WD My Cloud Home, a one-stop solution for everyone, where you can save all the digital content from your phone/tablet/Windows/Mac computers in one place, at your home. It is an easy-to-use personal storage device that directly plugs into your Wi-Fi router using its Gigabit Ethernet port and enables the device to backup & sync all your data, be it photos, and videos without paying any monthly fee. In other words, the WD My Cloud Home is a convenient centralized file storage and to keep a backup of data. Additionally, the USB 3.0 Type-A port lets you import photos, videos, music, documents, and more from other devices, such as flash drives, and external hard drives.
Before getting into further details about the product, I would like to share with you that WD My Cloud Home is an internet-connected hard drive that lets you access and share files easily from anywhere. In other words, it is a personal cloud storage that stays at your home and it plugs directly into your home Wi-Fi system, and as long as it is switched on & connected, you can access the stored data from around the world.
The WD My Cloud Home is designed to combine the convenience of cloud storage with the privacy and security of local storage without hampering the external hard drive or countless USB thumb drives. The product range is available in various capacities ranging from 2TB to 16TB, meeting the needs of an individual and families. It is quite simple & easy to set up the device and the company provides a pretty nifty diagram of how to set it up on the box. The storage device can be accessed using Mac, PC, iOS devices, Android smartphone, and a cloud website.
WD My Cloud Home is available in both single-drive and dual-drive options, and we’re reviewing the entry-level variant which is the 2TB device. Continue to read on, to see whether WD My Cloud Home is right for you or not.
WD My Cloud Home Box Content and Design
The front of the box has a large image of the product with a sticker on the bottom right-hand corner displaying its capacity, support for Android & iOS devices, HD Streaming, and backup. The rear of the box has some multilingual information on one half, while on the other half in bullet points you will find details of the box contents & system requirements. The bundle consists of 3.5-inch My Cloud Home drive, Gigabit Ethernet cable for connection to the router, an 18W power adapter, warranty information, and a setup guide card.
The WD My Cloud Home comes in a single or dual drive unit. The single drive product range offers capacities from 2TB to 8TB whereas the dual drive product range offers capacities from up to 4TB to 16TB respectively. In terms of designing, the WD My Cloud Home unit is offered in dual colour with impressive looks. The split design is similar to that of the recently launched My Passport. The top half of the drive has a plain white plastic finish while the bottom half features textured & metallic silver diamond pattern of interlocking triangles. There is a status indicator, white LED indicator strip on the front, cleverly designed and it lies in between the two finishes meeting point. The WD’s branding on the product is quite subtle and you’ll find the WD logo on the top white half of the drive while the rear panel carries the “My Cloud Home” name and the URL of WD’s My Cloud page (www.mycloud.com) on one half while on the other half, there is a Gigabit Ethernet port (for connection to the router), Single USB 3.0 port (to copy files directly to USB) and 240V AC to 12V/1.5A DC power supply. The top and bottom of the drive have large grilles for air circulation, helping to keep the My Cloud Home cool. It is recommended that you use the drive in the vertical or horizontal orientation so that there will be maximum heat dissipation happens.
WD My Cloud Home Setup, Features, and Functionality
Setting up the device is very simple and easy. The device packaging is inclusive of an instruction leaflet drive which clearly walks you through the initial set up of the drive. Basically, it’s a matter of simply plugging it into a Wi-Fi router (or via a switch connected to one) and connecting it to the mains. Once you have completed the process of connecting the device to the Wi-Fi router & mains, your next job is to access the Mycloud website, which can be done with either a PC or an iOS/Android phone. After creating the account on MyCloud website, it will look for your device and in order to set it up, you need to enter a code which can be found in the box. Once connected you’ll get the option to download the desktop app, as well as instructions on how to download the My Cloud Home Mobile App for Android or iOS.
On the outside, the WD My Cloud Home looks like an ordinary external hard drive but it has an advantage over other external hard drives, it lets you access your photos, videos, files through the My Cloud drive app, which can be downloaded on your phone, from anywhere.
Once the set-up is complete, the device is extremely easy to use, and you can use it as another drive from your computer, simply drag-and-drop the content onto your cloud space using the Windows file explorer or with the My Cloud Home mobile app (assuming that you’ve left it plugged in and connected with the router). You can also designate specific folders or content types you want to back up. Additionally, there is a USB port on the rear side and once plugged in with an existing hard drive and USB sticks you can back up the files from that drive.
The WD My Cloud Home is integrated with few apps like Amazon Skill, IFTTT, and Plex along with sync support for other cloud storage accounts. To sync content, you have to sign it to your WD My Cloud drive from the web app, click Services and configure the cloud services you already use.
With Plex, the WD My Cloud Home is a great option to store your entire library on an external hard drive that you can access on virtually any device. With IFTTT, you can do lots of things with WD My Cloud Home and it includes setting up all kinds of recipes like saving your Instagram photos, etc.
The Alexa Skill lets you play your stored music files through an Echo or similar device. By chance, if you have data on an original My Cloud unit, Network Import allows the importing or copying data from the old unit to the newer model.
And lastly, it also works with Apple’s Time Machine Backup facility or the Microsoft Windows Backup, which means you can back-up your entire computer.
WD My Cloud Home Performance
On the inside, there’s a 1.4GHz ARM-based Realtek RTD1296 processor (four Cortex-A53 cores) which is paired with Mali-T820 GPU & 1GB of RAM. This processor is designed for storage servers as well as media transcoding and streaming boxes. The capacity of WD My Cloud Home ranges from 2TB to 8TB for the single-drive My Cloud Home, and 4TB to 16TB for the larger My Cloud Home Duo.
We used the WD My Cloud Home 2TB drive with Xiaomi Mi Router 3C and on the same network, Windows 10 Laptop, Chromebook, and Android smartphone connected wirelessly. Given the high specifications of the drive, the drive works very well, remained accessible and didn’t disconnect.
WD My Cloud Home Final Verdict: Should I Buy it or not?
The design & styling of the WD My Cloud Home is top-notch, and it offers a degree of ownership, control, and the convenience to access the files from anywhere in the world. Additionally, it’s a simplified storage solution for non-technical users and it is for those who like uploading files & want their data to be saved locally rather than online.
According to me, the WD My Cloud Home is one of the easiest drives that offers a very seamless experience, and when plugged into the router, you can access it from anywhere. It is recommended that one should use WD My Cloud Home as a primary external hard drive and there is no need to pay a monthly subscription charge for cloud services.
WD My Cloud Home (Single Drive) Price:
- 2TB: Rs. 11,999
- 3TB: Rs. 13,230
- 4TB: Rs. 14,725
- 6TB: Rs. 20,050
- 8TB: Rs. 25,150