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 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.

Looked at this item for a while, finally bought June '18. It requires a drive in the socket to set up, I couldn't get away with running it empty with USB attached drives. Interesting features. Plex is working for me, Twonky seems to be the default browser, seems like they are still supported by WD. Plex was recognized by my Samsung Blue Ray player but need to figure out server permissions. Allows network access to my USB drives but the applications aren't supported on JBOD drives, just the one installed in the server.

If you don’t like the idea of another entity having storage control over your personal documents and media but also want the ability to access and store that data from anywhere in the world, this NAS is perfect for you. It is a handsome little setup, very easy to get up and running, and works as advertised. I purchased two 6TB Western Digital Red NAS hard drives and configured them to Raid 1 for redundancy. No problems at all. Buy with confidence!

I bought the diskless model and added two 4tb WD red drives. I currently have approxiamately 280 movies and 6000 photos stored on it. It streams flawlessly to our Apple TV and iPads. This is a very capable network storage device. I have set mine up in a raid 1 configuration so everything is "mirrored" onto both drives. A good value for the money.

I happened to get my hands on two 3 terabyte drives and needed a NAS device. I was using an older one drive seagate one which was extremely slow. This thing was super simple to configure. Plugged in both drives, configured raid 0 array and formatted drive. Thats it. Both my mac and pc devices found the unit as soon as they booted. As long as it last me I have 0 complaints.

I had a Buffalo Linkstation but it was getting too small so decided to shop for larger size. Buffalo was slightly cheaper but they didn't have the ideal size I needed. Purchased this unit and selected my own drive size. It met my budget and need for space. The GUI was very intuitive. The Cloud access feature was very cool.

I got this device after my home server had a hardware crash. I garbed this so I could save may data. I like this device as I can access my data from any ware. I chucked in two 6TB drives. It's really easy to setup and makes no real nose. At some point I am going to rebuild my server but for now this works for most of my needs.