Remotely accessing files on My Cloud NAS

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

My NAS is connected to my ADSL router which has a dynamiic ip address. My Internet provider won’t give me a static ip address. How can I access the files on My Cloud from another location (another country) without leaving my home computer on. Is it possible?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

2

Have you accessed the My Cloud Dashboard and enabled Remote Access or Cloud Access?

https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?h=p2&ID=14212&lang=en&p=904

It also helps to read the My Cloud User Manual which has specific chapters on how to setup and use the My Cloud for remote/cloud access.

3

@al197 Once you have everything set up in your Dashboard when you are away from home you can go to files.mycloud.com or use the Mobile app.

See example image of Dashboard below.

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4

Thanks but it doesn’t really answer my question. The fact that my router uses a dynamic ip address complicates accessing my My Cloud from another location which is outside my home network. I have explored the possibility of using No-Ip but I understand that it would require my home pc to be on all the time. Is that the case?

5

How does your ISP handing your ISP’s router a dynamic IP address complicate the ability to access your My Cloud? The My Cloud should, in most cases, work even if the ISP changes your broadband IP address. The Cloud Access/Remote Access portion of the My Cloud is (as I understand it) supposed to periodically attempt to contact WD’s servers to deal with IP address changes.

If the issue is the DHCP IP address your My Cloud obtains from the local network router then most routers offer the ability to reserve an IP address so the My Cloud (and other network devices) would obtain the same address every time. The My Cloud also has the ability to be configured for a local network static IP address.

If the ISP’s router is the issue then consider looking into putting your ISP router into “bridge mode” and connecting your own router (which typically have more features than the ISP router) to that ISP router so your own router can deal with using DDNS services like No-IP. If using your own router ensure to find one that supports DDNS services.

Some ISP’s offer static IP addresses at a nominal extra cost/fee.

6

If your router supports one of the DDNS providers (such as No-Ip), then the router would update the DDNS provider with the new WAN ip address. You could then port forward a port to your NAS. To connect to it, you would point your browser to something like “http://my_domain.ddns.net:888”. Note that this is NOT secure and I would not recommend it. Better to have Openvpn running on your router to handle the security.

7

Bennor and Cat0w correctly point out that WD cloud services do indeed solve this problem by informing WD just where on the planet the NAS box is located (by periodically sending WD the WAN IP address). The only downside to this is that as a result you have to use WD connections (either the APP or mycloud.com) to access the system.

What the OP wants is a way to have a service link his dynamic router WAN IP address in a way that he can access the NAS WITHOUT using the WD servers. In this day and age. . .a wise choice. Torch1 is on the right track. I access my system this way; using a Open-VPN to encrypt the connection to my home system.

I have an ASUS router. ASUS offers a DDNS service that links your router to a personal domain name. So, if I type the appropriate webaddress (something.asus.com); I can use this to access my NAS (on port something.asus.com:7001; assuming I have port 7001 forwarded to an appropriate port on the NAS) www.noip.com is performing the same function.

The key is that you need a router that supports an embedded DDNS client. I did a quick check on the noip.com support page. . . . .ASUS, Netgeard, and TP-Link seem to have routers on the list of supported equipment. So. . . if you have a supporter router - - - you can make this work and you won’t need a PC running on your network to make the magic happen.

There are instructions here: How to Configure DDNS (Dynamic DNS) in a Router | Support | No-IP Knowledge Base

8

If you have an ASUS router that is supported by Merlin firmware:

you are not limited to specific DDNS providers, but can create a script for any provider: