Hi,
can anyone tell me if I can attach my WD MYCloud OS3 direct to my laptop via USB ? Not via Local network ( I don’t have enough ports free ).
If you can then could you tell how ? Because at present I can’t work it out on how to 
Steve
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No. The My Cloud USB port is for attaching external USB hard drives to increase the storage space of the My Cloud. The My Cloud USB port does not work to connect directly to a computer and access the My Cloud hard drive.
There are relatively inexpensive USB to Ethernet adapters one can buy if their PC either doesn’t have a Ethernet port or if that Ethernet port is currently in use.
Edit to add: If one has extracted the My Cloud hard drive from it’s enclosure then one can attach that extracted hard drive to their computer using a spare SATA port, or using a USB to SATA adapter (designed for 3.5 inch drives). One would need to use Linux or a Linux driver to read the contents of an extracted My Cloud hard drive.
Many thanks Bennor for the advice.
Steve
Bennor is correct. The mycloud usb port acts the same as a computer’s does. The mycloud wants drives and other devices connected, not a computer.
If you are looking to mass copy files to and from the mycloud using USB, you will be disappointed. You would have to attach a hard drive to the mycloud, then use SSH to effect the copy. That requires SSH to be enabled, and requires some modest experience with embedded linux.
Tech pros could do that, but that is not something I would advise for a normal end user. I am only giving this response for completeness. You cannot make the mycloud act like a USB hard drive. It is a mini embedded linux server. It is a computer, not a hard drive.
To use USB to transfer files to and from the mycloud, you would need to ferry them back and forth using a USB drive, using the system console to initiate the copy operations on the mycloud’s console. (Analogous to copying files between computers, using a usb stick) The console is only reachable via SSH, and is not meant for non professionals.
The standard answer is “No”. My answer is just the more complete one.
If you dont know how, dont try.
If you do know how, and you really need the faster access speed for a large amount of data, then this option exists.
I would further caution that the USB port is not fully USB3 speed, and can fail in large transfers. Use rsync instead of cp to do the copy, so you can resume on failure.
(other people read these after the fact, which is why I am giving the more complete answer.)
Thanks for all the info’ Weird_w, I don’t need anything fast , I now have 2 MC mirrors (OS5) networked and this OS3 MC single spare really. Just thought I could attach it to my computer, seems not, and I don’t have a spare port to put it on to my network, so might as well sell it if I can ?
Thanks again everyone.
Steve
A cheap gigabit switch would give you more ports.
Not having a use case would be the real deciding factor. Gigabit switches are pretty cheap, NAS boxes are not.
