My Cloud EX4 – HDD Whitelist

[WDbennino]

Greetings!

Today’s the day… My Cloud EX4 launch day.  We’re excited.

Here is a link to the most recent (and updated) whitelist of HDD’s compatible with the My Cloud EX4.

My Cloud EX4 Whitelist

While we do support other HDD’s, we of course recommend WD Red drives!

Thanks,

mb

[ThePizzaMatrix]

It’s awesome this one can use 7200RPM HDD. Some Blacks in there should beat Red drives even with the nasware thing.

[EX4Shot]

1. That funny, when I contacted WD about unlisted drives, the tech replied I would void my warranty with unlisted drives…

2. How do we submit requests to have new drives tested/verified?  I have a couple:

WD20EARS

WD20EADS

I would like to use for a while, but with that waranty void documented, I am a little leary no matter how obsurd the statement is.

[TonyPh12345]

EX4Shot wrote:

 

2. How do we submit requests to have new drives tested/verified?  I have a couple:

WD20EARS

WD20EADS

Are those even made anymore?

[EX4Shot]

Definitly not. 1st & 2nd generations of the Green series.  (think we are on 3 or 4 now)  I have them in other machines I would like to migrate over to this box.

Most other MFGs support these models in their NAS, so it is probable that they will work.  I am just flabbergasted that a WD rep told me doing to will void the warranty. 

[TonyPh12345]

Heheh… well, yeah, that’s interesting.   If you bought it diskless, then the HD warranty stands separate from the NAS warranty.

I’m wondering if he simply meant that they can’t warrant the use of those drives, so as long as they’re in the system, they can’t help you if something goes wrong.

[EX4Shot]

Not much interpretation or grey area to this statement directly from WDs support email:

"As stated in our website working out of the manufacturer recommendations will be voiding the warranty of the product and the unit may not work properly.

 
Western Digital Service and Support"

---

Other MFGs have a venue to request features and compatibility of devices.

Does anyone know what is WDs official request process is to get these drives certified/verified / added to the white paper before I return it?

WD20EADS

WD20EARS

[WDTony]

This is not correct.

You can put any drive in the EX4 except ones we specifically “blacklist” which are none at the moment.

You will get a message that the drive is not supported, but it still should work. Support will not help you will drive issues if it is a drive that is not on the list.

As far as getting older drives on the list, I don’t think that will happen, but I think you should be ok with it working …right?

[EX4Shot]

I COMPLETELY AGREE, but that not what the “last rep said”!  I copied an pasted directly from his email when asking for an escalation on this from: noreply@salesforce.com; on behalf of; Western Digital Support [wdsupport@wdc.com]  How / who / which am I to trust with 2 statements coming from the same companies support staff!?  (and note he said there was no escalation and to call in.

Do I “dial a rep” and take the best two out of three answers?

Simmilar to the “I dont think that will happen” towards backward drive tests.  Im not asking for an opinion, I am asking for policy.  (sorry for the frankness, but hopefully you can appreciate the irony and frusteration)

I need concrete, difinitive answers to this question before my return window expires, and you get a B stock on the shelf by default.

[WDTony]

I understand the confusion. I am the product manager for the My Cloud line. I know what the support policy is on this. I talked to our support manager and he will get this straightened out by our teams. I apologize for the confusion this has caused you. You can use these drives in the system without worry of it causing any warranty issues for you. If you have any issues, please PM me.

As far as older drives, we can’t go backwards. In order for a drive to get on our list, we do thorough testing including thermal, op, shock and vibe testing. This requires quite a few drives for all our teams to test. I doubt we could even get our hands on these drives to test. 

As I mentioned, these drives will still work on the system.

Tony

[MrHomeMedia]

Is it recommended to have all the same drives from the whitelist or can the drives be mixed?

Thanks in advance…

[EX4Shot]

Theoreticly you should be able to mix.  I have a combination of 4TBs & 2TBs.  (and various Green models) 

[K_K_]

I have my disks from different manufactures, although of same capacity.

No other problems except for the ones raised on these forums that seem totally unrelated to the types of disks installed.

[MrHomeMedia]

For some reason my drives keep “degraded” the volume. I’m not wondering if it’s from having a mixed batch of drives.

[aleppos]

is this hard drive compatibility
Western Digital Red 6 TB NAS Hard Drive 1 to 8-Bay 3.5-inch SATA 6, IntelliPower, 64MB Cache Internal Bare or OEM Drives WD60EFRX  

[DavidSucesso]

WD60EFRX  is supported since the new firmware arrived ( 1.04.04)

[hkazazi]

so glad to hear this

[GlebLar]

Hi,
If i buy EX4 (with latest firmware) and four 6TB disks (WD60EFRX) - would the total capacity be 24TB or would it be truncated (for example on 16TB) due to any system limitation ?
Thanks.

[DavidSucesso]

Can you see the firmware in the box itself? Didnt noticed but if you have the latest yes will work fine

[GlebLar]

Thanks for the answer.

I can not verify firmvare without the device (I only plan to buy it), but I believe that firmvare update to the latest version will not be a problem, and support 6TB drives will be provided.

My question is somewhat different - is there a limit to the total volume of the storage?
For example, there are models with 4 bays that support 6TB discs, but the total storage capacity is cut to 16TB due to the internal limitations of the system.

On the model EX4 no such restriction? Found no mention of EX4 to 24TB, the maximum that is - 16TB.

I’ll get 24Tb raw capacity?

Thanks.