Hello,
After the OS3 has been discontinued by WD, is there any alternative to keep using the EX4 as a personal cloud?
I’ve been reading but I’ve found nothing 
Thank you
Hi @imasdes ,
Please refer the article My Cloud: Access When Connected Directly to a Computer:
For more information please contact the WD Technical Support team for best assistance and troubleshooting:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/ask
Thank you @Keerti_01
Unfortunately EX4 can’t be upgraded to OS5 as stated in the compatibility list. So, I have a wonderful local drive, but not a personal cloud
Thank you anyway
Well; COLOR ME SHOCKED - - -Keerti_01 gave a non-stock answer.
@imasdes What do you mean by personal cloud? Do you mean a NAS that can be accessed by any computer on your network? Or do you mean a NAS that can be accessed from anywhere on the planet?
To access the NAS from anywhere on the planet; you need to do a few things that our outside of WD’s scope (which is why it isn’t documented). I will provide a brief summary below (I am leaving a few things out for “brevity”)
Fundamentally; you need to establish a VPN connection to your home network; such that you establish a secure connection to your own home network. This essentially means running a VPN server on your network (such as OpenVpn); through which you can access your network. The VPN server then can act as a type of router on your network AND provide encryption from your PC to the network. Note that a number of routers (I use cheap ASUS routers) can themselves run a VPN server. (for my cheap ASUS units, they support OpenVpn out of the box).
Once you have OpenVpn server running on your network, you can then run OpenVPN client on your PC to establish the connection to your home network.
Once that is done; you can access the NAS similar to how you access at home (using file explorer). It is slightly different that in most cases, the PC on VPN connection will have an IP address on a different subnet than the NAS. As such, you can access the NAS via IP address; but for some reason “Name resolution” doesn’t work (at least with my ASUS router) (in other words. . . . \\192.168.0.10 works; but \\MyCloud does not)
**important note: You are running OS/3. No OS/3 device should be exposed to the internet. It is NOT sufficient to turn off cloud services. You should BLOCK internet access wholesale from the router. The exact method varies by router vendor.
**On my cheap Asus routers; there is real quick means to block access from the internet to the NAS. Unfortunately, that method ALSO blocks access from other subnets on your network (which kills VPN access). The only way I have found around this obstacle is to flash the router with new firmware (i.e. Merlin). . . which I have not done. (What I did instead was a nuclear option of running my NAS’s on an independent network that has no WAN (internet) connection).
**One can argue that OS/5 also should be blocked from the internet; at present for privacy concerns; but pretty soon I will be security concerns will also develop.
