Drive mapping on a 4tb mycloud remotely

Hi all,
1st post here so be gentle :slight_smile:

I have a 4tb MyCloud, that I have successfully mapped when on my home network.

Is there a way of mapping the drive remotely when not on home network, as I find the MyCloud interface hugely frustrating, and would just like to use the NAS via Explorer if at all possible?

Grateful for any advice

Paul

No.

WD removed the ability to remotely map a My Cloud (using the WD2Go.com web portal) several years ago. WD has flat out stated they have no intention of reinstating this feature.

https://community.wd.com/t/re-enable-remote-drive-mapping-through-mycloud-com/134944/

One can still use the WD Desktop software, just note that this software is End of Life and no longer officially supported by WD.

Windows: http://download.wdc.com/nas/WDMyCloud_win.exe
Mac: http://download.wdc.com/nas/WDMyCloud_mac.dmg

Unofficially there may be ways to use FTP to create a remote map in Windows File Explorer but the FTP protocol is insecure. There is also the option of using SSH to somehow remotely map a My Cloud.

The better option, but involves a bit more work, is to use a VPN connection to the remote network containing a My Cloud. This involves setting up a VPN server (like OpenVPN for example) on the remote network (or using a router that supports VPN), configuring the router to support the VPN tunnel, and then using a VPN client on the computer that will be used to access the remote network.

Correct. USE A VPN is the correct answer.

The internet is too dangerous to send LAN traffic over without encrypting the bejesus out of. I dont care how inconvenient that is. Failure to do so is how you end up with ransomware encrypting all your files, like with WannaCry.

SMB, Apple File Protocol, and NFS are NOT designed for insecure links. To use them, you need to establish a secured link over the untrusted network. That means an encrypted tunnel; EG-- a VPN.

Bear in mind that even if you set this up properly, you will likely run into asymmetrical bandwidth restrictions from your ISP(s). By this, I mean that most ISPs will throttle upload speeds to some fraction of a megabit, while giving you several megabits of bandwidth for download. To send data out to you at a remote location, your mycloud has to upload. If its upload speed is capped by your ISP, you are gonna get very slow access speeds. Same for uploading TO the mycloud as then the computer doing the upload to the mycloud will be what is throttled.

This kind of thing is really only useful when you have something like fiber to the home style internet, and have a good upload rate. Otherwise, it is likely to just cause you grief, and you should stick with things like FTP, or the MyCloud app types of access.