So, I had an original WD MyCloud (2TB) NAS unit which had started to fail - had it +/-4 years and for the most part performed well - although I'm not sure how long they should last. At any rate, I went to my local BB store and was directed over to this unit - which I assumed was a newer (larger) upgrade - it said WD My Cloud on the packaging - and I bought it. Soon to find out, the WD My Cloud "HOME" and older WD my Cloud are two completely different drives. WD My Cloud is a NAS unit (Network Attached Storage) and in short functions like a network server attached to your PC. You need to setup users and can give anyone/no one access to any part of the drive (short version) The WD My Cloud "HOME" is (for a lack of better terminology) an supped-up external USB drive with cloud access. Immediate problem I see is limited shared access. We use Dropbox (a lot) and love the fact you can share "folders" across different users (again simplified). With WD My Cloud Home you could share a file but not pieces of a whole directory. Again, I'm over simplifying the differences but if you want a "personal" cloud drive that works like DropBox - THIS IS NOT the answer.

Single solution for all the personal storage related issues

This unit does attach to the network and provides storage for some devices, but the application for MacOs relies on a utility that was discontinued years ago. If you want this drive to be as handy as a network volume it won’t be.

If you're looking for a network storage device, DO NOT GET THIS. To access the drive, you have to run a special app on your computer that maps it as a network drive. There is no other way to map the drive. You can also use a special Android/iOS app, but since you can't set up shares on the drive itself, you can't browse the disk with any app that can access Windows/SMB shares. Unlike its slightly older cousin, the WD My Cloud, there is no web interface for this device. You can't rename the device. You can't connect by FTP or SSH. The only way to change settings on the device is by going to the MyCloud website, and God help you if that ever goes under. It has a USB port, but 1) you can't use that to copy files *from* the device to a USB disk, and 2) the only thing you can do with it is plug in a USB disk and transfer *every file on that disk* into a backup folder on the My Cloud Home. You cannot choose specific files or folders, and you cannot browse the plugged-in drive on your computer. And last but not least: the god-awful speeds. I have a gigabit home network, and even with that, it took 5 hours to copy 150GB to the disk and *16 hours* to copy it back *off* of the disk. And the case is basically impregnable, meaning that if you want to return the disk, you have no choice but to transfer your data back over the network. I couldn't even play media off of the disk because of how slow it was; it just kept buffering. I return this within 2 days of purchase.

Seriously, if you have a need to get to your data reliably and instantly, i think floppy disks with the protective cover cut off is most areas would be more reliable than this drive. Please note, this is my experience with customer service and this drive since November 2017, until June 2018. This drive ran me just over $300 and while the size and speed when it works is good, it's so unreliable, i think i would have better odds wrapped in Chum swimming safely off of seal island than relying on this drive for my data to be available. issue 1 - the drive will not show ONLINE if you're not logged into the MYCLOUD system. No idea why, but if you don't log in (manually) from the Systray icon, you're drive will not be accessible. Issue 2- If you reboot the PC, login is required, again. it may randomly show back up as available at some point (10 minutes, an hour, who knows). It's a HORRIBLE design Issue 3 - if you want to create a Share, you can't just have the drive name\share. (if the drive was named "John_ext_drive" the share would be \\John_ext_drive\ShareFolder). the share it creates is about 64 alpha-numeric characters long. It's INSANE. So if you want to give someone access to that new Share, you have to copy that long path, and send it to them via EMAIL (because you will never remember it) in order for them to access it. But don't lose connection from the Agent in the Systray to the drive...or it fails. Issue 4 - There is no granular security on any of the folders. If you setup the drive, you are the OWNER of the drive. You can grant people access, but only by using EMAIL to grant it. Meaning when you create a shared folder for little Suzie to save her homework to, you have to create the folder and assign it to an email address to send the very long share link to. I'm not sure of the person who designed this horrible software/interface for this drive, but they have no idea how people really use drives. the ONLY scenario this could possibly make sense is if i was giving total strangers access to this drive (made for personal use by the way) for a fee where they can access just the folder i designate, while only being on my network, but not anyone i want to include in anything else....all the while hoping the WD Systray agent doesn't fail. Avoid this drive. The MyBookLive was a better rendition of a home drive that may have shares created easily, and with granularity as well as identifying possible types of data for organization and (possibly) QoS to help streaming movies not be impacted by someone looking at word documents from another folder. I can't click the "I DO NOT RECOMMEND" button strong enough for this drive, without breaking my mouse.