I didn’t do much research and basically just bought the best-selling one on Amazon.
When I stumbled upon this forum, I was kind of shocked to see so many issues that people are having. Thousands and thousands.
The only “issue” that I have is that the upload speed via the internet isn’t as fast as I had hoped. My upload speed is 8mbps. If I upload a 1gb file to Dropbox or Google Drive, I can usually get as much as 6mbps upload speed. With My Cloud, it’s never been more than 1mbps or 2mbps. (tested from several places where internet download speeds are 30mbps to 50mbps)
I bought it for ONE purpose only. I have a bunch of home movies on my hard drive. I want to allow my family members in other parts of the country to easily download them. These home movies are usually birthdays, recitals, vacations, etc… they were shot using HD camcorder in M2TS file. The original videos were almost 6gb for every 1 hour. I have converted them to MP4 1080p files to make them smaller. I usually try to keep it at 1gb per half hour of video.
Is there a better alternative? I can stil return the My Clound hard drive.
How are you uploaling the file to dropbox or google drive? This device does not support direct access to those sites.
Also, you having issues moving files around locally (LAN)? The reason, this devices does not connect to the internet directly, it could care less what connection to the internet (WAN) you have. So if you are not having issues locally, the issue is somewhere else.
LOL, if you search forums for the best devices and most expensive devices, all have issues. Some are user issues, other software.
I have used sharepoint from Cloud Apps. The sync feature is really cool and happens really fast on all your devices. Security has been really good as well so far and the storage capacity is great even with the free package. I generally have used it for movies, business docs, softwares and stuff.
If you want Dropbox or Google Drive like access for file storage than pay for Dropbox or Google Drive. The lower end My Cloud devices are NOT a 1:1 replacement for Dropbox or Google Drive.
There is what you “hoped” and the real world. In the real world uploading speed can vary for a whole variety of reasons. Same goes for local LAN speed. For remote access it appears one is going through the WD2Go.com/MyCloud.com site. If this is the case it shouldn’t be a surprise that there is a delay introduced that causes slower download speeds a the remote location. One can always use the FTP option of the My Cloud to connect direct to the device, or roll their own VPN or SSH connection to see if that improves remote download speeds.
Many if not most of the complaints in this user to user support forum are due to people NOT reading the WD My Cloud User Guide. Many more complaints are due to unrealistic expectations of the single drive My Cloud devices. There are several well known issues (El Capitan, no remote mapping, 999mb copy) for which there is no official fix from WD (or Apple).
If a) your needs are modest, b) you have some Linux familiarity and c) you’re willing to void the hell out of your warranty, you can achieve a fast, cheap, Samba media streaming box.
But yes, there are much, much, much better solutions on the market if you’re willing to pay for them.
