MyCloud Drive works on my network but not on friend's

[mkelley]

Here’s the dealio – I have two of these drives which work find on my network so my friend bought one and we cannot get it working despite the best efforts of his network provider (Century Link) and even a level 2 WD Mycloud tech.

Both of them checked his router and all the settings and said it was fine, but the drive shows as “Unavailable” or “Not Connected” (I forget which) when we try and look at it remotely (it works fine locally in his network). I took it to my own home across town, just plugged it into my network, and now it works fine and he (and his sons) can see it and the shares he set up for them when it was at his house.

Obviously (I THINK) it has something to do with his router, but my expertise is software and networks really aren’t my thing. Equally obviously, the WD tech guy said all the settings on his router looked good. Is there something he could have missed? I didn’t do ANYTHING to my router to make it work with the drives, but then again, I have no firewall on my router (I rely upon my software and AV on my drives themselves to handle things). What should I be looking for to get his own system working properly?

[Bennor]

Edit reread your post and its remote access they are having trouble with.

It is possible Century Link is blocking inbound access to your friends My Cloud. If this is the case they can change the Remote Access settings on the My Cloud Dashboard to use alternate ports. The default ports are 80 and 443. Then one must configure their router to “port forward” those new ports to the My Cloud.

[mike27oct]

I use Comcast service and I have never noticed them blocking any access to my network or router, and can’t think of a reason why they or Century Link would be so creepy, but they might. I suspect the problem lies with the router itself or its settings. One thing about a router today, one needs a modern dual-band N router that has gigabit speeds. If one has their own modem, too (as I do, it should be a DOCCIS3 modem if purchased internet service is 20mbps or higher (mine is over 100mbps). The router/modems people rent from ISP’s are almost a mystery, and renting them for over a year is not cost-effective; buy your own. I have also had the security running on my router and on PC with no problems, ever.

I also bought a premium Asus router that worked out of the box fine, but I saw all the various settings in it and was determined to learn about them; especially the major ones, and found I could easily "hot-rod " my router and optimize it for high speed data and high speed devices especially. So, I have done it. I like to think I have a home network to die for (although most people only care if the things work or not; even if Netflix is deadly slow as possible, “hey, at least it works!” is the typical attitude. If Netflix can send anything in HD, we get it that way!)

Hope this gives some food for thought.