It’s a shame that with all the great software suggestions in this forum along with multiple bug reports, we have not seen a single firmware update in almost half a year.
I am not sure if I am interpreting something correctly, but I just looked closely at the Specifications page of the new EX2100,the successor model to our EX2 → http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1470#Tab3
And under Power Management, I see this line:
- FAN Control
Makes me wonder…did WD actually provide a custom fan control feature in the EX2100’s dashboard, a feature many of us EX2 users have been wishing we had since last year. And if so, could that signal perhaps that all new features and firmware updates will be happening on the EX2100 and not on the EX2? I hope not. That’s not how QNAP and Synology’s firmware updates work. Sure, with each firmware update those companies drops support for some older NAS products but their firmware upgrades typically can be applied on products from past several years.
Again, this is just me wondering out aloud…not saying anything one way or another, since I simply do not know the answer. If someone wishes to be certain what that fan control really looks like, they can pose the question requesting a dashboard screenshot from an EX2100 owner in the Expert Series subforum ( http://community.wd.com/t5/My-Cloud-Expert-Series/bd-p/mycloud_exseries ). I do not care much for fan control myself, since I do not have any issues with it heating. For my usage of over a year, my single drive (I only have 1) has never been more than just warm, and that is with 24x7 uptime. However, I am wondering if firmware support is continuing. My hunch is - it is continuing but having had a few occassional issues with previous firmware releases, WD is (hopefully) rigorously putting it through QA before releasing. That’s just my hunch.
As always Cybernut1, your words are much appreciated. You continue to be one of the best contributors to this forum. I wish WD would employ you as a consultant to their NAS group.
From day one, I loved the value of the EX2 and I have to admit, I thought the physical design was innovative and cool. But I fear that WD may have leared from some mistakes with the EX2 and as such, they might be “moving on”. Maybe the whole fan control heating issue that so many have compained about here for well over a year is actually “not fixable”. Maybe the CPU used in the EX2, in retrospect, was under powered for what consumers want, but at the time, maybe WD viwed the EX2 CPU as a great price-point to deliver a nice NAS for a great price. We will probably never know WDs thoughts on the matter.
In any event, I hope the EX2 will not be abandoned in the sence that we may rarely or never see any more firmeware updates. As you illuded Cybernut1, this is not how the “dedicated” NAS companies like QNAP and Synology operate. Those companies continue to update there firmeware across their entire product line, even for most models that are discontinued. But sadly, WD is not a “dedicated” NAS company, they are a “drive” company, that happens to also make NAS products … a strategy that I actually think is smart, as long as they put the kind of focus in their NAS products like the dedicated NAS companies.
I do not think that WD will abandon EX2, because this is how a company loses its image: make a product that users pay alot of money, thinking it will be an investment for a few years, then discontinue the service after only 1 year.
Who will go and buy their next gen NAS in this conditions ?
I’m sure that EX2100 is not way better than EX2 and when users start pointing flaws, then what …a new NAS ?
