Hi,
I got a few complaints about the “MY Cloud Personal” devices I sold and contacted my dealers technical support, they told me that they get many complaints and nobody seems to know why they work for some people and not for others. He told me to send the defective devices back for a swap out…
After speaking with my contact, telling him a change won’t solve the problem and more likely make my clients angrier than they already are, he agreed to my suggestion and sent me 4 devices, 2 new (2TB) and 2 used (3TB), for testing. I took another 4 (2,3 & 4TB) from my clients and my 2 (4TB), so I had a total of 10 devices which I marked, tested with different routers/switches and the same settings at the same time. All devices were “cleared and factory reset” (except of my “production device” which I used as a control device), had the same (newest) firmware and same settings, even users and shares. Only the names where different MYCLOUD1, MYCLOUD2… It didn’t make any changes if the device was “almost fully loaded” or only had “a few files” or were 2,3 or 4TB.
I personally have 2 My cloud personal devices (4TB). The first one I bought back in feb. 2013 after seeing it working at a new client. The second was bought in dec. 2013. Both devices are working “fine” straight from beginning. The only problem I had was “power save” seems not to work right - and since a few months I noticed the drive spins up every now and then.
One device is used for my business as a storage and backup device the other one is used to serve music, photos and videos mostly to my home devices via WiFi. I notice a short delay (device in sleep mode, drive has to spin up etc…) when I access the device thru my TV when playing a video or music… This is normal and acceptable but since the last update I have the feeling it takes a bit longer…
I recommend these devices to many clients and have sold around 15 My Cloud Personal devices during the past 8 months. 6 devices have the same problem as most of you: periodical disconnect, not reachable, need to pull power jack… drive spin up.
My clients and I don’t see the “drive spin up” as an error or big problem so I left that out and only did some testing with different routers (Linksys, speedsport, netgear, avm fritzbox, d-link; those that are most common here) and also attached them direct to different switches (3com, HP, Netgear, 100 and 1000) to see if the disconnect problem can be reproduced, localized.
Well normally you should think that all devices would act the same e.g. 4 devices with the disconnect problem would also disconnect when attached to the same router or switch - BIG SURPRISE THEY DIDNT!
This is what/how I tested:
Test scenario 1:
3 devices with DHCP on the same router (running 3 tests at the same time on routers: Netgear, AVM, Speedsport)
Disconnect times varies between 3-30 hours. The Devices disconnected “at their own will”. Device 1 disconnected somewhere after 2-4 hours, device 3 somewhere after 24-30 hours. During the second test device 1 disconnected after 8-10 hours and device 2 after 24-30 hours.
From my stand I think the variation time could be a matter of how the routers handle power save and ip leases. The drive falls into “sleep mode” and then seems not to recognize the “wake-up” signal.
Funny: there is NO drive spin up?!?!
His test was repeated with disabled power saving the disconnect came between 2-6 days.
Test scenario 2:
3 devices with DHCP on the same switch (running 3 tests at the same time on switch: 3com, Netgear, HP)
Same problems here. Disconnection times varies between 2-30 hours. None of the devices disconnected during the second test at the same time.
The drive falls into “sleep mode” and then seems not to recognize the “wake-up” signal.
Funny: here is also NO drive spin up?!?!
His test was repeated with disabled power saving the disconnect came between 2-6 days.
Test scenario 3:
3 devices with Static IP (within the DHCP range) on the same router (running 3 tests at the same time on routers: Netgear, AVM, Speedsport)
Frustration pure: Disconnection times varies between 6 hours and 4-6 days. None of the devices disconnected during the second test at the same time.
The drive falls into “sleep mode” and then seems “sometimes” not to recognize the “wake-up” signal.
Funny: also NO drive spin up?!?!
His test was repeated with disabled power saving the disconnect came between 2-6 days.
It looks like the device falls into sleep mode, can be accessed a few time and then falls into “coma” due to the routers IP lease time.
Test scenario 4:
3 devices with Static IP (within the DHCP range) on the same switch (running 3 tests at the same time on switch: 3com, Netgear, HP)
Same here, disconnection times varies between 6 hours and 4-6 days. None of the devices disconnected during the second test at the same time.
The drive falls into “sleep mode” and then “sometimes” seems not to recognize the “wake-up” signal.
Funny: again NO drive spin up?!?!
His test was repeated with disabled power saving the disconnect came between 2-6 days.
It looks like a problem with the IP lease time, after the device falls into sleep mode the lease is given up and marked inactive when a request is started the device doesn’t react e.g. the router seems not to be able to “find” the device.
Test scenario 5:
3 devices with Static IP (out of the DHCP range) on the same router (running 3 tests at the same time on routers: Netgear, AVM, Speedsport)
This test made me happy: Drives fall into “sleep mode” like expected, times varies but it doesn’t matter.
The drive falls into “sleep mode” and recognize the “wake-up” signal even from “outside” via tablet or handy.
Funny: the drive spins up every “now and then”?!?!
His test was NOT repeated with disabled power saving!
Test scenario 6:
3 devices with Static IP (out of the DHCP range) on the same switch (running 3 tests at the same time on switch: 3com, Netgear, HP)
Same here, Drives fall into “sleep mode” like expected, times still varies but it doesn’t matter.
The drive falls into “sleep mode” and recognize the “wake-up” signal even from “outside” via tablet or handy.
Funny: the drive spins up every “now and then”?!?!
His test was NOT repeated with disabled power saving!
My personal conclusion:
Fact is, all devices with DHCP or Static IP within the DHCP range and with/without power saving disconnected somewhere between 2 hours and 4-6 days, on the other hand all devices with a static IP outside the DHCP range don’t seem to have the disconnect problem even if power save mode is enabled… The only way to bring the disconnected devices back was to pull the power jack!
After checking the clients who bought the My Cloud devices and had problems I found out that all that had problems didn’t want a pre-configuration and used DHCP or static IPs within the DHCP range.
When I setup a Router/Network and install devices I always set my DCHP range low somewhere between .5 to .190 and only give double, max triple IPs as needed for PC, Notebook, Handy, Tablet etc… All other devices like printer, server, tv-boxes etc. get a higher range .200 .240 static IP far out of the DHCP range → which I also did for those clients who wanted a pre-configured device or where I installed the device myself.
After testing all this and finding out that a static ip outside the dhcp range solved the disconnect issues…
my tip would be switch to a static IP OUT OF THE DHCP IP RANGE.
And always manually update, after updating I always shutdown the device via web-interface, disconnect it from power, wait a few min and plug it back in.
Thru my business I had contact to over 100 people using the my cloud personal device with many kinds of routers and environments. Most of them solved the problems by changing the IP.
Some Fritz box users still had problems which were solved after setting their ports from “green mode” to “power mode”.
However, some questions are still open.
- Why does the drive periodically spin up?
(this could be a sneaky way to solve the wake-up problem!? If so then…)
- Why doesn’t the drive periodically spin up when using DHCP?
- Why doesn’t the device recognize the “wake-up” signal e.g. request when it’s in sleep-mode using DHCP?
After installing the 3.04.01
- Why is the video loading time so long?
(or is this just a “feeling”, cant test because I can’t downgrade the firmware. Downloaded and renamed old firmware to newer version but didn’t work get an “improper Firmware 370001” error.)
My thoughts to the disconnect problem:
I have 5(china) ARM devices, all run with linux which I use for testing (mail-, dhcp-, web-, tracking-, Cloud-server). They also had disconnect problems e.g. when they fall into sleep mode they disconnect, the only way to bring them back was to manually wake them up via power switch or pulling the power jack.
From experience I know that there was (long, long ago) some network cards that couldn’t handle power saving, you had to update the drivers and disable power saving in driver settings or disable power saving complete.
So this was my starting point, after 3 months of testing and patching I was able to also wake them up via usb or bluetooth keyboard and finally also solved the disconnect problems = it was the sleep mode settings.
In sleep mode the type of power saving for everything was “completely turned off” and as long as the device itself was in sleep mode it didn’t recognize any sort of keyboard or network activity → how cold it everything was turned off except the power button, devices without a power button need to be unplugged! This sounds quit similar to what the My Cloud Personal does…
This sort of power save mode is logical for a single device like a tablet but illogical for a device used as a server.
The simple solution was to edit the power save settings and tune/disable the usb/bluetooth and network adapters sleep mode. Since june last year the ARM devices work perfectly data is served even if the device falls into sleep mode.
The big question here is:
If it’s a power save setting
- Why does the device work with a static ip and not with dhcp?
If the drive spin up is used as a workaround
- Why doesn’t the device spin up the drive in dhcp mode?
Could it be, that there are different power save modes integrated which conflict or that one disables the network card completely?
Well, maybe one of the programmers could take a look into this…
I hope this helps some of you and helps finding out what causes the disconnect issue.
Hop this doesnt sound like I am a “Smart A@@” trying to teach you, so no offense meant to anyone.
Greetings from Germany
Bob