WD My Cloud Home Duo Review - A Very Different My Cloud Product

Buy it at Best Buy - http://lon.tv/0ny93 (affiliate link) - The WD My Cloud Home is a very different product compared to the previous My Cloud Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. It's simpler and more consumer friendly. See more NAS - http://lon.tv/nas and subscribe! http://lon.tv/s -- Too long? See my index below:

VIDEO INDEX:
0:00 - Intro
01:05 - Comparison to other My Cloud Devices
02:00 - Ports and connectors
02:15 - USB ports do not work as a backup
02:46 - Servicing the drives
03:18 - Advertised space vs. actual space on duo due to RAID
03:43 - My Cloud Home Duo vs. Single Drive Version
04:06 - Pricing
04:52 - Required software for PC and Mac
05:17 - Web interface to the My Cloud Home
05:27 - Video playback & transcoding on the web
06:05 - WD Discovery software
06:22 - No direct connection to a PC
06:50 - My Cloud Home runs like a local drive when home or away
07:26 - Syncing like DropBox
09:22 - Offline sync
09:54 - Creating publicly accessible links
10:43 - Mobile app
11:03 - Accessing files from phone or tablet
11:42 - Adding photos and videos from a iPhone / Android
12:26 - Browsing and viewing photos / videos
12:49 - On the fly video transcoding
14:24 - Searching for files from mobile app
14:41 - Administrative settings
15:04 - Changing RAID option
15:20 - Other users and limitations
15:46 - Users are in silos
16:25 - Adding new users
16:48 - Connecticut external USB storage
17:32 - All users have access to external storage
17:56 - Commentary: lack of full NAS backup
18:23 - My Cloud Home Apps (aka Services)
20:28 - Plex App
22:15 - Overall Plex stability
23:40 - Plex transcoding performance
24:52 - Read and write performance
25:36 - Conclusion and final thoughts

Links:
PR2100 Review (better Plex support / performance):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIzvr3EVCOs

Plex Videos:
http://lon.tv/plexhdhr

This is definitely a new direction for the My Cloud line that is clearly aimed at simplifying the complexity of NAS devices for general consumers. And it appears to achieve what it sets out to do. It's very easy to get up and running: plug it in, set up an account, install some software on your PC or mobile app, and you're done. But all of this ease comes at a loss of control that advanced users will want. And there's not backup functionality yet.

Unlike the prior My Cloud devices this will work the same on a local network as it does remotely. So Mac OS and Windows will see this as a regular drive even if you're halfway across the world. It will of course run slower remotely due to available Internet connection speeds but it is a lot easier to use as a cloud device vs. the previous consumer models.

But a lot of sacrificed for this simplicity for advanced users. The drive requires an account with WD and will not work standalone. It will not be available as a network drive to computers without the software running. Multiple users are supported but they exist in their own silos and cannot share files with each other. The owner of the drive cannot see what files other users have stored on it.

The biggest omission I see so far is that it has no way of backing itself up automatically. This was a key feature of the original My Clouds and allowed copying data to an external drive for backup. Not here. So while external drives can copy data TO the My Cloud Home, data itself can't be copied out unless it is done manually over the network.

I'm sure we'll be doing more with this in the coming months as new features are added.

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