Hi all,
I’ve just purchased a New MyCloud 2nd Gen’ case ( no HD inside ), I got it because I have an older one which can’t be upgraded to OS5. Anyway I have discovered that I can’t put my HD from the old MC into the New MC, so I need to get a another HD and put that in.
Question;1) Can I put in say a WD Purple, Blue or even Green HD ? or does it have to be a Red ?
2) when I put my newer HD in will the new MC just do the bis’ format the disc and away I go or is there something I will have to do first ?
Just thought of this, could I connect the New MC without a HD and hopefully see it and even update it if needed ?
Anyway sorry for the long list of questions and hope some sound advice comes back
Search the subforum for “unbrick”. There are a number of past discussions detailing how to partition, format and push the correct files to setup a hard drive for use in a second gen single bay My Cloud enclosure. User Fox_exe has directions (two different methods) for configuring a second gen single bay My Cloud. Note that you generally will need to install the latest OS3 v2.x firmware before updating to the OS5 v5.x firmware.
On the subject of hard drive. If you plan on having the device powered on 24/7 for long periods of time, and or plan on doing a lot of reading/writing of data to the drive one may want to use one of the WD Red (or Red Plus or Red Pro) line of drives since those drives are designed for NAS use. Or use drives from other manufacturers that are designed for NAS use. Many others have resorted to buying a WD Easystore or WD Elements desktop USB external drive and “shucking” (extracting) the internal 3.5 inch hard drive for use in NAS boxes. Shucking the drive does void the external hard drive warranty however. Often one can buy a WD Easystore/WD Elements on sale. Other WD drives (Blue, Green, Purple, etc.) may not be designed for heavy use or being run 24/7. Some of those drives may have horrible read/write speeds due to smaller caches used to store data before writing to the disk. Many look for CMR drives and not SMR drives, so that is another issue to be aware of.
Many many thanks Bennor for your detailed reply, I do know that I need a New HD, unused or one that has been re-formatted and blank. My only concern is that my ‘so called’ new MC 2nd Gen’ ( without a HD ) works once I install a HD ?
Generally the My Cloud firmware resides on and is loaded from the hard drive. This is one reason why the single bay My Cloud hard drive has to be partitioned and formatted a certain way
Not sure what happens, other than maybe the second gen My Cloud indicating an error via the front LED, if you power on the unit without a hard drive attached. The LED’s on the back Ethernet port should light up when an ethernet cable is connected to a router and the My Cloud enclosure is powered on. Likely the only way to know for certain is to give one of the various second gen unbrick directions a try. Note that the directions are different for the first gen so make sure to use directions and files for a second gen single bay My Cloud.
Note: Not sure I would recommend a WD “Red” drive. Most of the smaller sizes are now using SMR technology. I don’t know anyone (outside of the vendor) that recommend SMR drives over the classic CMR drives. Last I checked, Red Plus are all CMR with 5400 rpm, and Red Pro are CMR with 7200rpm.
