Difference between MyCloud GEN1 and GEN2

What is the difference between GEN1 & GEN2 MyCloud? How can you determine which GEN a model is? Can you upgrade a GEN1 to GEN2?

I now know that the Gen2 I bought is running BusyBox not Debian, which seems to severely limit any modifications such as running additional software on the device. I wanted to run my cloud backup software (Crashplan) on mine. I wouldn’t have bought it if I’d known it was a Gen2.

If one uses the forum search feature they’ll find this question about the difference between v3.x/v4.x versions and the newer v2.x versions has been asked before (as recently as last week) and discussed previously.

No at this time one CANNOT flash the v2.x firmware to the older v3.x or v4.x My Clouds.

The main difference between the older and newer versions is hardware and a different OS. See the following threads for more information:

https://community.wd.com/t/wd-my-cloud-2-x-firmware-what-else-has-changed/160303

https://community.wd.com/t/change-firmware-from-ver-4-to-ver-2-on-original-my-cloud/158542

https://community.wd.com/t/fw-versions/148668/14

It is possible to run other applications on a busybox system. One needs to know if the programs on the gen2 are compiled with pagesize 4k or 64k. I suspect that programs compiled to run on the gen2 would have to be compiled with statically linked libraries. The DNS-323 NAS is also a busybox system. It runs minidlana which is not part of busybox. You can find information about how other programs are run on the DNS-323 by googling for fun_plug.07. But I have yet to find the key file
on a gen2 that would get run on boot-up. On the DNS-323 it looks for a file on the disk drive. If found it will run the script.

RAC

See this from the Knowledge Base Error .