It's not clear at all that this is only a box that a hard drive needs to be purchased for and installed in

Can access the hard drives anywhere (via smart phone or any computer with internet access).

The drives were SCALDING HOT

Right now finding a way for the cloud not to use up my desktops hard drive space is easy to figure out, but time consuming to create a structure for

Love this massive nas drive it also runs plex no problem over the net.

I would not recommend this drive

I love the dual redundant drives and the peace of mind it gives in knowing that my cloud server is always fully backed up.

I am able to initial the first backup from the NAS to an external USB hard drive.

Not a deal breaker, but, for performance purposes as well as reduced raid options for only two available hard drives, two empty bays typically makes a big difference in how a NAS will perform over having 4 hard drives installed in it as well as some Raid configurations -will- require all 4 bays to be used

I have two identical 2TB hard drives and installed to this box, works great.

Setup was easy with 2 Red 6GB WDC drives.

I recently had a drive go bad and it took over a week to retrieve my files from my online service

I can access my drive anywhere through WD tunnel, helpful when I’m away from home but need access to my files

All four (WD Red) drives have been killed by this monstrosity

Save your money and use Apple's built in file sharing capabilities with a USB3 or USBC connected hard drive.

Just be sure you are aware that the 4 Bay model (8TB, ..perhaps other models?) isn't necessarily 4 hard drives installed as received!

This hard drive is very easy to setup

The "drive failure" notice appears for drives without disks inserted

You sure still use separate external drives, or other hard drives to have a backup, as hard drives do fail2

and allowed me to save perhaps $150 over the equivalent NAS with the drives.installed.If my finances permit in the future, I’ll try purchasing two more NAS 4TB hard drives and update this review

This drive was nice when it worked and I used it for a home media service and some extra file storage

The only instruction I never saw was that you do have to manually go in and configure your new hard drives before you can use it

This is a great USB strorage drive for the price.

Looks clean, hard drives install well, have phone and important documents on computer backing up to the hard drive

My unit has 2 hard drives, each 4 GB

If you have ever experienced a crashed hard drive that is unrecoverable, and I think we all have, you can all the more appreciate just how convenient this

I now have the peace of mind that my data will not be lost, even in the event of a hard drive failure.

No record breaker, but, quite comparable to my Synology NAS as well as a cloud hard drive I also use on the network

Also, it seemed sleep wouldn’t allow the front blue hard drive indicator panel lights to all go off

No power buttonConclusion:WD makes great drives, and decent NAS devices.

This has been the worst drive I have ever owned

Though that could be because of the slower drive as well

I will probably use the hard drives inside my tower and trash the unit

A fatal hard drive crash.

A fatal hard drive crash.

I wish that WD would make this much more expensive drive work as well - but it doesn't!

I would highly recommend a less expensive Mycoud drive for non critical backup and cloud access of data.

When connect an external hard drive to the box, the system names the drive bases on the external hard drive firmware name.

Friday I installed 2 hard drives laying around

That means you are paying about $150 for each 8TB NAS Grade hard drive

Love this drive

The Macs being completely silent 90+ percent of the time, the only noise in my home office was the sound of one drive spinning up, then the second drive and after a few minutes, the NAS fan would start running

Although I did not have the means to test this using other makes and types of drives or with two additional hard drives installed, I will state that this NAS will alert the user if a mis-match of hard drives has been attempted

Great drive

I was then able to return these two hard drives to the same state of configuration that they were at as received (raid 1) and in so doing, I did see this NAS verifying what to it was newly installed hard drives ready to be set up in my desired configuration

It requires that you purchase 2 additional hard drives to run RAID5 although it says on the box that it is set up for it

…Please update the product page and describe how many hard drive are installed in each model available and their individual capacity, not just the total capacity of the NAS, Fair is fair to the consumer

Also, I've heard that connecting a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to this is half useless, since it only shuts down the hard drives, not the system as well

Only 1 drive should be reformatted and all my data should be preserved on the unaffected drive

but that was the least of my concerns as I only required the ability to see how much was being stored, where it was stored, who has access, and what is the status of the hard drives overall

I’m building a second unit using a pair of WD 2.5 1TB drives and 2.5 to 3.5 adaptors designed for hot-swappable drive bays, however yes these are black, me bad.

I felt a little mislead thinking that the standard setup would be RAID 1 and as such, the label of 4TB meant I would have 2x4TB hard drives for mirror image backups

After hours of troubleshooting I found out we needed to buy and install an internal hard drive

This is a marvelous NAS drive that takes up little space, makes virtually no noise, and runs cool

I got it to run Plex and work as a backup drive for my Macs

I also have to figure out why the cloud is taking up my desktop hard drive space and not the drives cloud space

The system works with any 3.5" hard drive, and the site recommends the WD Red

…Please update the product page and describe how many hard drive are installed in each model available and their individual capacity, not just the total capacity of the NAS, Fair is fair to the consumer

Drive's web interface certainly has the option for doing a backup to an external hard drive, but it has NO options for setting up a schedule or any kind of continuous backup.

This is a NAS, so it can't be used as an external hard drive via USB

I was then able to return these two hard drives to the same state of configuration that they were at as received (raid 1) and in so doing, I did see this NAS verifying what to it was newly installed hard drives ready to be set up in my desired configuration

The My Cloud EX2 is hooked up with a 2 TB WD NAS hard drive that functions on Volume 1, and is the primary drive for storing and receiving data

The drives are quiet, the unit is not unattractive and frankly its setup was easier than other WD cloud devices I've used in the past.

I would highly recommend a less expensive Mycoud drive for non critical backup and cloud access of data.

So if you want to un-mirror the drives leaving your data vulnerable to data loss then you can get the 12TB.

The fans failed and they expect me to send them my hard drives to get a replacement or secure a replacement ( over $1K) with a credit card.

Crashes at times and transfers at 6.5GB per HOUR which is unacceptable for a quick backup of data on portable drives

Late February there was a power disruption (it was/is plugged into a surge protector) and both hard drive lights when red.

For now it is working as a drive

You can plug that into the back and add as many hard drives as you want to make your ultimate and massive library of any media content

Before I present my evaluation and review of this NAS, just be very aware that the 8TB 4 Bay version only includes two 4TB hard drives with two additional empty bays for expansion

Only operated a year before it indicated hard drive failure...on both drives.

While expensive (about $375 without any hard drives) the WD EX4100 works great

No record breaker, but, quite comparable to my Synology NAS as well as a cloud hard drive I also use on the network

Bought a MyCloud server to use with external hard drives

Overall, NAS has made big drives in individual machines redundant now that it's so easy to use.

I use portable USB drives to copy backups for offsite safe storage

Looks clean, hard drives install well, have phone and important documents on computer backing up to the hard drive

I am disappointed at WD as all my portable drives in the past have been Passorts (WD

…as a test, I did erase and reformat the included hard drives and this NAS did a full test to verify hard drive stability

Then after installing it, and more hours of troubleshooting, tech support informed me that it won't recognize it on the network properly unless I purchase and install a 2nd hard drive

Their drives are rather noisy (although most Enterprise systems are, to be fair;) and this may impact where you wish to place the device

I carry four portable drives (total of about 5tb) around with me with various images and virtual disks, as well as just things that I have collected as well as personal data

We are not using all the bays right now, and for some reason it knew this for the 1st week, and then after a firmware update, we keep getting errors about a drive being dead in one of the bays we are not using

This hard drive is very easy to setup

The only downside is the proprietary need for WD or Hitatchi brand hard drives

If you simply want automatic archival for a single computer without sharing the data, buy an external RAID enclosure such as the WD 8TB My Book Duo Desktop RAID External Hard Drive.

This added drive that steals space from the JBOD drive in the EX2 Hard drive is most useful if you need another dedicated small pseudo drive on a small low powered machine that the machine formats itself

I really love this Drive.

I have two identical 2TB hard drives and installed to this box, works great.

First of all, I've to admit it; I'm a data hoarder and if you're one as well you will love this network attached storage drive

Added (4) 4 Terabyte Hard drives for plenty of storage

External drives won't be mirrored like the My Cloud EX2 Ultra's internal drives

Not a deal breaker, but, for performance purposes as well as reduced raid options for only two available hard drives, two empty bays typically makes a big difference in how a NAS will perform over having 4 hard drives installed in it as well as some Raid configurations -will- require all 4 bays to be used

One issue that I had was a ticking sound from the hard drive every 5 seconds

WD also has a very good reputation for the quality of their hard drives, as well as for customer support.

I love the dual redundant drives and the peace of mind it gives in knowing that my cloud server is always fully backed up.

buy a stand alone usb hard drive save yourself the $$$ and the lost data

I got the diskless version and it was a little bit challenging to set it up with a different hard drive

However, after receiving one (which I will be returning, by the way) I have concluded that this device is absolutely no better than simply setting up a desktop PC with the same amount of hard drives in and networking them/sharing them across your network

Really wasn't rushing it due to the hard drives are NAS

Seems that the tech asked for the SSN of the device for the RMA, however, to replace the drive he needed to create it with the hard drives SSNs.

Since PLEX media server storage is the sole reason I bought the product, and the My Book hard drive plays some of the movies the My Cloud won't (with occasional buffering), this makes this product only marginally recommendable for my purpose.

’s performance, including boot-up time and shut-down time plus, system checks and in some cases, speeds of read/writes regarding accessing the hard drives depending on the specific Raid or JBOD drive setup in use

Oh, and be sure when you install the hard drives to use the small pull tabs they provide

On top of that, all the recommended drives appear to be standard hard drives and not solid state

I had thought that I was purchasing a solid state NAS drive

I found it cheaper to buy the diskless version then provide my own hard drives.

Love their hard drives, and have for over 20 years, but they need to get out of the external boxes completely.

It's not a 4TB NAS, it's a 2TB NAS with two 2TB hard drives preconfigured to RAID 1.

.. like seeing your NAS as a drive on your PC... but once you get to the software page, download everything...even if you don't know why

Any one drive can fail and you can recover by installing a new drive.

No need for backup at this time so the one hard drive is fine.

hard drives setup in raid 5 works great

Customer support has replaced my drive once and it kept having issues

The WD and other manufacturer's drives inside the units were still good and could be used in a computer, but the Buffalo unit itself failed

It's a good drive and it's fast.

even connected a brand new 6tb external WD drive to this last week, and the software told me that the drive was defective, it wouldn't even see/support their own external drives, i did finally get a backup of the NAS, after 5 days to backup 2TB of data with all the crashes in the system, sure hope it backed up anyway, as the NAS is now disconnected and up on e--y it will go tomorrow.

I bought the driveless version as buying the hard drives separately is much cheaper.

I was happy to review this new MyCloud NAS, as my previous NAS (a ReadyNAS NV+) is 8 years old, though still working fine with plenty of room left in recently-upgraded drives

I trust the WD hard drives, trust based on many decades of both private and professional experience

A common way for a PC.Folks- save yourself a ton of time and money and buy 4 individual 4TB Western Digital Blue hard drives from Amazon here instead of this thing and configure them inside of a dedicated PC for network access.

You can make your computers run faster if your hard drive isn't clogged up with photos and videos

I trust the WD hard drives, trust based on many decades of both private and professional experience

My review follows and will be based on using a 4 Bay NAS containing only two matched 4 TB NAS grade hard drives in bay 1 and 2.Please excuse my comparisons in this review to my trusted Synology NAS which had excellent owner reviews

even connected a brand new 6tb external WD drive to this last week, and the software told me that the drive was defective, it wouldn't even see/support their own external drives, i did finally get a backup of the NAS, after 5 days to backup 2TB of data with all the crashes in the system, sure hope it backed up anyway, as the NAS is now disconnected and up on e--y it will go tomorrow.

This NAS allows for setup of hard drives (depending on how many are used and if a matched set for both type and capacity or not) and offers JBOD, Spanning, Raid 0, 1, 5 and 10, so it certainly has all of the needed drive configuration options one will need

This NAS does have usb3 capability for a remoter printer, external USB3 hard drive or other usb2/3 peripheral

NAS not connected to anything nor the internet, the WD NAS hard drive blue LED status lights where still illuminated even though it was sleeping

Easy online setup I used a 3T toshiba hard drive I had laying around

4 TB NAS grade hard drives are not cheap and are typically most expensive then both standard SATA drives as well as Hybrid SATA drive!Prior to posting this review, I did ask Amazon about how to proceed in the case where a 4 bay review here is realistically only evaluating a 4 bay NAS with just two drives in it

The WD and other manufacturer's drives inside the units were still good and could be used in a computer, but the Buffalo unit itself failed

I have a failed hard drive whose data I'm attempting to recover and the limited space really gets in the way

That said, I did not research enough, because I failed to realized (my fault!) that this is not a hard drive I could plug directly into my computer

I added four WD Red 3TB hard drives and got almost 8.9 TB of storage to use

hard drives setup in raid 5 works great

No need for backup at this time so the one hard drive is fine.

Honestly, installing the drives was MUCH easier and more sure on my older D-Link NAS than they are on this

The drives never fail to "wake up" on demand

but as with other WD Cloud NAS and USB devices use propriority OS recording technique which makes it almost impossible to get your data if the device fails for any reason also almost impossible to replace the hard drive in case of failure or upgrade.

Any one drive can fail and you can recover by installing a new drive.

On the word, if you have two identical external hard drives connect to this box, you will see two similar additional drive on the network.

Delivered with 1 defective hard drive

For those wondering, the 4TB model (the one I bought) is described as pre-configured to RAID 1, but does not specify it has two 2TB hard drives in it and not 4TB drives.

Now I have to decide whether to run the risk of spanning the drive and losing redundancy or working with more limited storage and keep the safety of redundancy.

A quick comment if you are thinking about buying a less expensive drive rather than a NAS specific drive, Do NOT do that!!!

since then constant disconnects to the network, consistent drive errors on empty drive bays, NO help from support except to send it back to them on my dime.

Love their hard drives, and have for over 20 years, but they need to get out of the external boxes completely.

You drop the hard drives in

I'm not a photographer or heavy storage user, so I am using two 1 T WD Red hard drives with RAID 1 redundancy

For review purposes for potential buyers, a 4 bay NAS really needs 4 (matching) hard drives in it for an accurate review of a 4 bay model!One big suggestion…this 8TB 2 drive model I am reviewing comes at a cost of just under $700 while the diskless version is about $400

The device seemed to like my drives as they were, so to test this theory, I chose a machine with the least to backup and connected its Time Machine to the new NAS

The flashing abilities for other hard drives into the NAS is simple.

My couple year old Buffalo still works fine and has never had a bad drive.

Use the hard drives in redundant raid mode

Paranoid I will lose all of my kids photos and videos, so putting up the money for this was a tough decision, but glad I made it