Amazon.com: Customer reviews: WD 4TB My Cloud EX2 Ultra Network Attached Storage - NAS

Top positive review

Great NAS solution

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2017

This has ended my saga of trying to build cheap, fast, high-availability storage for my home network. I have several USB drives connected to a headless server, and I wanted to create a single point of backup for those individual devices, as well as system imaging (i.e.: Time Machine) and generally make all of my data accessible to any machine on the network. I tried various multi-drive RAID USB-attached storage solutions and none of them were working well in my Linux environment. Finally I just bit the bullet and went true NAS (over Ethernet) as opposed to trying to let my server handle it at USB3 speeds and every little finicky problem and annoyance I had has gone away. The setup was easy, once you learn the interface, and so far it has been up for every connection I've attempted to make to it. It doesn't slow to a crawl on long file transfer operations and average speed seems good (considering that most of the copy operations originate from USB2 devices). When copying directly from a PC to the EX2 instead of from another USB device, I've only ever broken into the high 50MB/s range, but that's still quite a bit better than the 25MB/s average I get when archiving from USB2 onto the EX2.

29 people found this helpful

Top critical review

All critical reviews›

frescolito

Hardware is fine, supportig software is unreliable.

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2017

* Update 01/11/2018 * I'm officially giving up on this NAS and will be replacing it with another one from a different manufacturer. Syncing now never works outside of my home network. I also can't access the dashboard anymore even when I'm connected to my home network. Using this device has been nothing but 7 months of inconsistent performance and frustrating software issues that seem to have no resolution. Don't be fooled by Western Digital's answer to this review - it did absolutely nothing to help. Only thing left for me to do now is decide whether I'd want to attempt to sell this thing off (dunno that I could in good conscience) or burn it.

* Original Review*

Five months of use and I'm still running into the same recurring problems with the WD Sync software. It'll stop syncing intermittently, showing a "No internet connection detected" message while my computer clearly has internet access. When it's not that it hangs at "Signing in to MyCloudEX2Ultra" or it reports that the device is missing. I've tried rebooting the device, adjusting settings within the Dashboard, adjusting settings on the router, adjusting firewall/malware settings on my computer and uninstalling and reinstalling the WD Sync software numerous times - nothing works. A firmware update didn't help, either. The software just appears to be extremely temperamental and unpredictable. When it does work, it's great, and automatically syncs and backs up files between my desktop and laptop as expected. Unfortunately, however, I'm frequently forced to use the My Cloud web interface to manually upload or retrieve files. At least I can say that the hardware has been reliable and I haven't experienced any data corruption or loss like other users have reported. Still, this system isn't exactly working as expected and the software issues are really frustrating. I'm aware that numerous other users have reported similar problems but, unfortunately, it appears that the support Western Digital offers is severely lacking, and user-run support forums are confusing, irrelevant or lead to dead-ends.

234 people found this helpful

Sort by

Filter by

Filtered by

1 starClear filter

208 global ratings | 169 global reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From the United States

frescolito

Hardware is fine, supportig software is unreliable.

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2017

Size: DisklessVerified Purchase

234 people found this helpful

Helpful

c maurer

Unreliable. DON'T BUY

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2019

Size: 8TBVerified Purchase

I'm shocked that these WD cloud devices are rated so high by so many sites. I did a lot of research before buying this WD Ultra EX2. I was tenative about buying because I had a 1 TB device from them about 8-9 years ago and hated the interface and sluggishness of its backup. I bought a Seagate 4TB about 2 years ago that has been great but was now ready to have a wifi cloud in the home to keep on top of all the photos/videos and work stuff that I want to ensure I don't lose. After months of trying to get this to do what it's supposed to do with my Macbook pro, and iPhones, I can strongly say that this device is unreliable and pure JUNK. It never backups everything wether handled manually or through their auto backup process with the phones. Tons of stuff is always skipped over and missed. How can I trust this to back anything up!?! It's painful to know I wasted $400. Thinking I'd eventually get it worked out. I finally decided to contact WD to get a refund but I doubt they will. They'll blame me, my internet connection, or amazon. DO NOT BUY THIS!

88 people found this helpful

Helpful

Lyle

Ugh, wish it would work

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2019

Size: 8TBVerified Purchase

I really wanted to like this, but it just doesn't work well. Before I purchased it I called WD and talked to a very friendly tech to make sure it could do what I was looking for, which is to remotely back up my laptop as I travel whenever I connect to the internet. He assured me that if I bought this model and used one of their programs (WD Sync) that it would. When it arrived I was having some trouble so I replied to the last email from the tech and he called me a few hours later. We spent over two hours on the phone trying to get it set up, but their software is full of bugs. It crashes and won't reopen, forcing me to uninstall and reinstall it four times. The tech was very helpful, took his time with me, but we could never get it to work. I have no idea how well the hardware works because we could never get it setup properly. It's going back tomorrow.

65 people found this helpful

Helpful

Dean Marconi

Great until it fails

Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2020

Size: 16TBVerified Purchase

I bought one of these (16TB version) a few years ago and everything had been working fine.

I had RAID turned off because I wanted to actually get 16TB of capacity, not 8. Recently I just received a message that one of the drives was failing the self-check. So I immediately turned the NAS off and ordered a replacement drive. Well here's where it gets fun. I have a new drive, and can put it in the port, but I have no way to recover the old data from the old drive onto the new drive.

What's more - the NAS creates a shared volume across both drives so now that the old drive has been swapped out, I have no way of accessing the data that was on the good drive either. Effectively, there's no data transfer or recovery tools available. And if you contact WD (which I did) they sent me a link to a guide telling you how to insert a new drive. I explained that I am capable of inserting the new drive, but I want to still have the 16TB of data that was on my device - not just reformat the whole thing and start over. I was told I needed to contact some third-party data recovery company and pay for that service because they don't support data transfer/recovery and couldn't/wouldn't help me.

So in the end, I now have potentially lost 16TB of data and WD is 100% useless. There is no way I will ever buy another product from them with that level of "support".

29 people found this helpful

Helpful

Juan F Rabat Lince

Product came used from Amazon (even though I bought a new one!) and lasted all of 2 months

Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2019

Size: 8TBVerified Purchase

I originally gave it 4 stars; see why I changed that below.

The product is a great NAS. It is simple to use, and has RAID1 option (so all the data is duplicated over 2 HDDs), which is why I bought this one (I had a previous version with only 1 disk, and that disk failed; it was a pain to recover the data!). This newer version allows you to keep apps in the unit (like antivirus and some other things), which is really nice.

My only worry is that the unit I got (which came directly from Amazon!) was a used unit. How do I know that? Because it came with a password, and when I took the password off (resetting it manually), I found out that users were assigned and there was data (movies and music) recorded to the drive. Now, the drive is working fine, but I paid for a new unit and did not receive one. The only reason I did not return it is that I brought it to my house in Central America, and returning it from here will cost me money, but this is not right!

Had it not been for that, I would have rated it 5 stars (not anymore; read on!)

UPDATE: Well it has been less than 2 months now, and believe it or not, the unit is acting up. I am not sure if it is the HDDs or the software or what, but even accessing it through the IP address it is SUPER slow!! I bet it has to do with the fact that I got a used unit!!! What sucks even more is that because I brought it with me abroad, now I have to pay international shipping costs to send it back!!! INCREDIBLE!

UPDATE 2: The unit is super simple to set up, and the Plex media server is a thing of beauty (when the unit actually works). However, about 3 times per week, the unit decides to disconnect itself from the network. It simply disappears. And no, it is not a window thing, as my TV's cannot see it as a server either... From what I have read, this is a common problem (one I did NOT have with my previous WD MyCloud unit!), and I have yet to find a cause (it is not sleep mode or IP changes). Just wish WD would solve the problem with their firmware updates, but, alas, no fix yet! Do not waste your money. The whole point of having a NAS is to be able to access it!

19 people found this helpful

Helpful

F KEITH BUMGARNER

Where do I start?

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2020

Size: 4TBVerified Purchase

I've been in IT for over 30 years and have done about everything - hardware, software, UNIX, Linux, Windows. I've set up sophisticated NAS configurations in large data centers as well. I've got to say, the WD EX2 Ultra is the worst hardware/software I've ever dealt with. The shares won't stay available through a reboot of the client boxes, the dashboard interface is the worse I've ever seen, I have no idea who could have written the manual and one huge glaring issue is you CANNOT SCHEDULE A BACKUP (you have to do it manually through the dashboard interface). I've used WD drives for years, always pleased with the quality, but this has to be the worst product of theirs I've encountered. I'm returning it today and I'd suggest you really do your homework before buying this thing.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Straight Forward Review

Only for basic network file share for a couple intermittent users

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2020

Size: 8TBVerified Purchase

This really isn't very capable. I've had the 8tb model for 4 years now and have loved it with the exception that it is so slow to back up from. I never get gigabit speeds out of it even after fully converting all parts of my network to gigabit speed equipment and cables. As the drive fills up the browser interface slows down. At times it's almost unusable. Switching to a longer login time out helped a bit. I ended up wiping and converting from mirrored to spanned raid to get extra space. With a fresh copy it speed up some.

I recently got the 4tb model and have been pulling my hair out trying to track down unexpected network errors when transferring LARGE files to it from one of the computers on my network. I've been trying to track down any hardware problems with that computer but just found out today that another computer on my network just started having the same problem with it. As a result I have to be meticulous about verifying the files are moved or copied without errors... frankly, I don't have the time to sit around and wait several minutes to verify everything worked. It would be much easier to just set up a FreeNAS or OpenMediaVault on an old pc and configure that as my network file server. I really like the small size of the WD Mycloudex2ultras but I'm starting to agree with the naysayers.

Because of my recent bad experience I've downgraded my review from 3 stars to 1 star. I'll still use it for the remote access and android backup features which are nice when they work but overall I am now recommending going with something more robust.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

liza

Device Admin screen slows in direct proportion to the number of files saved on the device - really bad design!

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2018

Size: 4TBVerified Purchase

This should be an embarrassment to a company which has always had reliable and fast storage solutions in the past. This device is a huge fail from an admin perspective. I purchased this in Dec 2017, with put 2 4TB disks in it in Raid1 configuration. Over time - the admin interface started to slow down - almost to the point where the web browser times out before it refreshes. Had two separate support calls - and essentially I was told I need to free up 20% of disk space, and turn off all file sharing services, to improve speed - which I did - but still no luck. I did some troubleshooting on my own and concluded the "Capacity" widget on the Home Admin screen literally traverses my entire hard disk, all 1.5 million files, every time it is clicked - because of this the rest of the UI is inaccessible until it returns with the disk utilization by filetype. If the device happens to be doing something else in the background (like a backup, or its own maintenance tasks) I can't even get access to the admin tool. If I log on as a non admin user - it doesn't do this - instead it just shows total space and total free space.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

joseph miskell

I Returned the 1st Unit and the 2nd Unit does the same thing - CAVEAT EMPTOR - Buyer Beware

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2019

Size: 4TBVerified Purchase

I returned the 1st unit I purchased and left the review below. I received a comment to my review from the manufacturer after I had returned the unit. Taking them at their word I purchased another one (an 8GB unit). However, it has the same issues. The idea of this product is great, but unfortunately, I have tried twice and wasted an inordinate amount of time trying to get the drives to work. It does not matter that I can hook the drives up via an ethernet cable, if I cannot access the files remotely it is just an expensive paperweight to me.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: Product worked for about a week. Luckily I waited to see how it was going to work before loading anything sensitive on the drives. This is not like buying a bargain basement thumb drive for five bucks. This cost in excess of $300 and lasted for about a week.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Craig P.

Security vulnerability, product description misleading

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2020

Size: 8TBVerified Purchase

The streaming feature of WD MyCloud is not secure. Anyone that accesses your home network, even if it's legitimate, or hacked, can access any file on your disk, without having to bypass any security.

All product claims of secure file storage are a lie. Western Digital has zero plans to fix this glaring security hole. Instead, their response is to turn off streaming.

There is one other means of securing your data, which is to encrypt all of your non-public shares. Of course, you have to set this up in the very beginning, before you try to copy data to the device.

Please be advised of this warning. Your files are NOT secure if you enable streaming (regardless of which share you choose to enable, because the security vulnerability is based on the server/service, not the share). Your files are NOT protected from unauthorized disclosure unless you turn off streaming or you encrypt your non-public shares. Extremely important advisory notice to you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The web UI locks up more often than not. I was able to get out and come back in and eventually be able to accomplish administrative duties... but it's at the point where I have to unplug the unit and reboot it, hard.

Furthermore, the PLEX server has to rescan and rebuild it's database far too often.

Shame on you, Western Digital.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I take off four-stars for the UI, which seems to lock up more often that anyone would desire. Also, when the UI locks up, you have no alternative to logging in (a la administrative) elsewhere, unless you wait out the timeout period. Note I am using the browser UI and not some phone app.

I also wish that both the FTP and the browser UI were over TLS vice clean/clear -- granted, the NAS is direct wired to the wifi router and the browers are connected via wpa2/aes, so no one can see the traffic over-the-air/wire without hacking in to the router (which is always a squeemish possibility). That said, I was able to verify that outside traffic cannot see the home NAS (then again, hacking would start by local access, so ...).

I read the 1-star reviews, in which people complain about the PC/windows backup nightmare -- if you want to back stuff up, just back up data manually via copy. Yeah, it's a pain, but none of these automated backup tools work and never will (especially if it's microsoft). I should point out that access to home NAS via smb is just fine on ubuntu/linux, as well as via firefox for the ui.

I set up jbod and I back-up to off-line storage via the back USB3 jacks, using internal backup/copy jobs, and that works way better than I expected, minus the folder layout convention -- when the copy job is over, you have to go back and fiddle with re-arranging the folder layout the way you want, but at least the big copies run unattended (meaning, you can disconnect your PC and the backup/copy is still running on the home NAS).

1080p streaming on the PLEX server is without hitch. I don't have 4K videos and I don't see the need, but one day I'll test this out. I do like that you can control apps (like the PLEX streaming and local FTP access) on a per share basis. It would be nice if you could explore a share through the browser UI, but you can do that via neighborhood/smb (e.g., nautilus) exploring just fine.

When running, the unit is quiet. I let it put the drives to sleep and the room goes dead quiet. Yet, if I access the NAS, response seems instantaneous.

Best yet, the home NAS replaced an old clunker xp machine (that was running ubuntu, of course).

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Questions? Get fast answers from reviewers

Need customer service? Click here

‹ See all details for WD 4TB My Cloud EX2 Ultra Network Attached Storage - NAS -...

5 star		64%
4 star		16%
3 star		7%
2 star		3%
1 star		10%

WD 4TB My Cloud EX2 Ultra Network Attached Storage - NAS -...

›

Customer reviews

Customer reviews

WD 4TB My Cloud EX2 Ultra Network Attached Storage - NAS - WDBVBZ0040JCH-NESN

Top positive review

Top critical review

Filtered by

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From the United States

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

Questions? Get fast answers from reviewers

WD 4TB My Cloud EX2 Ultra Network Attached Storage - NAS -... › Customer reviews

Customer reviews

WD 4TB My Cloud EX2 Ultra Network Attached Storage - NAS - WDBVBZ0040JCH-NESN

Top positive review

Top critical review

Filtered by

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From the United States

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

Questions? Get fast answers from reviewers

WD 4TB My Cloud EX2 Ultra Network Attached Storage - NAS -...

›

Customer reviews