I just purchased the EX2 (2 x 2TB) and after < 10 hours, it’s back in the box with an RMA requested. I was very disappointed with this product. This product may work for some, but know what you’re getting yourself into. I was getting unacceptable transfer speeds of ~2Mbps from computer to EX2 on my local network. I’ve spent sometime reading these discussions and I’ve seen too many similar stories now. I started with a simple backup of my iphone pictures. They were all living on a usb 3.0 external drive. You’d think it would be easy to transfer those files from the external to the EX2 - just plug it into the back and drag and drop. Not so. (I was using a mac) In Finder the drive becomes visible but if you drag and drop from the external (plugged directly into the EX2) into a folder on the EX2, you suffer network transfer speeds, not usb 3.0 transfer speeds!!! The solution is to open the WD desktop-web-applicated and select each folder you want to transfer individually and it’s destination. It was a far too arduous and kludgy process. Alternatively, you can setup one-off backup jobs but again, it’s one folder per job!
So, if you want file safety and storage but don’t need to access your files readily, the EX2 might be a good choice.
But you need to ask yourself, what do you want to do with the files on the EX2 and where will you be accessing them from?
If you’re always on the local network and they are large files that you’ll access very infrequently, or lots of small files that you just want to put away for safe keeping, go for it. But if you need them frequently or to be able to quicly look and sort through them. I don’t think this is for you. Don’t think of it as an external hard drive that’s accessible via the network, think of it as storage locker in an appartment complex; sure it’s safe and has a great amount of space, but it takes forever to go out there, get your stuff, and bring it back!!
I’m surprised WD doesn’t merge the My Book Duo and the EX2 into a single product. If I could have plugged my mac directly into the EX2, transferred and managed all the files I wanted and used at USB 3.0 speed and “Finder ease”, then add the ability to look up and download those files or save new files to the drive (only when needed) via the network, while I’m away, then you have a perfect product! WD, please consider merging these two products.
