Overview of WD My Cloud 2 Tb. NAS or cloud? Or maybe together?

    I'll start with the background ...

    About a year ago, I really wanted to get hold of the NAS. More precisely, I wanted for a long time, but I really wanted it then. I just bought a smart TV and finally decided - I need a NAS. Well, so that the films were stored in it, they themselves downloaded from torrents there, and then they were distributed around the clock. Plus an archive of photos and music to keep in the same place. Well, and something else. Looking at the price tags of ready-made devices such as just add WD waterHDD - I was horrified and decided to assemble it myself. Moreover, it is a flight for creativity and the acquisition of new skills. I bought a motherboard with a dual-core Celeron 847 already soldered on it, it has inexpensive memory with 4 gigabytes and an Antec ISC 300-65 super case (also used, but in perfect condition). HDD, of course, was pulled out of the system unit - anyway, it was superfluous there. WD, by the way. Green. I first downloaded NAS4Free. But she did not support DLNA very well, even with crutches. Then I installed Ubuntu Server 12.04 ... Here, by the way, I need to clarify ... I AM A PURE WINDOW SHOWER! Until that moment, linux I saw only in photographs. Accordingly, it took me about four days to set up a typical task: a file server plus a torrent-rocking-rocking-room-distributor. Well ... in aggregate, you can add another couple of days associated with additional picking and reinstallation due to an unsuccessful upgrade to 04/14. Well, let’s leave this very story to neighing bearded admins. And now I have this thing in the corridor in the closet, it dries the air in it, eats electricity and is 99% idle. At the same time, I carry out all the actions with my uNAS only either through the "explorer" or the Transmission GUI. In order to configure something, you have to connect via SSH each time, remember where the files with tinctures are lying and what they are called and google, google and google again. And this is I, a technically educated citizen with a lot of free time. What should others do? In general, sometimes I want an elegant solution ... And now I have this thing in the corridor in the closet, it dries the air in it, eats electricity and is 99% idle. At the same time, I carry out all the actions with my uNAS only either through the "explorer" or the Transmission GUI. In order to configure something, you have to connect via SSH each time, remember where the files with tinctures are lying and what they are called and google, google and google again. And this is I, a technically educated citizen with a lot of free time. What should others do? In general, sometimes I want an elegant solution ... And now I have this thing in the corridor in the closet, it dries the air in it, eats electricity and is 99% idle. At the same time, I carry out all the actions with my uNAS only either through the "explorer" or the Transmission GUI. In order to configure something, you have to connect via SSH each time, remember where the files with tinctures are lying and what they are called and google, google and google again. And this is I, a technically educated citizen with a lot of free time. What should others do? In general, sometimes I want an elegant solution ... remember where the files with tinctures are called and google and google, google and google again. And this is I, a technically educated citizen with a lot of free time. What should others do? In general, sometimes I want an elegant solution ... remember where the files with tinctures are called and google and google, google and google again. And this is I, a technically educated citizen with a lot of free time. What should others do? In general, sometimes I want an elegant solution ...



    And yet it is! WD My Cloud.



    In general, one of my good friends, by the way, too, your humble servant, knowing my love of beauty, suggested I test a personal “cloud” from WD. Frankly, I have always been quite biased towards Western Digital, although I have heard many flattering reviews about the multimedia products of this company. Exactly until today. In fact, the WD My Cloud device turned out to be a truly complete solution that would almost completely satisfy my requirements. Not without complaints of course, but let's take it in order and a little more.

    Externally, WD My Cloud is no different from other WD products - it’s the same “book”. I got the color white. LED is blue. It does not shine brightly.
    Only a power supply is included, and a short patch cord. And we don’t need much.

    I won’t go inside - we’ll leave porn for Bender another time. But on the software part we dwell in more detail.
    First of all, after connecting WD My Cloud to the network, you can climb into it through a browser. And you can enter both the address assigned by the router using DHCP, and through your external IP, while naturally inside your network. And here's what we will see:



    “Cloud” offers us to choose the interface language, as well as agree to satellite tracking with a WD license.
    Then WD My Cloud asks you to enter information about you and other users in order to register everyone on WDMyCloud.com.



    It will inform you that everything is cool and will provide some links to additional software.



    And here it is - software:



    But back to the settings. On the initial page we will be greeted with general information: the amount of free space, the number of users, the relevance of the firmware, and other extremely useful rubbish.



    Well, the further, the more interesting. The second tab “Users” allows us to manage these users, add them / decrease them, and give them the rights to resources.



    Resources. Here, too, everything is simple. No chmod or alphanumeric designations for you. Everything is extremely simple and clear. It’s worth taking a closer look, reading through, moving a couple of sliders, and immediately you begin to understand everything.





    But the next tab “Access to the cloud” is quite interesting and I would like to know more about it.



    Shown here are those who have access to the cloud. You can edit your WDMyCloud.com accounts. See connected devices and programs.



    Moreover, access to devices and programs is possible not only through the issued code, but simply by being inside the network! On any account! Those. your mom / girlfriend / wife can easily connect on her tablet / phone / computer, select your account in the application and gain access to your private collection of cats ! EPIC FAIL !!!

    We will return to the application later, but for now we continue ... although ... what is there to continue? Let me put screenshots on you - they are big and you can see everything on them. Who cares - see:

    Spoiler








    And then I will continue.
    On the computer, we have the opportunity to operate both with a conventional conductor



    and special. program from the manufacturer: WD My Cloud
    Here as they say: “The felt-tip pens are different in taste and color.”



    On the mobile platform (I use iOS) there are exactly two programs. Both are naturally free.



    The first is an analogue of applications to all known cloud services. Moreover, it makes it possible to work not only with the “cloud” from WD, but also connect others, chasing files between them. It is only necessary to tighten them.



    And then everything is like everyone else - files, folders and all that.



    I won’t spray about the WD Photos program either. Just a program to send photos from the gadget to the cloud. She is as simple as three pennies.
    And what else can I tell you, “my dears” (© R. Dubovitskaya, editor's note)? But, probably, you are interested in speed. I didn’t make any special measurements, and I didn’t carry out synthetic tests, but I didn’t notice the fact of using special differences in speed between my self-assembled NAS and WDMC. Both the one and the other took and recorded a 55 GB video file in about 13-14 minutes, and the average copy speed displayed by the “conductor” fluctuated around 50 MB / s, finally reaching 70. The recording speed of small files is where at the level of 18-26 Mb / s.

    And most importantly for a snack. Torrents. They are for WD My Cloud “but the problem!”. And why? Yes, because Debian7.1 is nothing less than spinning inside a piece of iron. For access, you just need to enable access in the SSH settings.



    Well, with the “Debian” you can roam. And roll Transmission, and deploy some modest server for a smart home, in general, what the soul wants, the main thing is that there are enough iron resources. Speaking of them ...
    Processor: MINDSPEED Comcerto C2200 (2 cores Cortex A9, ARM7)
    RAM: 256 Mb
    Hard disk: 2/3/4 Tb
    Interfaces: 1Gbit Ethernet RJ45, USB3.0
    Supported OS: Windows / MacOS
    Supported protocols: CIFS / SMB, NFS, FTP, AFP, DHCP, SSH, UPnP, Bonjour, DLNA and iTunes servers
    Backup: WD SmartWare Pro for PC, Apple Time Machine for Mac

    Conclusion.
    Frankly - I really liked the piece of iron. The size is not big. It is not heated very much. It looks pretty. Noise is not making. There is little electricity. And most importantly, it works out of the box and is configured from and to a maximum of half an hour.
    Yes, there is no built-in Torrent client, but there is an opportunity to deliver a normal Transmission, proven over the years.
    Yes, there is no way to configure mirroring, because inside there is only one physical hard drive. But cloud tasks do not include the sole storage of important files. The main goal of the cloud is to store copies and exchange them. But if this is critical for you, WD has a My Cloud Mirror model.
    Yes, there is a problem with restricting access rights within the network, but I have nothing to hide - I store seals locally. ;)
    In general, I would not have my favorite NAS'a - I would definitely have got WD My Cloud. I really liked him.
    I bow for the sim, I ask you not to hit hard, if you have any questions - write in the comments, I will try to answer.

    PS finally, at the request of the editor, a small bunch of small photos of a small device


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