Performance My Cloud and what to do

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud
1

I had the My Book Live before, decided to upgrade to the much promising My Cloud.

To be honest, the specs are great, considering the price. Did not mind that it is a simple NAS with only a few features. But I only wanted to have a file server, play some FLAC files and have access to my pictures.

The MBL did not play hires FLAC files properly, I guess because of the older Twonky server. The MC plays it all, so it looked to be a good choice.

But after many months of trying, changing settings, turning off things, getting support from WD, returning to factory settings, etc, I have made a decision. Because today it was another day with transfer rates getting even below 1 Mb/s. And the load on the MC was under 10%, so that should not be a problem.

Maybe the problem is not in the MC, but so far I always have trouble when using the MC.

The last support I got from WD was a number of advice steps, amongst which was to switch from dynamic to static IP address. I tried to explain that this is a simple consumer NAS for ‘simple’ people, so I did not want to follow their advice initially. In the end I did try static IP address and I managed to get stuck with a non-accessable NAS. Which I already anticipated for. Luckily I have some very basic networking and UNIX skills (like ping or vi), so I managed to get the NAS working again.

Too many problems…, so today I finally made a decision to stop with the My Cloud and order a simple Synology DS213J.

I will have some problems with it too I expect, but we’ll see.

If I won’t forget it, I will report on whether the decision to go the DS231J was wise or not. May take some months, but I will…

Anyone else who made the same decision? And with what experiences?

2

I too felt your pain when I bought it initially and questioned its capabilities. Between the pretty poor performance plus the CPU utilization being at over 50% almost every time, I didn’t think this was a feasible solution for me.

However, I gave it time and it eventually settled. Believe it our not, your router plays a big role in the setup so it is a place where you want to look at. Let me elaborate:

1- I first had a router which I thought was Gigabit on wired LAN but it turned out it was 100 Mbps and my avg file transfer was 5-7 MegaBytes per second

2- I then upgraded to an AC, Gigabit router (expensive, sucked and replacing it just after a year but that’s a different story) and my speeds got better (8-12 MegaBytes per second)

3- Been having issues with router so I tried the new Linksys WRT1900AC, that got me about 16-18 MegaBytes per second

4- Finally replaced year old Linksys router with the new Asus router and been getting 22 MegaBytes per second.

Just a note, all my transfer speeds are while connected to WiFi. I’ve never tested using the wire. The reason I haven’t done that (and don’t anticipate doing) is because I’m always wireless and working throughout the home and never settled in one place.

I am pretty happy with the MC now after a year since I bought it. It works OK and satisfies my needs. However, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its issues and that it could be better. You get what you pay for. Lesson learned! Had I known this worked like this I would’ve just plugged in a USB 3.0 hard drive to my router which offers DLNA and iTunes server as well

3

@ luisrcastillo: that was the first thing I tried, connecting a USB drive to my router. It has some NAS functions, but the USB port is only 2.0, so the performance was not acceptable.

I have a recent router, which is OK, and I do have Gigabit, including cables that support it.

I guess everybody has to decide for himself if the My Cloud is good (enough) or not. It may also depend upon other components.

But I am glad that the internal drive of the MC is a 3TB Red drive. I can re-use it and saves me a lot of money. I payed 140 € for the MC (which is a bargain), and a new 3TB drive costs at least 110 €. So instead of selling the MC I will re-use the disk…

4

luisrcastillo wrote:

4- Finally replaced year old Linksys router with the new Asus router and been getting 22 MegaBytes per second.

 

I am pretty happy with the MC now after a year since I bought it. It works OK and satisfies my needs. However, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its issues and that it could be better. You get what you pay for. Lesson learned! Had I known this worked like this I would’ve just plugged in a USB 3.0 hard drive to my router which offers DLNA and iTunes server as well

There is no way you are getting those kind of transfer speeds writing large amounts of data the the NAS and with the WD scanning software NOT DISABLED (I don’t mean Twonky or iTunes server).  v4.x firmware?