[GUIDE] Upgrade a working My Cloud to a bigger HDD (easy steps)

[Proglin]

Hello!

I just upgraded My Cloud (1st gen) from 2TB to 4TB and it worked flawless.
Let me share here. Someone might want do the same process

Important: If your device is dead or with failure this guide is not for you. In this cases search for “unbrick” or take a look at this folder: GDrive WDMyCloud posted by @Fox_exe

Important Note: It has no guarantees. Do it at your own risk

Ok. What you need before you get started:

• 2 usb sticks (you can use 1 if you reuse it - gonna take more effort)
• working My Cloud
• new bigger hdd
• working PC with 2 SATA ports

1. Download Clonezilla: alternative stable (Ubuntu-based)
   Select: file type iso
2. Burn Clonezilla iso to your usb stick. I have used Rufus 3.8
3. Use your second usb stick to create a Ubuntu Live USB
4. Remove HDD from your My Cloud
5. Remove all HDD SATA connections from your PC (to avoid data loss)
6. Connect your original hdd and your new bigger hdd to your PC (sata connections)
7. Plug your Clonezilla USB Stick and boot your PC.

On Clonezilla Menu Select:

8. Clonezilla Live (Default settings)
9. Your language and keyboard
10. Start_Clonezilla
11. device-device work directly from a disk
12. Beginner Beginner mode
13. disk_to_local_disk local_disk_to_local_disk_clone
14. Choose your SOURCE as your original My Cloud HDD (Caution: DOUBLE CHECK this STEP!)
15. Choose your TARGET as your new bigger HDD (Caution: DOUBLE CHECK this STEP!)
16. Start clonning (confirm yes twice)
17. Go take a coffee. In my case it took 3hours to copy 2TB to a 4TB hdd
18. After finish turn off your PC

.

19. Unplug your USB Stick and remove your old hdd from your PC (keep your new hdd plugged)
20. Plug your Ubuntu USB Stick and boot your PC

.

Open Gparted

21. Select your HDD (should be something like: /dev/sda or /dev/sdb). Take a look at the hdd size as reference
22. Right click on your 4th partition (should be /dev/sda4 or /dev/sdb4)
23. Select resize
24. Expand your partition to use all “unallocated” space
25. Apply settings (Say “yes” if gparted asks to fix anything)

Finals steps:

26. Shutdown your PC and remove your usb stick and your new hdd (now you can reattach your SATA connections from your PC)
27. Reassembly your My Cloud with the new big HDD
28. Turn it ON and wait for blue light.

Note: your original My Cloud HDD is untouched, so your can reassembly it back if your new big HDD didn’t work

Have fun!

[JoeySmyth]

Thanks for the Guide … i have an older 2TB WD My Cloud which i was thinking about doing this to one day

[Bennor]

Going to give this a try on a shucked 12TB white label WD Elements drive from Best Buy’s US Black Friday $179.99 sale.

[Bennor]

Finally got CloneZilla to work at cloning to a new larger drive. In my case I wound up having to put the existing My Cloud drive and the new one in USB to SATA enclosures then perform the clone. For some reason if I used my PC’s SATA ports CloneZilla would throw errors.

Yeah that’s right. That is not a typo. 22 TB’s of free space.

The My Cloud has an internal 12 TB drive and a second 12 TB drive attached via USB. These two drives will be going into a better NAS enclosure hopefully soon if Synology enclosures go on sale during Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

[Ralphael]

I just upgraded My Cloud (1st gen) from 2TB to 4TB and it worked flawless.
Let me share here. Someone might want do the same process

Thanks for sharing the process. Good Job @Proglin !

I had been procrastinating on upgrading my measly 8TB My Clouds to 12TB for ages and now I can begin anew on knowing that it is that much easier and it is just taking the time to do it. I’ll begin my new procrastination today and perhaps one day… bookmarked for some future endeavour

Yeah that’s right. That is not a typo. 22 TB’s of free space.

The My Cloud has an internal 12 TB drive and a second 12 TB drive attached via USB. These two drives will be going into a better NAS enclosure hopefully soon if Synology enclosures go on sale during Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

Well that answers the question whether or not a 12TB drive will work on a My Cloud!

Good job @Bennor!!

[Bennor]

Well that answers the question whether or not a 12TB drive will work on a My Cloud!

@Ralphael
These 12 TB WD White Label drive came from a shucked WD Easystore enclosure. The 12 TB WD Easystores are currently $179.99 at Best Buy (Black Friday deal).

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-12tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/6364259.p?skuId=6364259

Not sure what exactly these drives are though (WD Red, WD Green, WD Blue, etc.) as there isn’t much specification information out there (basically none) about these White Label drives. Best Buy’s website claims these are 7200 RPM drives, yet Crystal Disk Info shows them as 5400 RPM drives.

[Ralphael]

These 12 TB WD White Label drive came from a shucked WD Easystore enclosure. The 12 TB WD Easystores are currently $179.99 at Best Buy (Black Friday deal).

you lucky US dawgs! we don’t have those 12TB WD Easystores up here in Canada. The best I can do to get some 12TB drives is through ebay and those are currently retailing at $329 Cdn.

They use to have Hitachi drives in those WDs and it might just be a rebranded hitachi since there are not too many 12TB drives around or maybe its a rebranded Green drive with extra platters since it is a 5400 rpm drive. Best Buy info is always wrong or at least copied from another WD drive. I doubt that WD would put a 7200 rpm drive in any USB unit simply for the reason of heat; my guess.

Nice though. 12TB is 12TB period no matter what colour drive it might be and those USB 3.0 read writes are pretty sweet.

[Proglin]

Wow! Nice work @Bennor: 24TB a huge upgrade