I have just updated to the latest firmware above and now it takes over 2 minutes to load the web interface. This is the second EX4 I have had after I had to return the original after it to pretty much died after a firmware up date. I am mainly writing this to let people know that this is the worst IT product that I have ever brought. WD make amazing drives but the EX4 is a total lemon I just wish I could get my money back so I can get another brand that works. Sorry but I really hate this product 2 minutes to load the web interface now the CPU is running at 99% all the time and backing anything up to it is painfully slow. If you want to suggest a fix you are welcome to come to my house to take it to the tip I am sick of wasting time on it.
The CPU of EX4 is an “older” model with Kirkwood Single-Core CPU, so please be patient after having installed the firmware update. The indexing services may cause the CPU load but this will end as soon as the indexing work is done.
Still should WD be selling single core CPU’s at such an elevated price? I have been patient throughout the whole experience (a year later) it isn’t a very good product an you know it.
The sluggish behavior of the UI seems due to the idiocy of scanning the entire disk to categorize each and every file as ‘music’, ‘photo’ and so on and putting the results on the initial page. I found that with a RAID degradation, the thing loads the Disk page and there is no delay.
If WD would (1) remove the dashboard graphic for file types or (2) move it to a different page the EX4 would be greatly improved.
As an alternative, turning off the ‘cloud’ feature turns off this overhead and the EX4 performs decently. Naturally, that disables a significant feature that makes the system attractive. It also means the device is not accessible outside the ‘home’ subnet. In my case, that means I cannot open the dashboard from my desktop because it’s on a different subnet. A very stupid limitation that could have easily been made configurable instead of hardwiring it.
How long should indexing take? My EX4 is still painfully slow loading the new UI since upgrading about 3 weeks ago…
Has any body got a copy of the previous firmware version so I can roll back??
The new UI makes the WD EX4 unusable. The UI is so slow - it takes a while to respond - so long that I think the software is hanging. Now doing any maintenance/updates to users/directories are totally impossible. This is terrible!! Did the WD team never test the UI before releasing the upgrade???
I actually had to get two new replacement EX4’s from RMA’s. Fan on original one stopped working, and file access painfully slow. Got replacement unit, and identical symptoms happened once I did firmware “upgrade”
Got second replacement unit, is running great, and will ignore the nags to upgrade firmare
