Narrow Shelves and using right angle Adapters

So I’ve had an extra 4TB Cloud along with a matching 4TB Element for 3 or 4 months now (not sure as my purchases tend to blur over time) and I’ve just been using it for Time Machine backup and another encrypted sparse bundle file. The USB Element has one movie file on it.

I have left all the services running and have re-booted it from time to time. Just today, I wanted to check out whether or not the right-angle power plug that came in from eBay would fit My Cloud, so I had to power it down.

The right angle power plug was something I ordered from eBay for my electric piano so I could move the piano closer to the wall without damaging the power plug that jutted out.

It turns out that I’ll be needing 5.5x2.1mm Female to 5.5 x 2.5mm Male Right Angle Power adapter ($5 fora pack of 10) for the My Clouds and My Books. I’ll be ordering these later so I can fit the My Clouds and My Books closer to the back wall of the bookshelf. Right now I have a metal platform that holds the pair of My Clouds and My Books on the shelf. If I replace all the back cables with right angle adapters, there is a good chance that I can have my devices fit better. Yes, there are right-angle USB 3.0 adapters $1 each as well as right-angle ethernet adapters which are around $6 a piece + $10 shipping. I won’t be able to do anything with the unique usb plug for the My Books.

update: I just ordered the right-angle adapters from eBay.
USB 3.0 @ $1 each.

right-angle cat 6 adapters @ $6. and

right-angle power adapters $.50.

If anyone is interested on how this works out, let me know and I’ll post up in a month or two when they arrive.

Anyways, so I had to power down both My Book and My Cloud. After checking out the plugs, I powered up both the My Cloud and My Book (element) together and they booted up fine.

It really goes to show that without data, these devices works flawlessly. I had these drives for months and they are quiet (i.e. no data scans), they sleep and they re-boot without having to remove the USB drive. They are perfect little devices if you have little data.

I’ll assume that even if you have quite a bit of data and if they are properly indexed and thumbnail, the devices will behave as intended without the kind of problems some of us has been having and complaining on the forum about.

I am amazed. Now WD, I would really appreciate if you can only do that for drives that do have data (i.e. turning off the scans or doing scans under user control, or doing scans when needed like when the user navigates into a folder).

and can we expect that in OS3.1?

Hello Ralphael,

Thank you for posting this information about the right-angle adapters. I just placed an order myself.

About the OS3.1 recommendations, I suggest you post it in the Ideas section.

Cloud Ideas

Remember to check that the products are what they are after the order arrives. Although this is my first time on right-angle products, I have had USB 3.0 orders that were simply USB 2.0 in blue colour, and Cat5e cables that were merely Cat5 cables (the difference is the ability to handle gigabit). I even wrote to the seller of the Right-Angle USB 3.0 to guarantee that their products are indeed USB 3.0 (the differences are the number of connectors). Right Angle power connectors must be 5.5x2.5mm Male (the 5.5x2.1mm Male don’t work).

This idea has been in the ideas section for 2 years and the same idea has been suggested in the Live forums for 2 years.

Every cloud that has been RMAed has been due to the media scans keeping the device so busy that its own cloud DNS is unable to operate properly so when browsing for the cloud in the network, it cannot be found. The media scans are also the problem of the USB lockups when the USB drive is full of data (especially photos, mp3’s, movies, ebooks) and you plug it into the back of a Cloud and within 5 minutes both devices will lock. The media scans are probably the cause of the blank dashboard that every user has encountered. The media scans restarts itself after every firmware update, the programmers decided that this was a good idea in case the media database format is incompatible with the latest firmware database since they did not know which firmware version you were upgrading from. So after each firmware upgrade, the media scans starts up and all (the opposite of heaven) breaks loose.

The media scan is the bane of WD. If WD had fixed this two years ago, or even 2 months ago with the release of OS 3, the forums will be dead quiet.

and the reason that WD never fixed this is for the same reason that my near empty Cloud has been running really nicely. Why fix something that ain’t broke? Apparently if you load your data real slowly (allowing the media scans to complete after each load of media), your device will sleep and will respond, but on the day of the firmware update? watch out… because now that the drive is full of data… suddenly you have the media scan to contend with… and the user will pull the plug because the device is now so slow. After pulling the plug, the white light will stay on longer to do a FSCK, and the user will pull the plug out again and again and again … until they decide to post up on the forums complaining about the red light.

been there… done that… :stuck_out_tongue: I was that user… now I know better… keep the drive empty and it will work…

so I went through the ideas section… found…

sleep-please-fix-it
media-scanning-wdmcserver-must-respect-do-not-share-media-for-shares-do-not-scan-all-shares
my-cloud-ex2-turn-off-convert-wdmcserver-wdphotodbmerger-processes
the-options-to-disable-the-convert-wdmcserver-wdphotodbmerger-processes-in-the-my-cloud-dashboard
why-is-convert-process-maxing-my-cpu
please-dont-create-wdmc-twonky-folders

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So I got the right angle ethernet adapters and I’ve plugged them in and checked the speeds to ensure that they remain gigabit and they do. One down two more to go, power and USB.

The ethernet right angle adapters doesn’t really make the device that much closer but I would say probably about 1 or 2 cm closer to the wall; at least the ethernet cable is no longer bent.

Now an interesting thing is that I found out that the seemingly proprietary My Book usb plugs are actually micro-b USB so I’ve order 3 sets of these hoping that they will work. I was afraid to post it up for fear someone will point out that the WD My Books are proprietary or slightly different but if you do pooh on my parade and I find out that they do work… yup… I got your ip… :stuck_out_tongue:

Got my right angel power adapters today and they fitted like a glove. It was a good thing that I had accidentally ordered a 2.5mm right angle plug from my previous order which I used to test. So what you want is a 5.5x2.1mm Female to 5.5 x 2.5mm Male Right Angle Power adapter. It is only $5 for a pack of 10 from eBay.

The last right angle plugs that I’m waiting for, are the right angle USB to right angle micro B usb.

However the right angle ethernet are still quite huge and there really isn’t that much more space saving in protrusion depth but nevertheless the right angle adapters does provide protection from crimping your wires.

Probably a reduction of about half an inch from 7 3/4" down to 7 1/4" width (measured from the back of the book case to the front of the device) once the USB adapters arrive.

Got my right angle USB 3.0 adapters today. so that almost completes the right angle set for now, until the arrival of the right angle micro-b usb for the My Book side.

Anyways here are some photos of the back side and some before and after savings.

here is before and after protrusion of the Cloud and My Book.

after photo

There is a savings of 3/4 of an inch. Not Bad.

So these cables finally arrives after a lengthy delay of 2 months. The sad part is these cables are not really USB 3.0 cables or perhaps they are but they are half the speed of my normal WD Passport cable.

My Passport cable = 80MB/s read and write using BlackMagic Disk Speed test
These eBay cable = 40MB/s read and write.

Thus my right angle cable foray comes to an end with the exception of a right angle micro-b usb cable .

I do wish that WD look into creating right-angle flush mounted jacks for their products, of course this is in addition to fixing up their software.