WD - My Cloud EX2 Ultra 0TB 2-Bay External Network Storage (NAS) - Charcoal

This is a very good option if you're looking to have a network-based storage drive or (Network Accessible Storage). This unit allows you to add one or two hard drives to be configured either as total storage for maximum capacity (JBOD) or in RAID configuration where one drive continuously backs up the other for data backup and redundancy. The drives are accessible through your network and, once configured, will show up as network drives. The WD software gives you many configuration options and also allows for remote access to your data from outside your wifi network, similar to what you get with services like Dropbox. Keep in mind this unit cannot be connected straight to your computer through USB. It can only be connected to and accessed through your network. It has a 1 gigabit lan network connection and 2x USB ports for connecting additional USB hard drives to expand storage even further. The connected USB drives will also be accessible through your network and can also be configured to back up the internal drives in this unit. This is however a "diskless" unit, meaning it doesn't come with any drives. You need to purchase compatible drives and install them yourself. Installation is very simple and takes 5 minutes. You only need a Phillips head screw driver to install the included mounting screws and the drives simply slide right in. It is recommended however that the drives be WD Red drives, but it will work with other models. Read/write speeds when connecting through 1-gigabit LAN are 115 MB/s for read and 76 MB/s write. Read/write speeds when connecting through 5GHz Wi-Fi are about 50 MB/s for read and 40 MB/s write. These read/write speeds maybe different for each person depending on network equipment and setup being used. This is a very good starter solution that is of good quality and good performance and is much more affordable than other expensive models.

I had an older Linksys NAS that gave up the ghost. Needed something to store my media collection, had plenty of hard drives kicking around, did the research, and went with the WD My Cloud. I really like the setup instructions that came with it. Very clear, very little chance for confusion. It all went together easily. Configuring the device on my home network was a piece of cake.

I purchased the WD - My Cloud EX2 Ultra 0TB version after upgrading to a new desktop PC that didn't have room for two Western Digital high performance disks that I was previously using in a RAID configuration for backups. The fact you can buy the My Cloud EX2 with no disks (e.g. 0TB) is awesome as you can either use existing disks you have or decide which disks make sense for you. The setup was mostly quite easy aside from the fact that the Microsoft Edge browser wasn't supported and I had to download Chrome. This might not be an issue for many but I personally like Edge and the fact it's included with Windows 10 and therefore on hundreds of millions of PC's, would make me think it should be supported by Western Digital. This won't be an issue shortly as Edge is being updated to use the Chromium engine from Google Chrome. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone wanting onsite local backups. If you use OneDrive on your PC you may see warnings in the backups for files on OneDrive that you don't have locally. This is because the Western Digital software cannot back those up. Hopefully they will work with the Microsoft OneDrive team to fix this or imprve the experience.

I thought I was getting a budget NAS that could do everything I wanted. Handle a media server, back up my Mac, etc. It has been unreliable as a media server and has failed to complete a single backup. I have had to visit several forms to try and find workarounds for issues and have yet to find a solution for the failed backups. At this point, I may just return it...

I love this storage unit. I use it to back up both of my computers and it is so easy with the software supplied. I run it as a redundant unit so if one disk goes bad, I just have to swap it out with no loss of my data. Runs quietly in the corner and I makes my life worry free, as far as data storage goes.

I liked this product. It was originally to have a good size storage for my mac air book but it turned to be good for that plus good backup storage. My only reason to give it 4 stars that it was hard to set up and it is still hard to know how to use all it's features

I have been working with and configuring networks since the '90s. But this is the most frustrating software non-solution I've ever experienced. I installed two WD Red drives as RAID1. I configured the MyCloudEX2Ultra with Users, Groups, Shares. No problem. But now how to get an actual backup. I first tried Smartware. After spending six hours I contacted WD Chat support to learn that it was end-of-life product for my firmware level 5+. So I tried Acronis which is what was recommended. After hours of trying and online chat to WD I find that it does not support incremental backups (only the files that changed since your last backup). So now I'm trying to use Windows 10 incremental backup. Problem is: The MyCloud software has a maximum timeout of 30 minutes. I have to babysit it to refresh to keep the backup going for maybe 10 hours or more -- every 30 minutes. This is just my own PC, not including my other devices. Look elsewhere for NAS. WD makes great drives but it is not a software company. I will redeploy my WD Red drives in my PC and just clone my hard drive for backup. Will rethink my other devices for solutions. You can backup and share with family a few files. But you can't backup your entire PC with this.

Great item, I would recommend this to anyone needing a great product!