UPDATE:
I was contacted buy WD support. Their email is quoted below, at the end of this post.
I didn’t bother going that way, and here is why: I am an experienced IT person and this device should work OUT OF THE BOX, and should work FOR EVERY USER, and should work WITHOUT WD IT SUPPORT, and should work WITHOUT WASTING MY TIME on whatever WD support will ask me to do with faulty WD MyCloud 4 TB drive.
In reality, there was nothing they could have told me to do that I haven’t already tried (and tried probably several times, until I got frustrated and gave up with no result besides me wasting time and money and ruining my mood for nothing).
Seriously irritating situation…
Anyway, instead of waiting for WD phone call that would walk me through all the steps already described in their User Guide and all the steps I already tried, and, actually, all the steps that exist, I simply went to the shop to return the product and get my money back.
Alas, last minute I decided to swap it for another (same) device. So I returned the new and faulty one and got new and what I was hoping would be working one. Same shop, same device.
This second one was working, out of the box. Good, I thought. I tried copying files, creating another user, etc. All good so far.
Then problems started. At first the device started bogging down, slowing, random behaviour. My network works perfectly well, by the way, thanks for asking. Gigabit network, everything works just fine. Except for this WD MyCloud 4 TB drive.
Let me describe the problem here…
First, the device randomly gets disconnected, or, more precise, inaccessible. All of a sudden - it’s gone. No UI, not responding, just gone. However, I can see it in LAN, it still has its IP (untill I had to turn off MyCloud). So it just gets non-responsive, be it in home LAN, or through mobile app. And yes, my internet works fine at the same time, I can access internet. I just can’t access MyCloud drive that’s sitting next to me and that I could access 10 seconds ago. Just like that.
Another problem is that if WD My Cloud is started (turned on) with a USB HDD plugged into it (and, yes, it was WD My Book Essential pluged in, 3 TB drive), WD My Cloud is inaccessible again. No way I can access it, be it UI through LAN, or vua mobile app.
I tried Firefox, Chrome, Opera, I even tried MS Explorer. Nothing. Zero result.
Then I googled and found out that I’m not the only one facing this issue. I lot of people have the same issue:
http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud/bd-p/mycloud
For example:
http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud/When-are-we-going-to-get-a-firmware-update-that-fixes-major/td-p/859260
http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud/my-cloud-doesn-t-give-any-response/td-p/860791
http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud/WD-MYCLOUD-cant-be-seen/td-p/860704
All this can be summarised in the following quote from the following thread:
When are we going to get a firmware update that fixes major issues
EXACTLY… fix issues like nework disconnections that are affecting a large number of people.
Dasboard access gong away,
Firware updates getting stuck
Remote access issues
So, to end this post, it’s really a terrible user experience because WD My Cloud drive either does not work, or it works IF and WHEN it wants to work, exercising totally unpredictable behaviour. Maybe it was just a coincidence that I bought TWO drives with (different) problems, but, really, this shoudl be something that just works without glitches. Seriously! It’s a Linux server, it should work just fine once it’s installed and set up properly!!!
Oh, maybe that’s the problem: “once setup properly”!
Could it really be that someone in WD department had poor knowledge about this technology or about Linux, and they released this and are constantly having problems for almost 2 years now, but still no resolution in sight?
Sigh… This time I’ll go through the process with WD support and see what happens. Whatever happens - I’ll make a note here, so that we know. After all, big companies SHOULD have BIG responsibilities and not just get small users shafted all the time.
If they can’t make this NAS work - then they shouldn’t market it and sell it at all, period! And if they know how to make it work as it should - they they should!
Will let everyone know how this ended, once it ends.
Cheers everyone!
p.s. Here is the initial email from WD support. Last time I returned the (new and faulty) drive and got another (new and faulty) drive, not knowing it would be yet another type of faultiness. Let’s see what WD support will do this time to resolve the issue.
p.p.s. Once again, this thing should just work out of the box, just work, with no glitches, problems, down time, etc. It should just work!
Dear [my name was here],
Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. My name is [Deleted - Trancer].
I do apologize for the inconvenience. I will like to contact you and troubleshoot the issue that you are encountering. Can you please provide me with a contact number, your name and a convenient time frame so we can schedule a call back accordingly.
Thank you.
If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further.
Sincerely,
[Deleted - Trancer]
Western Digital Service and Support
http://support.wdc.com
