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My cloud home duo


Обзор сетевого хранилища WD My Cloud Home Duo: самый простой NAS

Четыре года назад мы познакомились с двухдисковым сетевым накопителем WD My Cloud Mirror. Данное решение было примечательно оригинальным внешним видом и не менее оригинальной программной составляющей, позволяющей без каких-либо особенных знаний сетевых технологий организовать у себя дома файловый сервер с доступом к хранящимся на нём данным через Интернет. Долгое время в модельном ряду устройств WD My Cloud были лишь два NAS, которые различались количеством установленных жёстких дисков (два или один) и, соответственно, возможностями организации дискового пространства. Но в прошлом году это семейство пополнилось ещё двумя новыми сетевыми накопителями.

Модели WD My Cloud Home и WD My Cloud Home Duo друг от друга также отличаются лишь количеством предустановленных дисков (один или два соответственно), но от продуктов предыдущего поколения отличий гораздо больше. Новые модели имеют более производительную аппаратную базу, а также, по заявлению производителя, доработанное программное обеспечение. Забегая вперёд, отметим, что производитель вообще пересмотрел идеологию использования сетевого хранилища, в разы упростив не только процессы подключения и настройки устройства, но и его использования. Более того, он называет новинки персональным облачным хранилищем, но при этом ни разу не упоминает общепринятую аббревиатуру NAS, подчёркивая их оригинальность. Изучать новый подход к устройству сетевых накопителей мы будем на примере двухдисковой модели WD My Cloud Home Duo, к знакомству с которой мы и приступаем.

⇡#Комплект поставки

 

Комплект поставки WD My Cloud Home Duo

Устройство поставляется в очень компактной картонной коробке, которая легко помещается в пластиковый пакет, — дотащить её из магазина до дома вообще не составляет никаких проблем. Внутри, помимо самого накопителя, можно найти аксессуары:

  • адаптер питания с двумя съёмными вилками разных стандартов;
  • сетевой кабель;
  • краткое печатное руководство по началу работы.

Комплект поставки устройства такой же, как и у большинства других сетевых накопителей. Необходимое для работы ПО можно скачать с сайта производителя, а жёсткие диски уже установлены в соответствующих салазках. Модель WD My Cloud Home Duo поставляется с дисками общим объёмом 4, 6, 8, 12, 16 или даже 20 Гбайт на выбор пользователя. В наш экземпляр были установлены два диска WD Red WD20EFRX ёмкостью 2 Гбайт каждый, адаптированные для работы с NAS.

⇡#Технические характеристики

WD My Cloud Home Duo
HDD 2 × 3,5” SATA
RAID, уровень JBOD, RAID 1
Сетевые интерфейсы 1 × Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45
Дополнительные интерфейсы 2 × USB Host 3.0
Клиенты Windows 7 и новее (только 64-разрядная); MacOS / OS X 10.9 и новее; iOS 9 и новее;

Android 4.4 и новее
Система охлаждения 1 × вентилятор
Габариты, мм 179 × 160 × 102
Масса, кг 2,3-2,4
Гарантия, мес. 24
Цена*, руб. (за 4/8/12/16 Тбайт) 22 000 / 26 000 / 36 000 / 45 000

* Средняя цена по «Яндекс.Маркету» на момент написания статьи

В то время как все параметры предыдущих NAS можно было легко отыскать в открытом доступе, для WD My Cloud Home Duo на сайте производителя и в руководстве пользователя приводятся лишь самые основные характеристики новинки. Никакой подробной информации об аппаратной платформе или сетевых протоколах, увы, не приводится. В инструкции можно отыскать лишь данные по используемому типу RAID-массива. Жёсткие диски модели WD My Cloud Home Duo по умолчанию собраны в зеркальный массив RAID 1, но можно использовать и режим JBOD.

К сожалению, разобрать новинку, не повредив тонкие замки пластикового корпуса, не представляется возможным. Ломать его мы не стали, а потому аппаратная составляющая устройства так и осталась неизвестной. Производитель никаких данных не приводит. Единственное, о чём можно с уверенностью говорить, – это наличие на борту накопителя гигабитного сетевого контроллера Ethernet и двух интерфейсов USB 3.0 для подключения внешних носителей данных.

Внешний вид

 

Внешний вид WD My Cloud Home Duo

Новинка выполнена в виде параллелепипеда с острыми кромками и прямыми углами без скруглений. Скромные размеры позволяют поставить устройство практически куда угодно. Например, это может быть письменный стол, книжная полка или подоконник. Визуально пластиковый корпус разделён на две половинки — белую лакированную и серебристую, с характерной вафельной структурой. На лицевой панели устройства между ними проходит узкая прозрачная полоса, за которой скрывается светодиодный индикатор работы. Никаких интерфейсов на лицевой панели WD My Cloud Home Duo нет.

 

Панель интерфейсов и система вентиляции

Задняя панель более интересна. Здесь находятся два порта USB 3.0, сетевой порт RJ-45, разъём для подключения внешнего адаптера питания и утопленная вглубь корпуса кнопка сброса настроек. Между частями корпуса расположена узкая кнопка управления питанием накопителя, ну а вся верхняя половина отдана под вентиляционные отверстия. За ними расположен вентилятор системы охлаждения, продувающий воздух через ещё одну радиаторную решётку, размещённую не спереди (как у других моделей сетевых накопителей), а снизу.

 

Доступ к отсеку жёстких дисков у WD My Cloud Home Duo организован не спереди, как у других сетевых накопителей, а сверху. Там у устройства нетрудно заметить съёмную плоскую панель. Держится она на четырёх плотных резиновых втулках и извлекается при помощи отвёртки, ключа, линейки или любого другого предмета, которым можно аккуратно её подцепить за край. Под крышкой размещён отсек для жёстких дисков, который в данном случае занимает практически всё внутреннее пространство накопителя.

 

Диски в отсек помещаются в пластиковых салазках максимально простой конструкции. Диски в них удерживаются не за счёт винтов, а при помощи небольших металлических осей, закреплённых в мягких резиновых втулках. Такое решение положительным образом сказывается и на удобстве монтажа, и на снижении вибрации при работе. Ну а внутри корпуса накопителя салазки фиксируются простеньким пластиковым замком. Впрочем, переживать о том, что диски могут случайно выпасть во время работы или перемещения накопителя с одного места на другое, точно не стоит. При вертикальном размещении нужно ещё умудриться случайно вытащить салазки из корпуса.

Как мы уже писали выше, разобрать корпус новинки нам, к сожалению, не удалось. Но если аппаратную составляющую без вскрытия определить невозможно, то принципы внутреннего строения устройства можно понять и без его разбора. Внутри корпус WD My Cloud Home Duo имеет металлический каркас, который можно увидеть сквозь вентиляционные решётки, через дисковый отсек. Системная плата устройства крепится вертикально вдоль одной из стенок корпуса. Судя по всему, она совсем маленькая. В целом модель WD My Cloud Home Duo по конструкции не сильно отличается от обычного NAS — разве что компактность новинки вызывают восхищение и даже удивление. В остальном это вполне симпатичный классический сетевой накопитель.

⇡#Работа с устройством

В отличие от обычного NAS, который можно настроить по локальной сети, подключить WD My Cloud Home Duo без доступа к Интернету не получится. У накопителя нет собственного веб-интерфейса, поэтому общение с ним возможно либо через интернет-сервис MyCloud.com, либо при помощи установленного специального ПО, которое можно скачать как для настольного ПК под управлением ОС Windows или MacOS / OS X, так и для мобильного устройства с Android или iOS.

Интернет-сервис MyCloud.com

При подключении через веб-интерфейс устройство должно определиться автоматически. Если этого не произошло, то интернет-сервис попросит пользователя ввести код устройства, указанный на корпусе. Отметим, что при тестировании с одним из интернет-провайдеров никаких проблем с подключением не возникло, а с другим устройство наотрез отказалось определяться. При этом сетевое оборудование и его конфигурация и в одном, и в другом случае были одинаковыми. С чем это связано, нам, увы, так и не удалось выяснить.

Настройка накопителя проходит полностью в автоматическом режиме, без вмешательства пользователя, от которого требуется только зарегистрироваться на портале с вводом имени и пароля. В дальнейшем при работе с устройством владелец WD My Cloud Home Duo также избавлен от каких-либо сетевых настроек – устройство работает в полностью автоматическом режиме и не требует контроля. Для кого-то эта особенность работы с накопителем может стать настоящим подарком, ведь далеко не все пользователи любят настраивать систему под свои нужды. Кому-то нужно просто хранить данные в одном месте и иметь к ним доступ через Интернет, не превращая персональное облачное хранилище в полноценный сервер. Всем остальным лучше обратить внимание на другие сетевые накопители.

 

Доступ к дисковому хранилищу при помощи приложения My Cloud Home для ПК

Доступ к данным через веб-сервис MyCloud.com, как и через установленные приложения My Cloud Home, не требует слишком подробного описания. Это довольно простые файловые менеджеры, в которых отображается вся файловая структура накопителя. При установке ПО для ПК накопитель определяется системой как обычный, постоянно подключённый сетевой диск.

   

Доступ к данным через мобильное приложение My Cloud Home и его возможности

Мобильная версия имеет несколько отличий от версии для ПК. Так, это приложение позволяет проводить автоматическое резервное копирование фотографий, получаемых с камеры смартфона. Также только мобильная версия My Cloud Home даёт возможность копировать данные на накопитель с подключённых к его USB-порту флешек. Кроме того, оба приложения позволяют производить синхронизацию данных, а через веб-интерфейс возможна синхронизация данных из некоторых популярных облачных хранилищ: Dropbox, Google Drive и OneDrive.

Работая с хранилищем через отдельно установленное или веб-приложение, пользователь может для любого файла или папки создать ссылку и поделиться ей с кем-либо, тем самым предоставив этому кому-то доступ к выбранным данным. Также в системе можно создать нескольких пользователей устройства, которые получат те или иные права доступа к хранящимся на накопителе данным. Остаётся отметить, что через веб-приложение MyCloud.com пользователь может выбрать режим работы дисков: RAID1 или JBOD. Установленные на ПК или мобильные устройства приложения My Cloud Home почему-то не позволяют проделывать эту операцию.

В целом работа с сетевым накопителем WD My Cloud Home Duo предельно проста и не требует инструкций. Некоторую неясность вносит небольшое различие возможностей веб-сервиса и установленных приложений, но к этому можно привыкнуть. В части общения с пользователем эту модель действительно можно назвать самым простым NAS, если таковая аббревиатура вообще применима к данному сетевому накопителю.

⇡#Тестирование

При условии доступа к WD My Cloud Home Duo только через Интернет производительность устройства целиком и полностью будет зависеть от вашего провайдера и роутера. Если же вы будете использовать ещё и установленные приложения My Cloud Home, то в этом случае можно добиться куда больших значений скорости чтения и записи данных, так как эти операции будут проводиться по локальной сети. Именно в таком варианте использования мы и проводили тестирование производительности новинки. При этом использовались штатные жёсткие диски WD Red WD20EFRX. Тестовый стенд для проверки быстродействия имел следующую конфигурацию:

  • процессор Intel Core i5-2320 3,0 ГГц;
  • системная плата GIGABYTE GA-P67A-D3-B3 Rev. 2.0;
  • ОЗУ 16 Гбайт DDR3-1333;
  • видеоадаптер ASUS GeForce 6600 GT 128 Мбайт;
  • SSD-накопитель Intel SSD 520 ёмкостью 240 Гбайт;
  • гигабитный сетевой адаптер Realtek PCIe GBE;
  • ОС Windows 7 Ultimate.

Оценка производительности эталонного SSD-привода

Собственные скорости чтения и записи тестового стенда составили порядка 200 Мбайт/с, поэтому стенд не будет ограничивать результаты производительности сетевого накопителя. При тестировании диски устройства работали в RAID-массиве уровня 1. Тестирование проводилось с помощью тестов ATTO Disk Benchmark и Intel NAS Performance Toolkit.

 

Результаты тестирования производительности WD My Cloud Home Duo с дисковым массивом уровня RAID 1

Результаты тестирования говорят о том, что производительность NAS при подключении одного клиента меньше пропускной способности гигабитной сети, но при этом её вполне достаточно для комфортной работы с устройством – то есть для передачи больших файлов по сети. Для основного сценария работы с WD Red WD20EFRX, то есть при обмене данных с ним через Интернет, продемонстрированный уровень производительности даже избыточен. Также мы протестировали устройство при прямой передаче данных. В качестве тестовых данных были использованы три видеофайла объёмом от 2,5 до 3,5 Гбайт. Средняя скорость записи составила 71 Мбайт/с, а скорость чтения 96 Мбайт/с, что полностью соответствует данным предыдущего тестирования.

Что касается шума, то новинка шумит лишь при включении. Затем она затихает, и звука вентилятора не слышно даже при активной работе. В целом никаких недостатков в работе WD My Cloud Home Duo активное тестирование устройства не выявило. Устройство работало стабильно, без сбоев.

⇡#Выводы

Вне всякого сомнения, из всех сетевых накопителей, которые побывали в нашей тестовой лаборатории, модель WD My Cloud Home Duo можно назвать самой простой в эксплуатации. Для организации персонального удалённого хранилища данных пользователю этого устройства не потребуется вообще никаких специфических знаний. Даже настраивать ничего не надо: подключили, зарегистрировались — и пользуйтесь! Немного озадачил и огорчил сбой при подключении к одному из провайдеров, но не исключено, что мы в данном случае чего-то не учли, тем более что в техническую поддержку WD с этим вопросом мы не обращались (возможно, это как-то связано с большим количеством заблокированных IP-адресов Amazon).

Устройство нельзя назвать медленным — его скорости наверняка хватит всем тем, кому будет достаточно его возможностей. Всё это говорит о том, что у WD My Cloud Home Duo есть чётко обозначенная целевая аудитория — это те пользователи, которым не требуется делать из удалённого хранилища полноценный файловый сервер с множеством возможностей и десятками различных функций. Это устройство предназначено для тех, кому требуется постоянный удалённый доступ к своим файлам из любой части света, а также точка для резервного копирования данных с мобильных и других устройств. Если больше вам ничего не нужно, то WD My Cloud Home Duo – ваш выбор!

Если Вы заметили ошибку — выделите ее мышью и нажмите CTRL+ENTER.

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WD My Cloud Home Duo review

  • Browser-based device setup
  • Requires app to discover and map drive correctly
  • Limited USB drive support

The My Cloud Home Duo just requires you to plug in the power adaptor and an Ethernet cable, and power it up. There’s no manual or further instructions to read, which makes setup a little bit easier – there’s an extensive pdf that you can download via WD’s website for more details on the My Cloud Home Duo and its advanced features, but first-time users should be able to get this up and running fairly quickly.

Plug just two cables in and you're up and running.

Once powered up, you just navigate to mycloud.com/hello to create a WD account and begin detection of your My Cloud Home Duo. Once it’s set up and registered to your account, you can download the WD Discovery app for Windows or Mac, which will search your network for the My Cloud Home Duo and accordingly map it so you can access it directly within programs. It all sounds fairly simple, but there are some alarming things that can go wrong. Firstly, you can’t natively find the My Cloud Home Duo by browsing network devices. In Windows you get an authentication error, and in Mac you simply see a folder for Time Machine backups. There’s just no easy way to access the device directly without using the Discovery app, even if you try logging in with the correct credentials. Secondly, if for whatever reason the Discovery app crashes, your network mapped drive automatically disappears and you have to launch the app again to restore it. Lastly, you’ll need to have a working Internet connection in order to access the My Cloud Home Duo settings - there’s no ‘local’ web portal on the device, so you have to make all changes via WD’s website.

Once set up, you'll see your files and folders as well as access settings through the web portal

Since the My Cloud Home Duo is targeted towards home storage, you’re given the option to add as many users as you like to the device, so that different users can populate it with their data. The catch here is that each user only sees their own files and folders, so there’s no way to quickly share a file or folder between users on the fly. Yes, you can generate a shareable URL and send that to a user to view files, but it’s a ridiculously tedious process for something that should be so simple to execute via drag and drop. For example, if a family member wants to look at vacation photos or shared media, there’s absolutely no way for them to do this without the owning person sending a shareable link or logging in with their account instead. So if you want an environment where all your family members have access to all the content you store, then you’re just going to have to set up and share one account login with everyone.

You can keep an eye on disk space as well as easily invite other users to store files on your device

At the back of the My Cloud Home Duo are two USB 3.0 ports which let you plug in a thumb drive or other USB storage (or a card reader) to quickly import contents on to your device. This in itself has a few issues. You can only copy content directly from the USB storage to the My Cloud Home Duo, not the other way around. So if you thought you could plug in a larger drive to back up the My Cloud Home Duo, think again. Secondly, you can only copy data from the USB device using the app on your smartphone. That’s right – the USB drive doesn’t show up in the file explorer, or online via WD’s website, or anywhere else – only via the app. You basically get a little notification that a USB drive has been plugged in, and from there you can select which files you’d like to copy over.

Two USB 3.0 ports let you quickly copy data to the My Cloud Home Duo, but not the other way

Funnily enough, any USB drive connected to the My Cloud Home Duo can be accessed by anyone via the app on their smartphone, so if you thought of copying over some private files from a USB stick, think again. It’s also puzzling as to why there are two USB ports, when the My Cloud Home Duo can only detect one USB drive at a time. Copying data from a USB drive should be the easiest thing in the world, but here it’s the most convoluted system you’ve ever seen.

Mobile Backup & Apps

  • Easy photo and video backup from your devices
  • No support for uploading other file types
  • Limited third-party services available

In addition to letting you view files and settings for your My Cloud Home Duo, the My Cloud app also acts as a sync for your smartphone to automatically backup your phone’s images. You can enable this backup over WiFi or cellular data, and photos are backed up a few seconds after you capture them. You can manually upload a photo or video for backup as well via the app if you wish, or sort items into folders. You can even tap onto a photo or video to view it pretty  much straight away.

Image 1 of 5The My Cloud app shows you available disk space, as well as how many users are assigned to the device

My Cloud app

Image 2 of 5You can quickly view all your files or filter between photos and videos only

My Cloud app

Image 3 of 5You can also view and configure enabled services, but these open in a browser window

My Cloud app

Image 4 of 5You can click on a file or folder to view or download directly to your device

My Cloud app

Image 5 of 5Inserting a USB drive will prompt you via the app to copy data over

My Cloud app

One thing to note is that there’s no way to upload other file types using the My Cloud app. If you want to upload a document you’ve been working on or a pdf, there’s no way to get that onto your My Cloud Home Duo without uploading it via the website. The same goes for music – you can’t upload or sync music from your device to your My Cloud Home Duo, and any music file you tap on the app will only download to your device, whereas images and video can be viewed without downloading. In essence then, the My Cloud Home Duo just becomes a repository for your images and video content, and pretty much nothing else.

As mentioned earlier, there are other services that you can enable as well. The first is a network copy tool which lets you copy data from older WD network devices to your new My Cloud Home Duo. The second is support for IFTTT, so you can create triggers for when particular folders or files are updated. These two services seem the least useful in the long run, so we’ll focus on the two that we actually played around with.

The My Cloud Home Duo currently offers a limited selection of third-party services

First up is Plex. We’ve used Plex on a ton of devices before, and setting it up here is as simple as enabling the service and then dropping content into the dedicated Plex folders that are created on your My Cloud Home Duo. Once Plex is up and running, you can finally stream media to devices in your network via the Plex app or DLNA compatible devices such as a games console or Smart TV. 1080p content was streamed pretty much straight away, but when we ramped it up to a 4K file, performance was middling, with the file taking way too long to buffer and delays in the audio. You can quickly downgrade the video quality to make it a bit better, but that defeats the purpose of streaming high-quality content on your network. Presumably the My Cloud Home Duo’s innards aren’t quite up to speed when it comes to high-bitrate content, so stick with Full HD content for now.

Unfortunately after a day of working properly, our Plex server on the My Cloud Home Duo decided to die on us, and we weren’t able to get back into it or connect via any of our Plex apps or devices. Even disabling and re-enabling the service fixed nothing, so we had to reset the device and set it all up again before it was working once more.

Secondly we have the ‘Social and Cloud Import’ service, which lets you connect with online storage providers, or with the likes of Facebook or Google Photos to make backing up your content even quicker. We linked up with our Dropbox account, which then created a dedicated Dropbox folder on our My Cloud Home Duo. There are two problems specific to the Dropbox integration here – firstly is that there’s no way to select exactly what you’d like to sync – we had the My Cloud Home Duo attempt to download an entire 118GB worth of data from our Dropbox account. Secondly, it’s a one-way sync only. Changes that you make in your Dropbox account are automatically synced with the My Cloud Home Duo, but any changes or files you upload to the ‘Dropbox’ folder on your My Cloud Home Duo will not sync up with your actual Dropbox account. Yes, we’re shaking our heads in disbelief as well.

Outside of syncing with cloud services, you can also sync folders on your computer once you’ve installed the WD Discovery app. Simply right click a folder and choose “Sync with My Cloud” to keep the folder backed up and up to date with your My Cloud Home Duo. This works as expected, and makes it easier for users to selectively back up certain folders on their PCs without having to do a full system backup.

Performance

Here’s where things unraveled a little bit for the My Cloud Home Duo – large files copied with no problem at all, clocking in about 14MB/s for a 300MB file copy. But when we attempted to copy a folder of smaller files, performance went out the window. A folder of about 1,200 files that in total came to about 4.2MB transferred at a whopping 3.6KB/s. Yes, you read that right – just under four kilobytes per second. Sticking in a USB drive into my PC completed the transfer in an instant, so if you’re copying over smaller files in batches, you’re going to have to go grab a cup of coffee and come back.

Copying large files over produced acceptable speeds, but smaller files took much longer to transfer over

Page 2

The My Cloud Home Duo is designed for home users who quite literally need a space to dump their files. Whether it’s photos, videos, music, or documents, the My Cloud Home Duo has plenty of storage space to spare, so you’re not going to be filling it up anytime soon. The integration with folder backup, cloud services, and smartphone uploads make it a fool-proof solution for any household that needs a secure space to store data.

Should you buy it?

The My Cloud Home Duo is easy to understand once you’ve set it up, but there are so many annoyances with it over time that it’s going to get frustrating when users discover just what they can and can’t do with it. The weird dependency on the WD Discovery app, the ineffective use of the USB ports, and the fluctuating performance means that you might struggle with fully harnessing what the My Cloud Home Duo can do. The only way this will behave as a ‘true’ home storage solution is if everyone is using the same login and has their own individual folder to store files in. Our 16TB model sits in at AED 2,999 (US$699.99), but more budget-friendly models are available starting at AED 1,349 (US$309.99) for the 4TB version.

Other options

For a bit of extra cash, you could be quite happy with Synology’s DiskStation DS216play. Sure, you have to also factor in the cost of buying the hard drives, but it’s a worthwhile investment to make. A larger selection of apps, better streaming performance, and a friendly user interface make this a strong contender for a better home network storage solution.

www.techradar.com

WD My Cloud Home Duo review

It’s no secret that we’re digital hoarders. Every day we snap up photos of our food, download our favorite music to our phones, and record videos of our friends falling backward into a pool. For home users, file storage can often be a bit of a hassle – people want something that’s easy to setup and forget about, rather than messing with external hard drives or countless USB thumb drives. While power users like myself would be more than happy to setup a basic NAS at home, many home users don’t want or need something as complicated, which is why WD’s My Cloud Home Duo is a viable solution. It strips away a lot of the complications often involved with a home NAS, and instead offers a basic storage space for anyone in your home. Unfortunately, it comes with its own set of drawbacks which makes it a bit difficult to recommend as an all-in home storage solution.

Build Quality & Design

  • Sleek, futuristic design
  • Minimal LED lights
  • User-serviceable

WD introduced a new look for its My Passport series not too long ago, sporting a very futuristic geometric design and coloring. That design inspiration has carried forward to the My Cloud Home Duo as well. Gone are the days of bulk black boxes with an annoying bright LED slit in the front. Instead, you get a chic white and grey box that can gracefully be set up anywhere in your home and not look garish in any way. In fact, one of my coworkers described it as looking like a ‘fancy tissue box’, which I’m not sure is a good thing or not.

 A thin LED strip sits horizontally in the front to let you know when the drive is up and running, while round the back is where you’ll find the device’s connectivity options. There’s a slim power button, two USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, and a reset button. We would have much preferred to have one USB port in the front for easier access, because every time we had to plug something in, we had to rotate the device to find where the USB slots were.

The My Cloud Home Duo features a thin LED strip in the front to indicate that it's on

The WD My Cloud comes in both single and double drive versions (hence the Duo name), and only the Duo model can be user-serviced. The drives can be accessed by prying open the top cover, after which you can slide out either of the drives to replace them. WD’s stuck their Red drives into the Duo, which makes for better performance and reliability. Older models would use Green drives instead, so it’s good that at least this improvement has been introduced.

The My Cloud Home Duo now features WD's Red drives, pictured here with two 8TB drives.

Our review unit featured a killer 16TB of storage spread across two 8TB drives. However, by default the system well set itself up in RAID1 to ensure that your data is kept secure if one of the drive fails, so you’ll have to contend with using just the 8TB instead. You can switch this over to JBOD instead (which formats the drives), but if either of the drive fails then you’ve lost all of your data. 8TB is still a lot of space to play around with, so we’d recommend you just stick with the RAID1 setup.

The drives can easily be slid out of their bays and replaced

Features

  • Currently only supports Plex for media streaming
  • Easy backup for Windows and Mac

WD is positioning the My Cloud Home Duo as something you’d want to setup at home, and so it’s a bit odd that it doesn’t feature a native media service to stream content to compatible devices. You can get Plex up and running on it (more on that later), but it’s a bit of a puzzle since older WD devices had support for DLNA and iTunes sharing right out of the box.

There are also options to enable cloud services, which lets you link up with Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or even upload photos from Facebook and Google photos. This makes the My Cloud Home Duo a straightforward backup solution to sync up with whatever services you already use, as well as wirelessly backing up from your smartphone and other devices via the dedicated app.

The My Cloud Home Duo also supports Windows Backup and Apple’s Time Machine, so if you want to be extra secure about your data, you can easily set these up and let your OS and the My Cloud Home Duo take care of the rest. We tried this out with a MacBook Air, and it had zero problems backing up and restoring from the My Cloud Home Duo.

Current page: Introduction and Features

Next Page Setup, Apps, and Performance

www.techradar.com

Western Digital My Cloud Home | Plex Support

Revised May 23, 2018

Thank you for using Plex! We here at Plex care deeply about your privacy, and we strive to ensure that your personal information always stays safe while we work hard to provide you a service you love and trust. Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and transfer your information, and how you can control the use of the information that we collect. This Privacy Policy applies to all our products and services, including Plex client apps, streaming content to the Plex client apps, our premium Plex Pass service, Plex Media Server software, Plex Cloud, and all other Plex software and services (collectively, our “Services”). Depending on your choice of how to use our Services, your personal content may be stored on your personal hardware (“Personal Local Content”) or stored in the cloud (“Personal Cloud Content”, collectively, “Personal Content”). For your Personal Content, except in the limited circumstances described below, we do not collect filenames or content titles of your Personal Local Content. We do, however, keep usage statistics to allow us to better serve you and improve our Services. We may use information about how you use our Services to run and improve our Services, to provide, customize, and personalize communications and other content that we deliver or offer to you. This is discussed in detail below.

Download a PDF version here.

Contacting Us

You can contact Plex via our contact page. You can also browse our FAQ and support articles.

Information We Collect

You may choose to provide us with certain information, such as when you create your user profile or when you use the Services. We may also collect automatically-generated and technical information. Therefore, the information we have (“Collected Information”) may include:

  1. Profile Information. You may provide us with profile information such as your e-mail address, username, a profile image, and password when you create an account, or when you edit your account information. You may also provide us with your payment information when you sign-up for a paid service.
  2. Information from External Services. If you choose to connect your account to an account of an external service, such as a social networking site or cloud storage services, we may collect certain information from those accounts, such as your name and email address as well as data required to connect to that service. You may provide such authorization during the connection process, or it may be implicit in the service authorization itself. For example, if you choose to connect your Plex account to a social networking account, we may collect your public profile information if you agree to the collection of this information during the connection process.
  3. Metadata for Personal Content. Except for certain exceptions such as for Personal Cloud Content, Third-Party Control and Playback Mechanisms, and image analysis (i.e., metadata about photos when these features are user-enabled, such as geotag information or scene recognition analysis), as described below, we do not collect or store metadata (information about the specific file, cover art, subtitles, running length, etc.) for Personal Content stored on your personal Plex Media Server. However, your Plex Media Server may anonymously send us filenames or other identifiers for your Personal Content for the sole purpose of providing metadata back to your personal Plex Media Server. You may disable this metadata matching capability.
  4. Metadata for Personal Cloud Content. Our Plex Cloud service is used by some of our Plex Pass users. If you choose to use Plex Cloud and upload content to third-party cloud services, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc., we may collect and use information in addition to that described above in order to interact with the third-party cloud service and to host our Services on your behalf. This includes knowing and using all the metadata related to what is in your Plex Cloud database, but only to provide you with the Services.
  5. Metadata for Personal Content for Integration with Third-Party Control and Playback Mechanisms. We may offer integrations with Third-Party Control and Playback Mechanisms that you may choose to use, such as Sonos, Amazon Alexa, IFTTT, Zapier, SmartThings, webhooks, etc. In order to provide the integrations with the Third-Party Control and Playback Mechanisms, we may collect Metadata for your Personal Content that is needed to integrate with the Third-Party Control and Playback Mechanisms. For example, if you use Amazon Alexa to play a particular song or movie from among your Personal Content at your home, then our Services may search your Personal Content in order to find and play the song or movie that you requested. Information provided by you to the Third-Party Control or Playback Mechanisms is not governed by this privacy policy.
  6. Usage Statistics for Personal Content. We may collect usage statistics for Personal Content. This includes information about your interaction with the Services, such as device information, duration, bit rate, media formats, resolution, and media type (music, photos, videos, etc.). Where possible, we will generalize this information to avoid identifying your Personal Content. Usage statistics do not include specific content titles or filenames. We may use information related to your usage to run and improve our Services, to provide, customize, and personalize communications and other content that we deliver or offer to you.
  7. Data Related to Third-Party Content. When you use the Services to watch, listen to, or record content from a third-party content provider or source such as any officially supported Third-Party Content that Plex streams to Plex apps, trailers and extras from IVA, the Plex Watch Later or Recommended features, or use of our Live TV and DVR service, we may collect information related to that media interaction. For example, we may collect what program or movie you are watching and when, your interaction with any static or video advertising, etc. We may also collect your device information and device location, for example, by using your IP address or by asking for your zip code. We may use this information to run and improve our Services, provide advertising and marketing to you, as well as share anonymous or aggregated versions of the data with third parties.
  8. Information about integrated Third-Party Services. We may collect information about your use of third-party services for reporting to these partners and calculating the fees that we owe them. For example, we collect (i) the number of trailers and extras viewed to IVA, and (ii) information about premium metadata consumed to Gracenote. We may also collect information about third party services and your use of those services in order to serve video content and advertisements via features that rely on third party providers. This information can include the metadata needed to serve advertising.
  9. Information on our Services. We may store information about your configuration or use of our Services when you create a Plex Media Server on a local device or in the cloud, connect to a Plex Media Server that you or another person has configured, or download or connect to a Plex app, or interact with or use other Plex software or Service. This information may include an IP address and port number(s), the name of a Plex Media Server, and information used to secure access to our Services.
  10. Information about Interfacing Software. “Interfacing Software” includes but is not limited to, plug-ins for the Services, channel plug-ins, metadata agents, and client applications that communicate directly or indirectly with the Services. We may store copies of Interfacing Software that you provide to Plex and that accesses or calls any software provided by Plex as part of the Services.
  11. Debugging and Other Information Voluntarily Provided. You may send us logs, metadata, or other information about your devices, media, and experiences for the purpose of resolving an issue you may have with the software or suggesting desired features. On client applications where it is possible, we will offer the ability to opt-out of sending crash reports. If you would like to learn more about the information being sent in crash reports, we encourage you to review the privacy policies for the third-party client applications you are using to access Plex Services. The information being sent to us will only be used to help resolve your issue and / or improve our Services, and using our Services and provision of such information, you agree to such use by us.
  12. Device Information. Like many online services, we may collect information about the devices that are used to access our Services, such as the IP address of the device, the operating system and version of the device, the browser that you use to access a Plex web page, and the versions of the Plex technologies being used. We may also collect location information about the devices that access our Services.
  13. Application Information. When a request for information or content is sent to a Plex Media Server, we may collect an application identifier that identifies which application sent the request. An application identifier uniquely identifies a particular copy of an application. For example, if you download an application from Plex, fully uninstall the copy of the application, and then re-download the application from Plex, the new copy of the application will be associated with a different application identifier than the uninstalled copy of the application. Note that simply deleting the app without fully uninstalling may not reset the application identifier.
  14. Plex Relay Service. We may provide, and you may choose to use, the Plex Relay Service to connect or stream your Personal Content to another device. If you choose to use the Plex Relay Service, we will transfer the data necessary to perform the service. All such traffic is encrypted from end-to-end in a manner that makes it impossible for Plex or the Plex Relay Service to decrypt or view any data. The data transferred via the Plex Relay Service is not stored by Plex except for the temporary buffering of data required to provide you with an optimal streaming experience. You can disable the Plex Relay Service by turning off Remote Access in your server settings.
  15. Cookies and Other Tracking Technology. Like many online services, Plex uses cookies, tracking pixels, and similar technologies to collect information that helps us provide our Services to you. We also use these technologies to help market our products and services to you and other customers. For more information about these technologies and how you may control them, please see the detailed description of Tracking Technologies.
  16. Obtaining Consent. If there is a change to any product or feature that we offer or have offered, and in order to use that product or feature a material change to the collection and / or use of information (including for Personal Content) not contemplated by the Privacy Policy is needed, we will obtain your consent before such collection and / or use.
  17. Your Collected Information. In order to view, amend, erase, or correct your Collected Information, contact Plex support. All requests will be answered within one month of receipt.

Use, Processing, and Sharing of Your Information

  1. Plex processes and uses Collected Information with your consent, you can withdraw your consent by updating your privacy settings or closing your account. Plex also processes Collected Information when it needs to do so to fulfill a contract with you to provide you services, in its legitimate interest to aid in developing and improving the services, or when required by law. If you do not want to provide certain information to us in order to fulfil our agreement with you to provide the services, we may not be able to provide you the fullest version of our services.
  2. We use the Collected Information to provide you with the Services, improve the Services, enhance your user experience, and communicate with you. For example, for Third-Party Content, we use information about your interactions with the Services to track the watch state of media items that have been linked to the Services on devices that have been linked to the Services. We use this information to allow you to resume watching in the same watch state on different Plex-linked devices.
  3. We use your profile information to contact you about your account or about new Plex functionality and certain Plex news and information. You may opt-out of certain types of communications by editing your account settings.
  4. If you choose to connect your Plex account to a third-party account or service to have us and /or that third party provide a particular feature or service, we will provide that external service with the information needed to have us and / or that third party perform the requested feature or service. For example, if you connect your account to a social networking site and give us permission to publish posts on your behalf, we will do so. Additionally, unless you request or allow us to publish other information, the content of the published posts will be limited to describing your interactions with the Services. As another example, if you choose to have us send (or “scrobble”) your listening history to Last.fm, obtain metadata from a third party service, or use a third-party recommendation service, we use Collected Information to engage with and / or send the Collected Information to that service when you request that service. The shared information may include metadata about the media (such as title, duration, author, cover art, dates associated with the media, and other relevant information) and information about the media itself (such as resolution, bit rate, format, location, etc.).
  5. We use Collected Information related to Personal Content when you provide consent or otherwise request us to do so, as well as when necessary to provide the services you requested.
  6. We use Collected Information related to Third-Party Content to allow us and our partners to personalize marketing, advertising, and other content delivered or offered to you. For example, we may use or share Collected Information related to Third-Party Content that is necessary to serve video content and advertisements, including the source of the content, full information about the content including title, device identifiers, timing and location of your consumption, your user information, your IP address, etc. We also share the metadata needed to serve video or audio advertising.
  7. We also use and share payment information with our payment processor partner in order to process your payment for any services you order.
  8. Plex may share Collected Information as expressly set forth in this Privacy Policy, including the following limited situations:
    1. With third parties that assist us in providing you with our Services, such as payment processors, business and analytics providers, content providers, marketers, and cloud service providers, but we require our third parties to only use your information for the purposes of providing the services requested of them and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
    2. If we believe that the disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy an applicable law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable governmental request; or (b) protect or defend the safety, rights, or property of Plex, the public, or any person.
    3. In connection with a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, dissolution, reorganization, or similar transaction or other proceeding involving Plex that includes or requires the transfer of the information.
    4. If your information is a part of a set of non-private, aggregated, anonymized, or otherwise non-personal information, such as anonymized and / or aggregated usage statistics and viewing trends.
    5. With third parties to improve and deliver advertising to you on our behalf.
    6. If you request or consent to our sharing of Collected Information with a third party.
  9. We may apply automated decision-making to Collected Information to recommend content to you that we think you may be interested in.
  10. We will not share with third parties for their use or sell Collected Information about your Personal Local Content.

Protection of Your Information

  1. In order to help keep your media secure, we partner with DigiCert to provide publicly trusted TLS certificates for end-to-end encrypted connections among all of our servers, Services, and client applications. For more information, please review our support article on the topic.
  2. We have put in place commercially reasonable physical, electronic, and organizational procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect. For example, password information is stored on our servers and is protected using hashing and encryption technologies.
  3. We do not store any of your payment or credit card information on our servers. The data is encrypted and securely stored by an independent company, Braintree, which provides payment-processing services for Plex. Please review the Braintree Security Policy for more information.

Your Information and Terms of Third-Party Products and Services

  1. Plex may offer and you may choose to use products or services from third parties in connection with our Services that may contain links to or otherwise interface with third-party websites, products, services, or other technologies. Any such third-party technology may collect information from you or use other services or technologies that collect information from you. Any information collection by these third-party technologies is governed by the privacy practices of those third-party technologies. Plex does not control and is not responsible for the collection of information by such third-party technologies.

Children

  1. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If we learn that we have collected the personal information of a child under the age of 13, we will take steps to delete the information as soon as possible.

Privacy Policy Changes

This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time. We will notify you of any changes to our Privacy Policy by posting the new Privacy Policy on the Plex website. You are advised to consult this Privacy Policy regularly for any changes.

International Transfer

If you use our services outside of the United States, we may transfer information from that jurisdiction to the United States, where data protection regulations may not offer the same level of protection as in other parts of the world, such as the European Union. If you use our services in the European Union we will transfer data to the United States subject to standard contractual clauses.

Controlling Your Information

You may exercise your rights to access, correct, erase, object to processing, and request data portability where applicable in the following ways:

  1. Changing your profile information by accessing the Settings page of the Plex website.
  2. Linking or unlinking your account from another account of an external site, such as a social networking website.
  3. Deleting your account. You may delete your account by selecting the option to delete your account in the Settings page. We will delete your information without unreasonable delay after receiving the request except that we may retain archived copies of your information as required by law.
  4. Contacting Plex support here.

Retention

Plex retains personal information you provide to create your account for as long as you maintain an account with us. Personal information used to provide the services to you will be kept long enough to provide you with the service, including in archives and logs used to maintain and develop the service. Specifically, we delete data used for logging and error tracking after 90 days, we reset cookies on our website after 14 days. We also delete other personal data used to provide the Plex Solution or to communicate with you within 30 days after your account is deleted. We may retain some usage statistics (including IP addresses) for as long as we have a business purpose in order to improve Plex’s services, but these statistics are no longer linked to the deleted account.

Your Choices, Including Opt-Out Options

You have the following choices regarding how we and third parties use certain information collected from or about you. We are committed to complying with the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising and the DAA Application of Self-Regulatory Principles for the Mobile Environment.

  1. Opt-Out from Promotional Communications..
    1. You may opt out of receiving the marketing newsletter from us by accessing your account, selecting Settings on the Plex website, and clicking “unsubscribe” in the Newsletter section. You may also opt out of certain promotional communications by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in a particular promotional communication. Please note that you cannot opt out from receiving all communications from us, including administrative messages, service announcements, and messages regarding the terms and conditions of your account.
    2. You can choose to receive push notifications from Plex on your device. If you do not wish to receive push notifications, you can use your device’s settings to turn them off.
  2. Opt-Out Options Page. Please visit the Opt-Out Options page to understand the options available to you regarding Third-Party Online Behavioral or Interest-Based Advertising and any specific third-party advertising companies’ opt out information.
  3. Options for Sharing What You Watch. We may ask for your consent to have Plex share your third-party media consumption information together with your personal information with our content programmers, service providers, and other third parties. If we have asked for your consent, we will provide you with a way to view or change your consent preference by updating your account settings.
  4. Opt-Out of Playback Statistics. You may choose to opt-out of sharing the playback statistics for Personal Local Content that you store on your personal Plex Media Server by updating your Privacy Preferences.
  5. Opt-Out for Digital Advertising. Plex may also use third-party advertising companies to serve ads, which may, directly or indirectly, collect or use information about user visits to websites and mobile app usage over time and across non-affiliated websites and mobile apps to display advertisements more tailored to users’ interests on this browser or device, and those browsers or devices associated with it. A user can visit www.aboutads.info/choices and/or download the appropriate version the AppChoices app at http://www.youradchoices.com/appchoices if a user wishes to learn more about this practice or would like to know more about his/her choices regarding that activity by companies participating in those choice tools. Please visit the Opt-Out Options for Third-Party Advertising page for any specific third party advertising companies’ opt-out information.
  6. Withdraw Consent. You can withdraw your consent to our processing of personal information by updating your privacy settings, or closing your account.

Plex and its Affiliates

This privacy policy governs services provided by Plex GmbH, a Swiss company, and its affiliates, including Plex, Inc., a Delaware company (together, “Plex”).

Plex GmbH, Hansmatt 32, 6370 Stans, Nidwalden, Switzerland

Plex Inc, 449 N Santa Cruz Ave, Los Gatos, CA 95030

Plex’s Data Protection Officer

Plex’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted at [email protected]

Questions

You may contact us with questions and comments regarding this policy via our contact page. You can also contact your local data protection authority with any complaints about Plex’s data collection or processing activity.

support.plex.tv

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