What are your opinions about the WD EX2? Seriously considering getting it

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud EX2
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Just curious to hear other peoples opinions about it. I currently have a my cloud 3tb, and I am very happy about it. Although i want the raid 1 protection, and would feel safer with the EX2.

Ive read reviews, and it seems just ok. Ive heard things like it gets very hot, among other issues. Just wondering if anyone would reccomend this.

My “my cloud” goes into sleep mode when not active for a while. Is this feature on the EX2 as well?

any help would be appreciated!!

Thanks!

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Hello josh3684, it all depents on your needs. Have you also checked the My Cloud Mirror features? You can compare both on the following links. To answer your questions, yes, the EX2 will go into sleep mode when not user. 

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/personalcloud/consumer/

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/personalcloud/expert/

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Hi Josh, I’ve got my EX2 (2x2Tb, RAID1, WD RED disks) just few days ago, so I’m still evaluating it. Anyway, to answer your questions, during normal work it is warm (but not so hot, as described in some reviews).I think it depends also from kind of HDs used into. I agree with someone, here in forum, that WD should implement some “manual fan management” in next firmwares; it could help to be more “confident” in HDs long term reliability. About “Sleep mode”, the answer is yes. EX2 spin down HDs (the WD RED) if not used almost immediately, then after some minutes of inactivity the entire unit goes in sleep mode. Hope this will help you. Ciao

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If you guys are using a hard drive geared towards NAS usage, like the WD red drives, then stop worrying about the drive temps based on how warm it feels to the touch…and just use the drive health status on the dashboard. If that says healthy, then stop worrying about it. But yes, a manual temp management for the small fan would have been nice too…but I am not going to expect that in a firmware upgrade…and for me, I am not worried about it either as I have a WD Red drive in mine.

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Yes, indeed. You have to keep in mind that EX2 is a Home/Small Office NAS and it’s fine for this job from HW point of view, specially with WD RED disks. If you think to use it 24hrs/day doing TB of transfer files, another (more expensive) solution may be better. I’m more concerned now about built in Apps (Joomla, myPhp, etc.) and how to get/install newer version on EX2. WD seems not so proactive to provide upgrades, but maybe Cybernut1 could help me in this :wink: I’ve seen in some other posts that he did it. Ciao

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I’am still struggling with the backup function of this product. 

If i backup one folder of my internal hdd of the wdmcex2 to my external WD mybook,  I get a ‘backup completed’ 

But if I do a backup of the whole hdd,  I get a ‘backup failed’ 

After struggling for a long time,  I did a total format and factory reset, after a backup of all the folders separately. 

I did a copy back of the the software on my mybook backup disk. 

Also one folder at a time. 

After finally getting all  my files back on my wdmcex2,  I tried a sync for control. 

I took one folder to sync with de external hdd. 

Instead of a control of the already installed files, it just started a new folder in the original one,  to fill with the same files again. 

I had choose the right folders to sync, but it made a new one. 

And after stopping this proces,  I couldn’t delete the new folder anymore because of he wrong permissions. 

Only my Android tablet could delete the folder on the wdmcex2!

How can I make a backup I can use and trust in this way? 

I already have contacted the WD services. 

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I’ve got a similar behaviour (no way to cancel files/directory 'cause wrong permission) trying to copy/deleting a lot of small files. And I had some issues also trying to backup an external HD connected to rear USB port. It started the process, but then hangup after a while (and no way to reboot/shutdown the EX2. I disconnected the power). I must admit that the EX2 seems too buggy. I’m starting to think to swap it with a Qnap, having also hundreds of external and supported/updated Apps.

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after one week of testing my device i found alot of :

CONS

  • security flaws ( .wdmc files that can not be deleted by the folder owner/admin and can not turn them off, recycle bin is public and all deleted files end up there as public, permissions for public folders are not flexible enough and can be seen/used by anyone inside the network and outside the network via FTP, attached USB stick with backup is public and it;s content can be seen by everyone )

  • rudimentary design for some functions ( backing up the nas to an USB stick can not be done with an auto scheduler and you have to create jobs and run manually, full backup dosen’t work, power off schedule is not very granulant, event viewer is too confusing and event can not be sorter by date, remote backup can be done only on other WD NAS and not other devices. No GUI option to power on the device if it was shut down ( only with 3rd party methods), can not delete all backup jobs at once only individualy (simple check box and delete selected button would have done the trik) )

  • just wondering if anyone from WD ever really think about WHY put a kensington lock and leave HDDs at free and easy pull out !!! ( maybe when someone breaks into your home stealing TV and NAS wont care about your HDD and data and just want to box. But this is a Prosumer product and info from the NAS is important and vital )…so there’s that

PROS:

  • easy to set up

  • easy to access over the internet

  • fast file transfer

  • nice design

  • low noise with the HDD and fans

  • good harware

in conclusion, i am kind of dissapointed with WD for so many software design flaw, especialy on the security part. However, i saw that they came a long way from the initial OS Firmware to the latest one so i have a little bit of hope that they will improve. Shame that it has great hardware and such bad software.

I would give this device a grade of 6 from 0-10

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I agree with you.

 EX2 has a pretty decent hardware.

But from Firmware  it’s a long way before to have a solid platform, specially from security point of view.

And this is not only on firmware/internal software, but also on “external Apps”, like Joomla, Wordpress etc.

I know that it’s not up to WD to develop these, but if they were implemented on EX2/EX4 they should also upgraded to newer and more secure version (already existing, they need only to be “ported”).

If WD wants to compete with Qnap and Synology in this market, I think that they could be more proactive and fix and implement all these sw requests, coming from Community.

We will see :wink:

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If you guys are conparing The EX2 to QNAP or Synology you are fools.

That’s like buying a Honda, knowing it’s a Honda and then conparing it to a BMW, Audi or Benz. Just silly.

They have completely different markets.

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All that i said should be common sense not high end market. These products are advertised as home/small business market. Since when is security of home/small business not important ? for a 350+ euros product i expect some decency that i do not get so far, but it was advertised by WD.

when you buy a Honda, you expect the product to deliver as a Honda, not almost a Honda with unlockable doors, faulty onboard computer.

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While I agree to that statement,

Synology and QNAP hardware and software features are lightyears ahead of the WD EX2, but for simpliciy, the WD EX2 is excellent, but yes it does have flaws. So do the Synology and QNAP.

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I think that we are saying the same concepts, but with different words.

EX2 is a “Home/Small Office” NSA with a decent hardware (and performance).

The strongest aspect is that is very “easy to use”.

But at the (exact) same price I can get Syno/Qnap units, not mentioning some other competitors like D-Link, etc.

Now, I agree with you that they have more experience and they are focused only on this kind of product, WD don’t.

But, first of all, we are talking about WD, one of the biggest company in the world in this area (and with huge resources).

Then, mostly of the concerns here are focused on security issues or, sometimes, very basic functions not so well implemented in current firmware(s).

We can discuss about hundreds of “external apps” supported from other vendors (but this is one of the aspects that made the difference between "same range price " NAS), but not on fundamentals.

Anyway, my feeling is that WD is working on this, collecting feedbacks from Community. Maybe not so fast as expected, but they are working :smiley:

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