Why WD servers to connect to my cloud

Hi all forgive me if I have put this topic in the wrong place but I was just wondering after purchasing my new mycloud drive why we have to connect to it through the WD servers ? Seems a bit odd as I have just purchased a device that basically gives me my own cloud based storage. I wonder if WD are just doing this to collect data for when and where drives are accessed for future development? But I just can’t help feeling I’m being held hostage to there mercy I know it’s free access to your drive but that’s at the moment are there future plans to charge for this? I do sincerely apologise for my ramblings but I hope some find this an interesting question and look forward to reading the replies

If by cloud you intend to access your device from anywhere outside of your home WD is providing a service that enables that.

I use a 3TB My Cloud as a backup repository for 1 MAC, 2 Windows and 2 Linux machines. I also use it for a shared data stor. It can be accessed from anywhere in my home both wired and WIFI since it’s connected via a switch to my WIFI router. All external access is blocked at my router as is UPNP. It functions without a WD account - the caveat is no access outside of my house.

In port forwarding mode, no data passes through the WD servers; they are used merely as a DDNS to set up the connection. Thereafter, data passes between your devices directly (well, via whatever convoluted path the internet chooses to route your data).

Its possible WD monitor DDNS traffic for future use; they certainly need to monitor to ensure their server capacity is adequate.

These days, every man and his dog are collecting data on us with a view to selling it to someone, or selling stuff to us. I don’t think I’m too worried about WD collecting stats on when and where I remotely access my MyCloud…

1 Like

Any communication between your My CLoud and WD depends on several factors. Primarily that communication is due to remote access; using WD software, using MyCloud.com web portal, or using the WD mobile apps. There are also two other times the My Cloud may “phone home” to WD; checking for updated firmware and the Product Improvement Program.

If one isn’t using the remote access feature then one can turn off remote access through the Dashboard > Settings > Cloud Access > Remote Access = OFF. Further one can, through the Dashboard, turn off the automatic check for new firmware (Dashboard > Settings > Firmware > Auto Update > Enable Auto Update = OFF) and one can turn off the option to send product improvement information back to WD (Dashboard > Help > Support > Product Improvement Program > Product Improvement Participation = OFF).

As indicated by a previous post above, when your My Cloud is configured for “port forwarding” mode supposedly no data (other than the DDNS query) passes through WD or their servers. A similar method apparently takes place when using the unofficial CloudDAVMod for remote access and remote drive mapping when the My Cloud is in port forwarding mode. One can also use the insecure FTP method for remote access to their My Cloud which also does not go through WD.

1 Like

Hi I understand what you are saying but I don’t think I quite got the question right what I mean is I can access my cloud through wifi on my home network not connected to the internet using the app and all is ok, but when I connect remotely I have to go through WD servers, why can’t I just connect directly to the my cloud ? I mean my ISP has its own servers and as far as I am aware everything connected to the internet has its own MAC address so why do I have to go through WD servers ? If we could all connect like this it would first of all take the load off the WD servers and also make everyone’s life a bit easier , my cloud could still check for updates etc through WD servers. It makes sense to me but perhaps there is a lot more in it than I realise after all I am just a mere mortal lol. That said I still cannot connect over 3G but that’s a different story

That’s how it works, barring the DDNS connection service. If you use any DDNS service, you have to go through the DDNS server to establish the connection. Thereafter, the DDNS server plays no further part.

On your local network you connect via local IP addresses, allocated by your router, or using a DNS in the router to allow you to connect to ‘WDMyCloud’ by name, rather than IP address.

Unique (or not…) MAC addresses are all very well, but something has to keep track of where they are (in the network tree), and how to connect to them; that’s what DNS does. You may wish to read up on how the internet works…

WDMC connected to WD.com because:

  • Cloud access (Direct, or via OpenVPN tunnel)
  • Collecting usage data
  • Checking firmware

Afraid all of this? Build your own firmware “From scratch” like i did (Check my thread: Clean OS (Debian), OpenMediaVault and other "firmwares" - #1039 by First_Last )

###Routing is performed at the IP level - it doesn’t use MAC addresses
Your router performs NAT [network address translation] keeping track of the internal addresses that access the Internet so when replies are received it forwards to the correct device.

ISPs use a routable external address for your router, your router has an entire set of internal address it uses to communicate with all devices in your home network - sometimes called a private network.

Your router probably has an IP address 192.168.1.1 [Ip address that is NOT routable, and not used on the Internet]. All of your internal devices using IP protocol probably use an address starting with 192.1.0.0 which provides for 65,536 unique devices.

There are 3 sets of private network addresses: 1) 10.0.0.0 2) 172.16.0.0 3) 192.168.0.0

An example of a routable address used on the Internet is weather.com - 104.123.5.138