able to help if you provide more details

3

Dear Larry,

Thank you for replying so quickly.

I agree that a simple USB3.0 drive would be the ideal solution. Unfortunately, returning the drive is likely to be harder than configuring the drive over a direct ethernet connection. This is because returning the drive requires dealing with both the purchasing and IT teams where I work, which is…not easy, to be polite. It is in fact the reason why I ended up with an inappropriate drive in the first place.

Thank you for your advice, I can hopefully then set up the device on my home network before I use it as an external drive at work.

Many thanks,

Luke

4

I assume your laptop is connecting to the company LAN with wifi then? if not you will have other issues

do not set the mycloud/notebook wired port on a subnet used be the company but keep it to a non-routable address, 192.168.x.x are all non-routable, there are a few other blocks as well but I don’t recall them off hand

5

Yes, that is correct, I connect to the internet via a WiFi network that I do not have access too.

Thank you for the heads up about using an appropriate subnet!