Recent research from analytics companies predicts that by 2016, the average household will have accumulated about 2.2 TB of digital information (Gartner), and the number of simultaneously connected devices to the Internet, which, according to NPD Group analysts, currently accounts for 5.7 per one household will become even larger. These trends require new technical means to store digital content that allowed consumers to gain complete control over their data from anywhere.

Personal cloud storage is a new standard for this type of system, providing the ability to store media files and documents on a local home storage device with access to them via the Internet from any personal digital device. WD recently introduced such a device, which it calls WD My Cloud. With My Cloud, users can provide general access to your files, run streaming broadcasts and work securely with your data from anywhere in the world, without any subscription fee.

We received a WD My Cloud model (WDBCTL0020HWT) with built-in hard drive 2 TB, let's take a closer look at the device.

The delivery set includes the device itself, a power supply, a cable for connecting the device to local network, installation instructions software.

The My Cloud body is made of white glossy plastic. There is a device activity LED on the front panel.

On the rear panel there is a USB3.0 connector, a connector for connecting to Ethernet networks, power supply connector, Kensington lock and Reset button.

My Cloud uses a Gigabit Ethernet interface and a dual-core processor to make file transfers extremely fast and allow you to dynamically update and keep your data up to date.

The top surface of My Cloud is made in the form of a grill for more efficient heat dissipation from hard drive. It is worth noting that the device itself practically does not heat up and does not make noise during operation.

A distinctive feature of My Cloud is its ease of installation. WD software can automatically recognize the connected drive. It only takes a few minutes to initial setup in a universal web interface. Immediately after installation, the storage becomes available for creating individual user accounts and connecting to all used computers and mobile devices using free utilities.

The entire installation and configuration takes place in a few steps.

Go to the WD website and download software for WD My Cloud

Let's start the installation. The program itself detects the device. In our case, the storage is connected via a WiFi router

We create account administrator for storage

That's it, installation is complete.

After this, you gain access to the device via a local network or through the wd2go.com service from anywhere there is Internet access.

Streaming functionality lets you use My Cloud as a central home storage location for terabytes of videos and music. Any multimedia device that supports DLNA technology, a media player, Smart TV or game console.

Users can work with documents, view photos, and stream video from My Cloud on their smartphones and tablets using dedicated free mobile applications. They also allow you to manage data on the device, send separate files via email, provide a link to your documents, print and open files, and move them from your personal cloud to public clouds such as Dropbox™, SkyDrive® and Google Drive™.

Once the software is installed, you will have a shortcut to the WD My Cloud control panel on your desktop.

The main screen on the control panel displays basic information about the drive. As we can see, after the first launch, an icon is displayed on the control panel indicating that the device’s firmware is outdated. If you click on the icon, the program will automatically update the device firmware to the latest one.

In addition to the information displayed on the main screen, you can perform express diagnostics of the device.

In the Users section, you can configure access to your cloud content by setting up user accounts and access rights.

A few words about cloud software. BY WD SmartWare V automatic mode Continuously backs up data files stored on your computer to your WD My Cloud drive. First SmartWare crashes Various types files on the disk where the source files are stored, by category. You can back up all file types or specify specific files, folders, or categories to Reserve copy. After a backup is completed, WD SmartWare software protects your files by backing up:

• new files created on your computer or copied to HDD
• existing files modified in one way or another

Safepoint takes snapshots of data on disk for disaster recovery device contents.

Options on the Settings screen allow you to fine-tune cloud storage to suit your needs.

conclusions. Cloud storage WD My Cloud is very easy to use and inexpensive device for those who process and store large amounts of information. It can be recommended both as a family storage for music and films, and as a reliable photo archive for professional photographers. Not only can you access WD My Cloud from anywhere on Earth where there is Internet access to upload photos from a camera or laptop, but the system itself will take care of data safety by backing up files and folders from your PC to the cloud, and at the same time will make backup copies of the cloud itself in case of failure.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. Today we will talk about another cloud service, this time from . First, some lyrics. I still have two working on my computer hard drives, which are already twelve to fifteen years old, and maybe more. “So what, it happens,” you say. Yes, but...

Over the past few years, I have thrown into the trash about six or seven hard drives that were between two and four years old, but they all failed one by one. Components now (and railways in particular) are extremely unreliable (apparently this is a conspiracy to sell more and more new volumes, because quality does not depend on the manufacturer). Therefore, all important and not so important information has to be backed up. .

Now I'm on Dropbox, but the free gigabytes I received for installing their application on my S3 mobile phone are coming to an end. Paid package due to the devaluation of the ruble, the price almost doubled. Therefore, now I am at a crossroads - either strangle the toad, or look for an alternative free cloud.

Option clouds from Mail.ru I liked the big ones free service the size of the storage area is 25 GB (on my old Mail.ru account I even got a hundred for undivided use) and its fairly large popularity in RuNet. However, let's take a closer look at the product...

Opportunities of [email protected] in comparison with competitors

Previously, the corporation had a project called Files Mail.ru and provided users with the ability to exchange files. Files had a number of restrictions on the size of transferred objects and much more, but since 2014 this project has been considered closed and everyone is strongly advised to move to the cloud, where all its main functionality has been transferred:

Therefore, today it makes sense to talk exclusively about [email protected]. To begin with, let me remind you that a little earlier I described several popular cloud services in RuNet, each of which is quite competitive (follow the links provided you will find their detailed description):

1. - a wonderful service (the founder of other clouds), which stores not only files, but also the history of their changes (this option seriously helped me out once). True, they only give about two gigs for free, although you can different ways become more sophisticated by expanding them to sixteen. On a paid tariff they give you a terabyte, but in exchange they ask for a hundred evergreen pieces of paper per year (some kind of chaos).
2. - on free account there is a limit of 10-20 Giga, which again will have to be obtained in various unnatural ways. I mainly use it to transfer some files (folders) by sharing, or to upload some things for downloading from the site (Dropbox in this regard is picky about the amount of traffic generated when downloading).
3. — as in Dropbox, the history of document changes can be saved in the cloud, and a huge number of file types can be viewed without downloading them to your computer. By default, it offers fifteen gigs for free (although they will be shared with Google photos). There you will also find an online office (what used to be Google Docs) if you want to create and edit documents online.
4. - the brainchild of Microsoft. Mere mortals are provided with seven gigs of joy, and for owners of licensed eights - twenty-five. Among the features we can note is the complete analogy of the online office, which is called Office Web Apps, as well as the ability to receive from the Internet remote access to the computer where you have the cloud application installed.

Kindly skipping ahead and presenting the competitors, I think it’s time to review the capabilities of the web interface of this cloud, its program for installation on a computer and the Mail.Ru Cloud mobile application. The set is generally standard, and the capabilities of this service are somewhat similar to those already described by direct competitors.

However, a year ago there was a promotion in Mail, in which many were able to get one terabyte of free space in the cloud just for installing mobile client and connecting it to your account. Therefore, in RuNet this service is very actively used, including for sharing something useful in narrow circles. In general, I like the corporation’s approach to business, and I noted this when I wrote about them. It’s not for nothing that, in total, all their resources occupy first place in terms of traffic on the RuNet.

Main characteristics of the Mailrush cloud

So what:

As you can see, the history of file changes is not kept here, which means you will not be able to restore the appearance of the file as it was a week ago. On the one hand, this is a minus, but on the other hand, in two years I have used this opportunity in Dropbox only once.

Online version of the file storage [email protected]

Cloud web interface quite simple and concise. There is nothing superfluous or distracting. Personally, I like it more than the competitors’ options (the designers and usability engineers did a great job).

There are two tabs at the top: “Cloud” and “Sharing”. The first tab opens by default, and you will find a description of the second in the video above (there you can share one of the folders with your friends or colleagues and allow each of them to either only view the contents, or give them the ability to edit it). Let's go over interface of the “Cloud” tab:

Mail.Ru Cloud - programs for working with disk

Actually, let’s now take a look at working with the desktop and mobile versions of Mail.Ru Cloud. Let's start with the computer. You can download the program for Windows using the link provided. The installation wizard is completely “typical”. After installing the program [email protected] you will be asked to provide your username and password for your mail account:

If you entered everything correctly, then next step you will be offered to change your place of residence if you wish folders [email protected] , which will subsequently be synchronized with the cloud. Please note that its size will be equal to the size of the files stored on the virtual cloud disk, and can reach 25 Gigabytes (and in my case, up to a hundred).

Default this folder It is proposed to create it on the “C” drive, which is not acceptable for me personally, because I periodically create its image with Acronis and the extra gigabytes there are not a problem for me at all.

Traditionally, after installing a program, its icon will appear in the tray; by clicking on it with the left mouse button you will be taken to this very common folder, which will be synchronized with the cloud. Well, what about the menu? right button will allow you to perform a number of important and not so important actions.

For example, if you work with the same cloud from Mail from several computers (you are allowed to connect up to five of them), then different users will probably have their own folders that there is no point in synchronizing for everyone else. For this setting, use the menu item "Select folders". In the window that opens, simply uncheck those folders whose contents you do not need to synchronize on this computer. If anything happens, you can play everything back simply by returning the checkboxes to their place.

you no longer need to open the cloud.mail.ru service in your browser, but simply copy it to a folder [email protected] the necessary objects and they will immediately begin synchronizing with the virtual cloud disk. By the way, in context menu All your files and folders after installing the program, additional items will appear to help in this difficult task:

Well, it’s like a desktop program and I don’t know what else can be said. Quite simple, visual and understandable. Let's see if things are going well with the application for mobile devices.

Mobile application Cloud Mail.Ru

I installed it on the iPad, so I’ll talk about it. It is installed from (search either by Cloud Mail.Ru or by Mail.ru cloud). Naturally, you will again have to enter your username and password for your account.

After that, you will be asked if you want to automatically upload photos and videos from this gadget to the mailrush cloud.

If you agree, it will be automatically created in the root of your virtual disk folder "Camera Uploads", where all media files will begin to be copied immediately. Actually, this is exactly how I uploaded the screenshots given here to the computer. The thing is convenient.

The mobile application interface is again quite simple and well thought out. At the top right you will find a button for customizing the appearance of the display of files in the window (again, you will be asked to select the notorious tile or list). There, by the way, it will be possible to configure sorting (alphabetically, by date, and in reverse order).

The button with a plus sign located next to it will allow you to add new folder, and also perform a couple more actions:

The left button on the top toolbar opens hidden menu, allowing you to perform a number of actions.

I forgot to mention that the mobile application comes naturally, because the first one usually has a bit of a problem with memory. However, some files can be stored on the gadget. The easiest way to do this is to click on the icon with an up arrow when viewing a file, but there is a universal way. In order to mock any file, just click on the letter “i” in the circle and in the window that has already opened, select the action you need (saving, sharing, moving, renaming, etc.).

There you can also configure shared access to the folder:

When viewing files in list mode, you can simply move the line with the object description to the left and access the same settings:

Naturally, files of many formats can be viewed directly in the application window (photos, videos, text documents, etc.). Well, that's all, I guess.

I was left with a very good impression of the usability of the service and applications under the general name [email protected]. If in the near future they also add the ability to collaborate with files, and also (dreams) add the ability to access the history of file changes, then I might be open to it file storage I’ll move from Dropbox (100 GB received from mailrush will completely satisfy me in size). However, I would appreciate hearing your feedback. Maybe talk me out of it.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

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Acceleration and protection of your website in the Airi.rf cloud service

Four years ago we were introduced to a dual-disk network drive. This decision was notable for its original appearance and no less original software component, which allows without any special knowledge network technologies organize at home file server with access to the data stored on it via the Internet. For a long time V model range WD My Cloud devices had only two NAS, which differed in the number of installed hard drives (two or one) and, accordingly, the capabilities of organizing disk space. But last year, this family was replenished with two more new network drives.

The WD My Cloud Home and WD My Cloud Home Duo models also differ from each other only in the number of pre-installed drives (one or two, respectively), but there are much more differences from the previous generation products. The new models have more powerful hardware and, according to the manufacturer, improved software. Looking ahead, we note that the manufacturer has generally revised the ideology of using network storage, greatly simplifying not only the process of connecting and configuring the device, but also its use. Moreover, he names new products personal cloud storage, but at the same time never mentions the generally accepted abbreviation NAS, emphasizing their originality. We will study a new approach to the design of network storage devices using the example of the two-disk WD My Cloud Home Duo model, which we will begin to get acquainted with.

⇡ Contents of delivery

The device comes in a very compact cardboard box that easily fits into a plastic bag - taking it from the store to your home is no problem at all. Inside, in addition to the drive itself, you can find accessories:

• power adapter with two removable plugs of different standards;
• network cable;
• A quick printed guide to getting started.

The package included with the device is the same as most other network drives. The software required for operation can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s website, and the hard drives are already installed in the appropriate sleds. The WD My Cloud Home Duo model comes with a total disk capacity of 4, 6, 8, 12, 16 or even 20 GB for the user to choose from. Our copy was equipped with two WD Red WD20EFRX drives with a capacity of 2 GB each, adapted for working with a NAS.

⇡ Specifications

WD My Cloud Home Duo
HDD	2 x 3.5" SATA
RAID level	JBOD, RAID 1
Network interfaces	1 × Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45
Additional Interfaces	2 × USB Host 3.0
Clients	Windows 7 and later (64-bit only); MacOS/OS X 10.9 and later; iOS 9 and later; Android 4.4 and later
Systemcooling	1 × fan
Dimensions, mm	179 × 160 × 102
Weight, kg	2,3-2,4
Guarantee, months.	24
Price*, rub. (for 4/8/12/16 TB)	22 000 / 26 000 / 36 000 / 45 000

* AveragepriceBy"Yandex.Market"onmomentwritingarticles

While all the parameters of previous NAS could be easily found in the public domain, for the WD My Cloud Home Duo, only the most basic characteristics of the new product are provided on the manufacturer’s website and in the user manual. No detailed information about the hardware platform or network protocols, alas, is not given. In the instructions you can only find information on the type of RAID array used. WD My Cloud Home Duo hard drives are mirrored by default RAID array 1, but you can also use JBOD mode.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to disassemble the new product without damaging the thin locks of the plastic case. We did not break it, and therefore the hardware component of the device remained unknown. The manufacturer does not provide any data. The only thing we can say with confidence is the presence on board of the drive of a gigabit Ethernet network controller and two USB 3.0 interfaces for connecting external storage media.

Appearance

Appearance of WD My Cloud Home Duo

The new product is made in the form of a parallelepiped with sharp edges and right angles without roundings. Its modest dimensions allow you to place the device almost anywhere. For example, this could be a desk, bookshelf or window sill. Visually plastic case divided into two halves - white lacquered and silver, with a characteristic waffle structure. On the front panel of the device there is a narrow transparent strip between them, behind which the LED operation indicator is hidden. There are no interfaces on the front panel of the WD My Cloud Home Duo.

The back panel is more interesting. There are two USB 3.0 ports, an RJ-45 network port, a connector for connecting an external power adapter, and a reset button recessed into the body. Between the parts of the case there is a narrow power control button for the drive, and the entire upper half is given over to ventilation holes. Behind them is a cooling system fan that blows air through another radiator grille, located not at the front (like other models of network drives), but at the bottom.

Hard drive bay

Access to the hard drive bay of the WD My Cloud Home Duo is not from the front, like other network drives, but from the top. There, the device has a removable flat panel. It is held on by four dense rubber bushings and can be removed using a screwdriver, wrench, ruler or any other object that can be used to carefully pick it up by the edge. Under the cover there is a compartment for hard drives, which in this case occupies almost the entire internal space of the drive.

The disks in the compartment are placed in plastic slides of the simplest design. The discs are held in them not by screws, but by small metal axles secured in soft rubber bushings. This solution has a positive effect on ease of installation and on reducing vibration during operation. Well, inside the drive housing the slide is secured with a simple plastic lock. However, there is definitely no need to worry about the discs accidentally falling out during operation or moving the drive from one place to another. When placed vertically, you still need to manage to accidentally pull the slide out of the body.

As we already wrote above, unfortunately, we were unable to disassemble the body of the new product. But if it is impossible to determine the hardware component without opening it, then the principles of the internal structure of the device can be understood without disassembling it. Inside, the WD My Cloud Home Duo case has a metal frame, which can be seen through the ventilation grilles and through the disk compartment. The device's motherboard is mounted vertically along one of the walls of the case. Apparently, she is quite small. In general, the WD My Cloud Home Duo model is not very different in design from a regular NAS - except that the compactness of the new product causes admiration and even surprise. Otherwise, this is a quite nice classic network drive.

⇡ Working with the device

Unlike a regular NAS, which can be configured over a local network, you cannot connect the WD My Cloud Home Duo without access to the Internet. The drive does not have its own web interface, so communication with it is possible either through the Internet service MyCloud.com, or using installed special software, which can be downloaded both for a desktop PC running Windows or MacOS / OS X, and for mobile devices with Android or iOS.

When connecting via the web interface, the device should be detected automatically. If this does not happen, the Internet service will ask the user to enter the device code indicated on the case. Note that when testing with one of the Internet providers, no connection problems arose, but with another the device flatly refused to be detected. Wherein network hardware and its configuration in both cases was the same. Unfortunately, we were never able to find out what this is connected with.

The drive is configured completely automatically, without user intervention, who only needs to register on the portal by entering a name and password. In the future, when working with the device, the owner of WD My Cloud Home Duo is also free from any network settings- the device operates in fully automatic mode and does not require control. For some, this feature of working with the drive can be a real gift, because not all users like to customize the system to suit their needs. Some people just need to store data in one place and access it via the Internet, without turning their personal cloud storage into a full-fledged server. For everyone else, it’s better to pay attention to other network drives.

Access to data through the MyCloud.com web service, as well as through installed applications My Cloud Home, does not require too much detailed description. These are fairly simple file managers that display the entire file structure of the drive. When installing software for a PC, the drive is detected by the system as a regular, permanently connected network drive.

The mobile version has several differences from the PC version. Thus, this application allows you to automatically backup photos taken from your smartphone camera. Also only mobile version My Cloud Home makes it possible to copy data to the drive from flash drives connected to its USB port. In addition, both applications allow you to synchronize data, and through the web interface it is possible to synchronize data from some popular cloud storages: Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive.

In general, working with the WD My Cloud Home Duo NAS is extremely simple and does not require instructions. Some confusion is introduced by a slight difference in the capabilities of the web service and installed applications, but you can get used to it. In terms of communication with the user, this model can really be called the simplest NAS, if such an abbreviation is generally applicable to this network drive.

⇡ Testing

If you access the WD My Cloud Home Duo only via the Internet, device performance will be entirely dependent on your ISP and router. If you also use the installed My Cloud Home applications, then in this case you can achieve much higher speeds for reading and writing data, since these operations will be carried out over the local network. It was in this use case that we tested the performance of the new product. In this case, standard WD Red WD20EFRX hard drives were used. The test bench for checking performance had the following configuration:

• CPU Intel Core i5-2320 3.0 GHz;
• motherboard GIGABYTE GA-P67A-D3-B3 Rev. 2.0;
• RAM 16 GB DDR3-1333;
• video adapter ASUS GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB;
• SSD-drive Intel SSD 520 with a capacity of 240 GB;
• gigabit network adapter Realtek PCIe GBE;
• OS Windows 7 Ultimate.

Native read and write speeds test bench were about 200 MB/s, so the stand will not limit performance results network storage. During testing, the device's disks operated in RAID level 1. Testing was carried out using ATTO Disk Benchmark and Intel NAS Performance Toolkit.

Test results indicate that NAS performance is lower when one client is connected bandwidth gigabit network, but at the same time it is quite enough for comfortable work with the device - that is, for transmitting large files over the network. For the main scenario of working with the WD Red WD20EFRX, that is, when exchanging data with it via the Internet, the demonstrated level of performance is even excessive. We also tested the device with direct data transfer. Three video files ranging in size from 2.5 to 3.5 GB were used as test data. The average write speed was 71 MB/s, and the read speed was 96 MB/s, which is fully consistent with the data from previous testing.

As for noise, the new product makes noise only when turned on. Then it quiets down, and the sound of the fan is not heard even when active work. In general, active testing of the device did not reveal any shortcomings in the operation of the WD My Cloud Home Duo. The device worked stably, without failures.

⇡ conclusions

Without a doubt, of all the network drives that we tested in our test lab, the WD My Cloud Home Duo model can be called the easiest to use. To organize a personal remote data storage, the user of this device will not need any specific knowledge at all. You don’t even need to configure anything: connect, register, and use it! I was a little puzzled and upset by the failure when connecting to one of the providers, but it is possible that in this case we did not take something into account, especially since technical support We did not contact WD with this issue (perhaps this has something to do with the large number of blocked Amazon IP addresses).

The device cannot be called slow - its speed will certainly be enough for all those who will be satisfied with its capabilities. All this suggests that WD My Cloud Home Duo has a clearly defined target audience - these are those users who do not need to turn remote storage into a full-fledged file server with many features and dozens of various functions. This device is designed for those who need constant remote access to their files from anywhere in the world, as well as a point for backing up data from mobile and other devices. If you don't need anything else, then the WD My Cloud Home Duo is your choice!

Manufacturers hard drives have long turned their attention to external drives based on hard drives, which allow them to expand the range of products offered to the market and provide additional profit.

In the home devices segment, WD previously offered two models with one and two hard drives, respectively. It’s interesting that they turned out to be real “long-livers” - the My Book Live review was published by us three years ago, and we tested the two-disc My Book Live Duo a year later.

At the beginning of 2014, the company decided to significantly update this line, and today we will get acquainted with one of the three new products. Note that the changes affected both the hardware platform of the device and the built-in software.

WD My Cloud is available on the market in versions with a 2, 3 or 4 TB hard drive. The device has a white body color and a design familiar from previous models. It uses a dual-core processor and has USB port 3.0. In terms of firmware, the company tried to simplify work with the drive and implement simple remote access setup.

Delivery set and appearance

The device comes in a beautifully designed cardboard box in blue tones. It's a pity that there was no place for a plastic handle for easy transportation. The packaging contains a photo of the drive, technical specifications, system requirements and delivery set. Note that in our case, only a short list of device features was Russified.

In the box, the user will find the drive itself, an external power supply 12 V 1.5 A with replaceable plugs, a network patch cord, conditions warranty service, a getting started flyer and a description of the process of migrating data from an existing USB user drive to a network device.

On the company's website you can download firmware updates, utilities for Windows and Mac OS, electronic version user manuals. The device has a two-year warranty.

The drive is compatible with Windows XP and Mac OS 10.6 and older operating systems. To access data you can use all popular browser versions, including FireFox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari.

The case in its design and dimensions (49x140x170 mm) differs little from its predecessors. It is designed for vertical installation only. For this model, white plastic was chosen as the main material. The surfaces of this color are glossy. The top, back and bottom surfaces are light silver and matte. Note that they are covered with passive ventilation holes. There is no fan inside the case.

Four rubber feet provide stability to the drive. On the front side there is a small silver insert with a logo, model name and a multi-color status indicator, which glows blue when in working order. Interestingly, there is an option to turn it off in the settings.

On the back there is a hidden reset button, a USB 3.0 port, a gigabit network port with built-in indicators, a power supply input and a Kensington lock. Note that there is no power switch, and the case does not allow user access to the disk. But if desired or necessary, you can open it.

Design and hardware characteristics

The drive is based on the Mindspeed Comcerto 2000 platform. It uses SoC M86261, which has two ARMv7 cores operating at 650 MHz. Volume random access memory is 256 MB, a 512 MB flash memory chip is provided for the firmware image. SATA controller, network adapter and USB 3.0 controller are included in the main processor.

All components are assembled on one printed circuit board. The processor has only a metal cover. There is no obvious console connector on the board, but there are many unlabeled pads. We note that there is space for installing a miniPCIe connector; perhaps the manufacturer plans to use it to install a wireless module.

The board is fixed to the hard drive and this “sandwich” is installed in a plastic case using rubber inserts. Our copy was equipped with a WD20EFRX hard drive of the WD Red series with a capacity of 2 TB. Thanks to the cold nature of this series, the drive costs passive cooling. Unfortunately, the Web interface does not provide an indication of the temperature value, but, judging by the documentation, in case of overheating the user receives a warning. Testing has shown that at room temperature and high load, the hard drive does not heat up above 45 degrees.

The data partition uses the EXT4 file system, and the operating system is located on a separate 2 GB hard drive partition.

The most significant difference from its predecessor is the presence of a USB 3.0 port. In addition, it is worth noting the higher performance of the platform, although you need to look at the real speed numbers, since it also depends on the firmware.

The last drawback noted in the previous article - the lack of a power switch on the case - has migrated to the new product. Of course, network drives do not require frequent power off, however, in our opinion, it was worth implementing this feature, since it is not always convenient to use network access from a PC or mobile device for this operation.

The drive was tested with firmware version v03.04.01-219.

Assembly and configuration

After connection network cable and turning on the power, the device automatically receives an address from the router and becomes available on the network under the host name wdmycloud. Access to data over the local network works immediately without any settings. But for full use To access device functions and access settings, you will need to register and create an account in the appropriate service. However, the process is simplified as much as possible - you just need to indicate your first name, last name and address Email, open the sent link to confirm your e-mail address and create a password. A similar procedure can be carried out through a Web browser for Android or iOS. In addition, you can use special utility WD My Cloud Setup for Windows and Mac OS.

Additionally, the company offers the WD Discovery program for Windows, which can help with searching for a device on the network and performing some operations with it (for example, opening shared resources) and a similar in function, but slightly outdated, WD Quick View for Windows/Mac OS. In general, the use of external utilities is not required to implement device functions.

The web interface for setting up the device has changed compared to previous models, but in general its organization remains similar. The quality of localization is not bad, although errors do occur. Many items have built-in tips and there is a general reference system. The interface works on standard ports 80 and 443 (HTTPS); unfortunately, they cannot be changed.

On home page the user has access to basic information about the status of the drive, including free space, generalized diagnostic results, data on the number of users and shared resources. From most points there are links to the corresponding pages with extended data (for example, the distribution of recorded files by type).

At the top of the window there are icons for going to settings for users, resources, cloud services, Safepoints and system parameters. The drive allows you to program the required number of users. The lack of group support and domain integration for the home model is not significant. The automatic creation of a resource with a username and full access for all.

By default, the drive has Public, SmartWare and TimeMachineBackup shared folders; in addition, the administrator can create new ones. All these resources are initially configured to have unlimited access. If necessary, you can disable this mode (except for the Public folder) and grant certain rights to each user. In the folder options there is also a switch for including files from them in indexing DLNA servers and iTunes.

Since the device has only one hard drive, the question of creating a backup copy of it will be of interest to many users. For this, the company has provided Safepoints technology - creating copies of data from the device on local USB drives or shared resources on the local network, such as other network drives. In this case, not only user data is recorded, but also the settings of the device itself. The service has the ability to create several copying tasks, in each of which you can select a recipient and set a schedule (manual mode, daily, weekly or monthly). But you cannot select only part of the source data. The first copy is complete, and subsequent copies affect only changed files. Please note that no special formats are used to store data, so if necessary, you can refer to copies using standard methods and get the necessary files.

All other, less frequently used system settings are collected in the “Settings” section. The “Basic” page allows you to change the device’s network name, set the built-in clock, disable support for cloud access and the Time Machine service, configure the disk to turn off when there is no user activity, and turn off the LED indicator. However, it is worth noting that if the hard drive is disconnected, there may be problems with remote access from the mobile application - the disk does not always turn on.

Settings network connection standard - there is DHCP support and you can switch the device to manual IP address assignment mode. The device does not support Jumbo Frames. On the same page you can change the name of the working group, enable support for the FTP protocol and access to the console via SSH. Note that FTP server works only with authorization, anonymous access is not provided. Note the support for passive mode and UTF8 encoding. Unfortunately, there is no way to change port numbers.

It is worth noting that the system supports not only SMB/CIFS and FTP protocols, but also AFP and NFS. The first will be useful for users of Apple computers, and the second may be useful for Linux supporters. True, there are no settings for them; in particular, NFS access works immediately to the entire drive without any restrictions. According to information from the company, the ability to configure this protocol is implemented in older models of the series.

The traditional set of system options includes resetting, saving and restoring the configuration, turning off and rebooting the drive, updating the firmware (from a file and in automatic mode). There is also a device diagnostic function. Most likely, in this case we are talking about using the capabilities of S.M.A.R.T. technology, but you cannot view the current state of the parameters from the Web interface.

The drive does not provide for storing a complete and detailed event log, but you can see a list of recent notifications by looking at the bell icon at the top of the page. You can use email to send messages to the administrator. You can add up to five recipient addresses to the list and select the same warning level for all. Conveniently, there is no need to configure a server to send messages - the device uses the manufacturer’s own services.

Remote access

To implement remote access to files from a PC, the wd2go.com portal is used, through which you can see all the devices registered in your account. I wonder what real work with documents is carried out by mounting folders to local computer via the WebDAV protocol, rather than directly through the browser. The advantage of this solution is their direct accessibility from any program on the PC. However, in our opinion, this option still does not allow using a remote disk with the same load as a local one. Perhaps it would be worth implementing an option familiar from other devices file manager in the browser or special clients.

As another remote access solution, there is the proprietary WD My Cloud program for Windows and Mac OS operating systems. It is a file manager for a network storage device that works with both local and remote connection. In this case, you do not need to change settings when changing the connection type; you can use most standard operations, upload new files to your device using Drag-and-Drop, create direct links to download documents for quick information sharing. From additional options There is a point to turn off the power of the drive.

If the router has an external address and supports UPnP for port translation, the speed of remote work with the drive is determined only by the capabilities of the user’s Internet channel. If these conditions are not met, then the device works through the company’s servers and the speed is significantly lower. In tests we saw numbers up to several megabits per second. So if you plan to intensively use the device remotely, we recommend trying to implement the first option. The connection status can be checked via the Web interface.

It is also worth noting that the model in question does not have the standard ability to access device settings via the Internet. Despite the configured port translation rules and operability cloud service,The Web interface remains unavailable.

To solve the problem of access from mobile devices to Android based and iOS manufacturer offers two branded programs- WD My Cloud and WD Photos. You can add a new device to them in another way - create a special temporary code of a dozen digits through the drive’s Web interface and then enter it in the program. When you create a code, it is automatically linked to a specific user, so that he does not have to use any accounts to work from a smartphone or tablet.

The first utility is interesting because it supports not only WD network drives, but also cloud services Dropbox, Google Drive and SkyDrive. They can participate on equal terms in most document transactions. For example, in WD My Cloud you can copy files from your cloud Google service to your network storage. It is also possible to exchange data with the local storage of a mobile device.

The program supports opening multimedia files directly from cloud storage. To do this, programs installed on the device are used, and for unsupported formats, you can first try downloading the file to local disk and then use external utilities. There is also an operation for downloading documents from a smartphone or tablet. IN Android case You can use this operation for any files, and for iOS only photos and videos from the standard gallery are downloaded.

WD Photos is generally similar to the utility described above, but only works with photos. It is possible to download files from the mobile device gallery to the device, but the program selects the download folder itself. Moreover, for Android platforms The utility also supports automatic sending of new pictures and videos to the drive.

To work on Windows platform Phone can use the WD 2go program, but we did not have the opportunity to test it in action.

Please note that the performance of remote access services depends on the state of the manufacturer’s servers. Without their participation, the described utilities do not work. So, to increase the reliability of the connection, it is worth providing backup options, for example, through a VPN server in the router or an FTP server in the network storage device.

External devices

The drive is equipped with one USB 3.0 port, which significantly expands its capabilities compared to its predecessor. This port can be used to connect external drives to expand the available capacity or back up data. There is no support for printers or other devices in this model. Together with an active USB hub, you can connect up to seven external drives.

Disks can have multiple partitions. File systems supported are FAT32, NTFS, EXT2/3/4, HFS+, XFS. After connecting, each section is published on the network under its own name and access for all users without restrictions. It is also included in the media server indexing. This can be changed if necessary. After reconnecting the disk, the rights are retained.

For safe shutdown external drives there is a corresponding item in the Web interface.

Additional features and enhancements

The network storage device has built-in DLNA and iTunes servers. The user can select the folders required for indexing, as well as disable services if they are not required. New files are scanned automatically, but there is also a manual start this procedure.

The DLNA server is provided by TwonkyMedia 7.2.6. Note that the user has access to his settings interface, which can also be used to access media files from the browser. The list of indexed formats includes jpeg, bmp, tiff, png, mp3, m4a, aac, flac, avi, m2ts, m4v, mkv, mov, mp4, mpeg, ts and other popular options. For different types of content, indexing is provided by date, album, tags and folders. Testing together with an LG smart TV showed that this service can be used to watch high-quality FullHD video, including BD-remix format. The iTunes service uses music recordings in mp3, m4a, aac and other formats. WITH current version programs on the PC, the service was quite functional. The server settings have the ability to selectively block client access to files.

The drive supports standard systems reserve Windows copy 7/8 and Mac OS (Time Machine). Additionally, for Windows operating systems, the WD SmartWare program is offered, which has two options for selecting source data, scheduling settings, and a mode for constantly tracking changes, similar to Time Machine. Note that My Cloud buyers are provided with three licenses for the professional version of the utility, which features DropBox support and an expanded range of compatible external hard drives.

Like its predecessor, the model of the network drive under consideration provides access to the console of the embedded operating system via ssh. If you have some experience, this allows you to expand the set of functions of the device, for example, install a transmission module for downloading files from p2p networks.

Performance

Speed ​​testing network access was held in Intel program NASPT. We used our standard templates and a standard WD20EFRX hard drive. The client was a modern PC running 64-bit Windows versions 8.1 and network card Intel I350-T2. The devices were connected via a D-Link DGS-3200-10 switch. Additionally, the graph shows the performance results of the WD10EFRX hard drive adapter connected to the drive via USB 3.0-SATA with file systems NTFS and EXT4.

Working with an internal hard drive is expected to be faster than working with an external one, but the differences are relatively small. All options provide single-threaded read speeds of 80-90 MB/s, which can be considered an excellent result for this class of models. Sequential recording is slower - at a speed of 40-60 MB/s. However, these figures are also typical for the initial segment of network drives with one or two hard drives. Patterns involving random writes are significantly slower, but in home use cases they are rare enough that this won't be a big problem.

Additionally, we checked the operation of the FTP server. Apparently this service has a lower priority, so you can write data to it at a speed of about 25 MB/s, and read files at a speed of about 45 MB/s. Similar results were obtained in the test of working with a computer under Mac control OS X

Compared to the previous generation of devices, performance has increased significantly. However, you need to understand that in single-tasking test scenarios only one processor core is running, and the second will help cope with multitasking load more efficiently.

conclusions

The entry-level network drive WD My Cloud is a successful continuation of the popular series and may be interesting in several respects. First of all, it is worth noting the relatively low cost of the device. If we compare it with the hard drive itself, it turns out that at the time of writing, on average, an additional 1,400 rubles were asked for a “box” for 2 and 3 TB models, and for a 4 TB modification, the difference is less than 1,000 rubles. Like its predecessor, the reviewed drive boasts a beautiful and practical case, the quality of which has no complaints. By the way, it is worth noting that there is no fan, which is the key to quiet operation.

The hardware platform received a new dual-core processor, which increased the speed of work in scenarios for reading and writing files over the network. But a more significant change seems to be the USB 3.0 port installed on the device, which allows, if necessary, to increase the storage capacity and expand its capabilities.

The new firmware version supports SMB/CIFS, AFP, FTP and NFS network access protocols. In addition, it implements new way remote work with the device from computers and mobile devices. Branded software clients also play a significant role in this. We haven’t forgotten about DLNA and iTunes media services.

Despite the relatively small set of features compared to more expensive devices in the home segment, WD My Cloud can be useful for the mass home user who requires accessible storage for work files, backups and a multimedia library. At the same time, simple setup of remote access allows you not only to use the drive remotely with mobile devices, but also to exchange files with friends.

We thank the company and agency 2L
for the network storage device provided for testing

We thank the company
for the equipment provided for testing

We thank the company
for the switch provided for testing

The name of the new network storage device WD My Cloud translates as “my cloud”. Although in fact this is not quite a cloud and not even a full-fledged NAS. This is a convenient and compact device for backup, a simple media server and storage device with the ability to access via the Internet for more than modest money. When it comes to data transfer speeds, My Cloud is clearly not the leader here. And with the reliability level of a single-disk drive, where it is impossible to organize a RAID array, things are not very good. But that’s not what makes him valuable.

How does WD My Cloud compare? For example, with the Apple Time Capsule, especially since “my cloud” has built-in support for Time Machine out of the box. In addition, My Cloud will cost about one and a half times less than the latest generation tower-shaped “capsule”, and if you do not need the functions of a router and a wireless access point, then a WD drive can be a good alternative. And the snow-white body of My Cloud will fit well into the Apple family.

A direct competitor to WD My Cloud is the single-disk NAS Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Home, which also supports remote access via the Internet, Time Machine functionality and UPnP servers. FreeAgent GoFlex Home also doesn’t set speed records, and it uses slow USB 2.0 to connect external drives, so in terms of hardware, WD My Cloud clearly wins.

Specifications

Built-in hard drive: 2, 3 or 4 TB capacity with SATA interface
Interfaces: network Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 (up to 5 Gbit/s) for external drives
Supported Operating Systems: Windows XP/Vista/7/8, OS X 10.6.8 and higher
Protocols: CIFS/SMB, NFS, FTP, AFP, DHCP, SSH, UPnP, DLNA and iTunes servers
Dimensions: 49 × 139.3 × 170.6 mm
Weight: 0.96 kg
Equipment: Category 5e Ethernet cable, network block nutrition
Price: about 5200 rubles

Inside and outside

The heart of WD My Cloud - specifically designed for network devices“system on a chip” Mindspeed Comcerto C2200 with two Cortex A9 computing cores on ARM7 architecture, which operate at a clock frequency of 1.2 GHz. The device also contains an operational chip DDR memory 1600 MHz with a capacity of 256 MB and a flash memory module with a capacity of 512 MB.

Higher-end NASes, as a rule, do not come with hard drives, leaving the choice at the discretion of the owner. WD My Cloud, on the contrary, is sold with an already installed hard drive, which is a 3.5-inch drive Western Digital WD Red series. This series includes hard drives designed for entry-level NASes, which combine from one to five drives. These hard disks with SATA 6 Gb/s interface and variable spindle speed, they are highly reliable and designed for round-the-clock operation. Our modification of WD My Cloud uses a 2 TB model, and also offers options with 3 and 4 TB drives.

The WD My Cloud case, traditionally for external drives of this brand, is made in the form of a book: the “binding” is made of glossy white plastic, and the “block” with numerous ventilation holes is made of silver plastic. The cooling is completely passive, so the NAS is almost silent - you will only hear the quiet crackling of the hard drive. Unfortunately, different words are no longer coded in Morse code in the case openings, as was the case in WD drives of previous generations; here it is just a pattern.

WD My Cloud does not have any hardware controls - all commands are sent via the network. The front panel has a multifunctional LED indicator of operating modes, the rear panel has a USB 3.0 port for connecting external drives, a gigabit network port, a connector for the power supply and a reset button recessed inside the case. On the bottom panel you can find an information plate with serial number, MAC address and other service information, as well as four stable legs.

Software basis and web interface

The software basis of WD My Cloud, like the vast majority of NAS, is Linux, in our case we are talking about Debian Wheezy. This means that for a person who understands it will not be difficult to get into its wilds and expand the functionality of the device without making changes to its hardware. In particular, you can install the Transmission torrent client in WD My Cloud, which we successfully did. About how exactly, a little later. To take advantage of all the features of WD My Cloud, including accessing files stored on it over the Internet, you need to connect the NAS to your router and set up an account in the WD My Cloud online service. Of course, if necessary, you can connect the device directly to your computer and work with it as with a regular external drive.

All settings and management of WD My Cloud are carried out through the web interface, which can be accessed either through a shortcut that appears after installation, or simply by typing the device’s IP address in the browser. If you've created a WD My Cloud account, you'll also have access to the experience on mobile devices and the WD Photos app.

The fully Russified web interface is very laconic, although it contains all the settings necessary for operation, which are distributed over five pages: “Users”, “Resources”, “Cloud Access”, “Safepoints” and “Settings”. Wherein home page performs not only cleanly information functions- from it you can immediately go to the windows for adding devices, users and resources (network folders) by simply clicking on the plus signs. On the “Users” page you can add new users and configure their access rights, on the “Resources” page you can add and configure access to shared folders. The Cloud Access page allows you to add mobile devices, capable of connecting to the device via the Internet. On the “Safepoints” page, you can do a kind of “backup backup”, that is, back up data from WD My Cloud on an external USB drive or other device on the local network.

The Settings page is where all the basic settings for WD My Cloud are made - from enabling SSH and FTP access and enabling DLNA (TwonkyMedia) and iTunes servers to resetting settings and updating the drive firmware. The overall impression of the web interface is extremely positive: it is logical, understandable, beautiful, and finally. And everything would be absolutely wonderful if not for some Russification errors. For example, in the system reset menu item, instead of “Quick recovery” and “Full recovery”, for some reason it says “Quick scan” and “ Full check", even though the WD My Cloud e-Manual is correct.

Festina Lente

WD My Cloud doesn't show performance miracles, and its performance when accessed over a local gigabit network is not very impressive: the average speed we recorded using HELIOS LanTest 6.6.6b4 for a 300-MB file was only 45.0 MB/s, and 18. 7 Mb/s is clearly not enough for a gigabit network. But do not forget that the speed of sequential reading and writing in a single-disk device is especially dependent on file sizes: for example, the measured reading speed of a 3-gigabyte file reached 63.6 MB/s, and a 12-gigabyte file reached almost 70 MB /With. And this is already quite a decent indicator. In any case, for a device of this class, designed primarily for regular backups, high speeds data transfer is far from the main thing.

Setting up Transmission

There is nothing special to say about the performance of WD My Cloud itself; it performs all the declared functions: backup, streaming, accessible via the Internet from smartphones and tablets. It’s much more interesting to talk about what you can do with this NAS if you get into the Debian Wheezy operating system installed on it. But we immediately warn you that if you manage to “drop” it, you will have to say goodbye to the guarantee.

First you need to enable SSH access on the “Settings” page of the web interface (Network → Network Services) and do necessary settings in an SSH client, such as PuTTY for Windows. On the “Session” tab, enter the IP address of our WD My Cloud and save the session under a new name. On the “Data” tab, enter the root superuser name and password (the default is welc0me, in the future, of course, it is better to change it). Click the “Connect” button and you will be taken to the Debian console.

Let's select Russian encoding by editing two files:

# nano .bashrc

Change the export LC_ALL-C line to export LC_ALL="ru_RU.UTF-8" and add the export LANG="ru_RU.UTF-8" line below.

Save (, Y, Enter) and open the second file:

# nano .profile

Here at the end we add the same two lines:

Export LC_ALL="ru_RU.UTF-8" export LANG="ru_RU.UTF-8"

Save and reboot the NAS:

# reboot

Before installing Transmission, you need to create two new folders on WD My Cloud to store temporary files and full torrents - Temp and Torrents. It is best to place them inside the Public folder or some other folder of the same level, otherwise the data will be written to the system partition and will quickly make your NAS inoperable.

Now you can enter the address of the repository from where we will download Transmission:

# echo "deb http://ftp.ru.debian.org/debian/ sid main" >>/etc/apt/sources.list

Let's do it backup copy original list of repositories:

# cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.bak

Let's update the information about available packages:

# apt-get update

Finally, install Transmission and the missing packages:

# apt-get install -t sid transmission-cli transmission-common transmission-daemon

After the installation is complete, stop the Transmission daemon to edit the configuration:

# /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon stop

Let's set superuser rights for him:

# sed -i "s/USER=debian-transmission/USER=root /g" /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon

Now you need to edit the Transmission configuration file (by the way, remember that to change the config of an already running Transmission, you need to stop the daemon itself before opening settings.json, and not restart its process after the changes). Opening:

# nano /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json

First of all, we need to change the location of the download folders we created earlier. If you created them in the Public folder, then the settings should look like this:

"download-dir": "/DataVolume/shares/Public/Torrents", "incomplete-dir": "/DataVolume/shares/Public/Temp", "incomplete-dir-enabled": true,

"rpc-authentication-required": false, "rpc-whitelist-enabled": false,

By default, the port for accessing the torrent client is 9091, if desired, you can change it in this line:

"rpc-port": 9091,

Of course, you can make other settings in the Transmission configuration file. Let's save them and exit nano back to the console (, Y, Enter). Let's restore the original list of repositories:

# mv -f /etc/apt/sources.list.bak /etc/apt/sources.list

That's it, you can run Transmission:

# /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon start

If everything is in order, we will see the message “OK”, after which we can open the application through its web interface by entering in the browser the IP address of WD My Cloud and, separated by a colon, the port for accessing Transmission (that is, 9091 or another one we have specified in settings). Let's check the functionality by trying to download and distribute the files.

For ease of use, you can download a special GUI for remotely installed, existing in versions for Windows, OS X and Linux. In it you will need to register your program settings (IP address, port), after which the GUI is ready to work.

Worth the money

What do we have in the bottom line? A neatly assembled network storage with a specialized processor and hard drive, but at the same time only 1000 rubles more expensive than the hard drive itself. In addition to backup functions for Windows and OS X systems, this NAS allows remote access to files stored on it via the Internet, including from smartphones and tablets. The built-in media server is capable of streaming multimedia files to any DLNA and iTunes-enabled devices within the local network.

Unfortunately, the functionality of WD My Cloud out of the box is limited to this, but it doesn’t matter: support for SSH access to the operating system Linux system Debian allows enthusiasts to extend it as they wish. We personally checked the possibility of installation and full functionality, probably the most useful program for NAS - Transmission, and this is already a very serious plus for such an inexpensive device.

Test results

Creating 300 files of 20 KB: 15.1 s
Opening/closing 300 files: 2.2 s
Deleting 300 files: 9.3 s
Writing 300 MB to a file: 18.7 Mb/s
Writing 3000 MB to a file: 24.2 Mb/s
Writing 12,000 MB to a file: 26.2 Mb/s
Reading 300 MB from a file: 45 Mb/s
Reading 3000 MB from a file: 63.6 Mb/s
Reading 12,000 MB from a file: 70.8 Mb/s
Blocking/unblocking parts of a file 16,000 times: 20.2 s
Reading a folder (640 files): 157.5 ms