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MyCloudEx2Ultra and UPS backup failure

I had a power outage last night. My NAS is plugged into an APC NC1350 battery backup by a regular plug. I got a notification:

Alert: Power Supply Failure

Power supply 1 failed. Check the power supply.

Does this mean that the NAS stayed on because of the UPS power supply?
or
The NAS shut down unexpectedly and the UPS didn’t work.

PS - the UPS battery is fine.

Hi @perniculous,

Please refer to the article Configuring USB Backups on a WD My Cloud:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/20227

My question refers to an Uninterruptible Power Supply or UPS. They are battery units that you can plug things into so when the power goes out the device that’s plugged into it retains power. For example, www.apc.com is one such manufacturer of these devices.

USB, or Universal Serial Bus, is a type of peripheral connection and is not related to a UPS which is a backup power supply.

USB drive backups are disc or SSD (solid state drive) storage devices that are connected to other devices with a USB cable connection. You can plug a USB storage device into a My Cloud NAS (network attached storage) and get more storage or even use it as a secondary level of backup.

You can plug a NAS into a UPS. The NAS might have a USB drive connected to it by a USB cable. When the NAS loses power, the UPS is supposed to supply power to the NAS to prevent damage to the hard drive. My NAS was plugged into a UPS but did not retain power. I received a message from my NAS saying what I wrote in the original post. My NAS has a USB storage device plugged into it but that has nothing to do with my question.

Supposedly, at least according to WD documentation, the My Cloud when properly connected to a supported UPS will shut down “when the UPS is drained to a specified percentage”. On other NAS devices that support UPS one typically gets a warning message/email about the power being lost, then a second one when the NAS goes into shutdown mode. You can perform a test of how your My Cloud works by simply pulling the main power to the UPS, then observe what happens with the My Cloud and how fast it shuts down. And double check to ensure the My Cloud is connected to a UPS battery mode outlet(s). Often UPS will have a two sets of outlets, one for battery power and one not battery powered.

Network UPS Configuration on a My Cloud
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/22654

The My Cloud User Manual - Network UPS
https://products.wdc.com/nas0s5/nasum/en/#t=MyCloud%2FConfiguringBasicSettings%2FNetwork.htm

Network UPS

An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is a device that works off of a battery and keeps devices that are connected to the UPS port running, for at least a short time, if the main power source goes out. When a My Cloud device is connected via UPS to the network drive, the drive will automatically shut down when the UPS is drained to a specified percentage.

Communication with the My Cloud device is done using a master/slave protocol in which the master device controls the slave devices.

When the UPS is connected to the My Cloud device by USB, the device automatically becomes a UPS Network Master. Other My Cloud devices that are connected to that UPS can be pointed to the IP address of the UPS Master. If the UPS is discharged to the specified percentage, all of the My Cloud slave drives will automatically shut down properly. See Knowledge Base Answer ID 22654 for a list of UPS devices.

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Thank you for the help. That’s a good plan.

I have a synology that uses the data port connection on the UPS and you can adjust settings in the admin panel. Unfortunately the WD NAS only has a setting for network UPS so using the plug is my only option there.

Per the WD Knowledgebase link posted you can still use the USB cable from a supported UPS (if it supports USB communication) to the My Cloud to allow some information to be shown. For example from that article:

My Cloud (Master) UPS Connection

The My Cloud (Master) must be connected to the UPS device using a USB cable and configured in the UPS software interface. Please refer to your UPS user manual for details.

When the UPS is USB connected and seen by the My Cloud:

  • the UPS can be seen in the dashboard by selecting the USB icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
  • Master Mode will be displayed under Settings → Network → Network UPS.

See the article for more information and configuration options.

I have a WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra and a Synology DS220 but only 1 UPS from APC. Is there a way where you can have the Synology NAC which is connected to the UPS via USB to send a network message to the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra and make it shutdown?
I tried to configure the WD as a slave and point it to the IP address of my Synology but I got this error message:
" * Your WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra could not connect to the UPS (master) device."
Does anyone know how I can fix this?

Hello!
The “Power Supply Failure” alert typically means that the NAS detected a failure in its power supply, which could indicate that the NAS switched to the UPS power supply during the outage. However, if the NAS shut down unexpectedly, it might suggest that the UPS didn’t provide power as expected.

To determine what happened, you can check the UPS logs or perform a test by disconnecting the main power to see if the NAS stays on with the UPS. This will help confirm if the UPS is functioning correctly.

There is a specific subforum for the My Cloud EX2 Ultra were users more familiar with that device may be able to assist.

OS5 My Cloud Ex Series
http://community.wd.com/c/os5/my-cloud-ex-series/255

If you haven’t done so already you may want to find a Synology support forum and ask there since Synology is a different manufacturer. It may be possible to configure Synology DSM Task Scheduler to issue an SSH command to the My Cloud that has SSH enabled and trigger a shutdown of the My Cloud.

Thanks! I will check with Synology.
Do you happen to know what the SSH command would be to shut the WD down and maybe if it still listens to commands while it is down, a different command to bring it back up again when the power is restored?

If you use the forum search you’ll find a number of past discussions on how to shutdown a My Cloud device using SSH. There are other past discussions on how to use WOL (Wake-on-LAN) to start a My Cloud. For example:

http://community.wd.com/search?q=shutdown.sh

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Thank you! This helps!
I will check now with Synology on how to automate that SSH message to my WD in case of a power issue.
Do you know if there is another SSH command to bring the WD back up when power is restored? Does that even work?

You’ll have to use the forum search feature to find past discussions on waking a My Cloud. It is likely that SSH won’t be responsive when the unit has been shutdown. Wake-On-LAN may since that is usually embedded in the network port hardware and on some My Cloud units the network adapter is still powered even after shutdown.

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