I don’t agree that the os5 mycloud feature is an upgrade. For me, this element is by far the worst thing about os5. I know it always depends on the use case but just to inform people, here are the most significant issues from my side:
- Cannot upload files greater than 5GB (this renders it already useless for my work, even without the other issues)
- In the list view, can’t see either file date/time or file size (ironically, new in os5 is sort by file size, but you can’t see the file size you’ve just sorted by!)
- Can’t copy only move
- Can’t move between shares only within share
- Can’t change file extension when renaming (in OS3 was possible in web portal)
- Can’t bulk download eg a directory
PLUS - Can’t put a share into the MyCloud portal without endless indexing and reducing drive lifetime (a real own goal, because everyone notices this immediately, whereas many people haven’t noticed / don’t care about the other issues)
- The uploading being clunky compared to OS3 and seems unreliable in general
- Several other small things
- And subjectively for me, the OS3 UI was much more clean and functional
- I’ll mention one other thing which isn’t for me important, but many people mentioned: Lack of Exif data from pics. But if they start indexing that too…
By the way, many of the other problems people had have been down to the “hardening” of OS5 which in general I agree with, though it should always be possible for a user to opt out.
I think WD should have done the core OS stuff first, then done the whole cloud / indexing thing as a Phase 2. The NAS market is a big growth market but they didn’t do themselves any favours with OS5 so far imo.
The final point: Perhaps WD should do much more to actively (and not just passively) support Docker. This could be a real growth area and also very good for their rep.
