My Cloud Home - How Does Remote Access Work?

My Cloud Home - Personal Cloud Storage My Cloud Home Duo
1

I have the My Cloud Home Duo device and I’ve confirmed that I can access my photos stored on it via the Internet, when I’m not on my home network (Android app on my phone and tablet). Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at this, since it’s one of the advertised features, but I never had to open up any ports on my network router or anything like that, so I have a hard time understanding how I can get access to my photos from outside my home network. I’m a fairly technical person but haven’t been able to find any detailed info about how that works - anyone else have a clue how this works?

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@Wduser56, For My Cloud Home Duo remote access, please refer to this link: https://home.mycloud.com/

My Cloud Home and My Cloud Home Duo require a 9 digit activation code. For more information click on this link: Error

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Thanks @Neha_07 but this doesn’t answer my question. I have remote access working already. What I’m trying to understand is the technical explanation of how it works - especially given that I didn’t open any incoming ports on my WiFi router.

I don’t expect WD to be forthcoming about this, so I’m just hoping that someone else in the community has done a technical deep dive to figure out how it works and is willing to share the info.

4

Hello Wduser56. I have been having several issues with my MyCloud Duo so have been scratching around on the internet to try to find answers. I read your post and noticed you didn’t receive a reply.

Far from being an expert, I do think I know the answer to your question. If your router has UPnP enabled - which most do by default, this will allow certain devices to dynamically open ports to allow for communication with internet beyond your local network. This is typically OK, but potentially has security risks in which case you may wish to disable UPnP and open ports manually.

I know the post was over 3 years ago, so you may well have found the answer many moons ago. If not, I hope this helps.

5

Thanks @deliriumf , no, I didn’t find out anything beyond what I asked and since WD announced the termination of their service shortly after I posted, I never bothered searching further for answers.

Like others that may be still using the hardware, I’m just using it as a fancy local network drive now.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond and suggest an answer!