Intro and specifications
There's a huge, ever-growing range of Network Attached Storage (NAS) drives on the market at the moment, and WD's My Cloud EX4 is taps into the 'prosumer' audience in terms of price and features. As a result it's a drive which could find a place in both a technologically-driven home and a small office.
Our sample was supplied with 8TB of storage in four 2TB drives, but it's also available in 12TB and 16TB variants, as well as a barebones version if you've got an excessive number of hard drives stashed in a drawer somewhere. The drives supplied with the WD My Cloud EX4 are specially designed by WD for NAS drives, and they're said to improve reliability and protect data better.
We rather like its abrupt, chunky design, and it looks more like a mini server rack (intentionally, perhaps) than the sleeker white boxes from the likes of Synology or, indeed, WD. At the front you'll find four bays for the drives, each of which features a drop-down door which neatly unlatches and lets you pop the drive out by pressing it. It's a completely screwless design, but while the drives feel like they're solidly held in place there's no locking system, so a sticky fingered passer-by could nab one if they were so inclined.
Here there's also a small backlit LCD which supplies the drive's vital stats: free space, fan speed, temperature and any diagnostic messages. A pair of vertical arrow buttons sit to its right, but, alas, these can't be used to control the device and are merely there to flick through the various pieces of information.
There are also LEDs for each drive bay, and turning on the drive and watching them illuminate while the platters gently whirr to life one by one is kind of reassuringly serene, like sitting on a jumbo while the engines spin up. Each and every light can be turned off in the software, too, which comes in handy if you're using it in the same room as your TV and want to envelope yourself in a blockbuster.
WD obviously has a fetish for doubling things up, and round the back you'll find two USB 3 ports, two Ethernet ports and even two power ports. Most drives include more USB ports, but we've actually found we use them quite rarely, so two is enough. The second Ethernet port allows you to speed up your network connection, and the second power port lets you connect an additional power supply just in case the first one fails. There's even the option to add an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) if you're seriously worried about your electricity failing.
Despite its rather business-oriented looks, the WD My Cloud EX4 includes support for media streaming via TwonkyMedia server, and an iTunes server for storing and listening to music and movies. As ever, you'll need a third-party app to access iTunes via an iPad or iPhone, which still makes absolutely no sense.
The drive's settings are accessed via a web page, which is a common feature of NAS drives. It's nice and simple, with a dark colour scheme, a big typeface and large icons. The design makes it as accessible on mobile browsers as it is on a computer's, and we love the ability to see how much storage space you've got left and your network activity all on a single page. There were, however, a few occasions where the software would become completely unresponsive, which was rather annoying.
Here you can add and remove users, who can be set up with administrative privileges, view your shared folders and authorise cloud access. The Storage menu allows you to switch between Raids 0, 1, 5 and 10, which all offer different ways of backing up and duplicating your data. It's worth noting that switching between the various arrays wipes your disks, so research what's best for you before you set up the drive.
Performance and benchmarks
Apps for the WD My Cloud EX4 are also available via the web interface, but they're rather thin on the ground. By default it's supplied with HTTP, FTP and P2P (torrent) download clients, and a file viewer for looking at anything stored on the drive via the web interface. A handful of other apps can be installed, such as aMule and Transmission for downloading torrents, SqueezeCenter for Logitech Squeezeboxes, and WordPress and Joomla for website creation and content management.
Opening these apps fires them up in a new window with their own graphical interface, which is annoying compared to the more integrated approach of Synology's desktop-like software. It's also telling that WD is crying out for app developers while people happily contribute to Synology devices for free – we're guessing that this is down to WD's more locked-down approach to software.
The My Cloud EX4's titular cloud access leaves a lot to be desired, especially in comparison to WD's competitors. Setting it up is straightforward enough, and merely requires you to tie an email address to the account on the drive itself. However, there are only two apps available: My Cloud works on computers and mobile devices - Android (pictured), iOS and Windows Phone - and lets you browse files stored on the drive, and WD Photos, which is mobile only, gives you a gallery of images stored on the drive and handily backs up photos from your smartphone or tablet.
Rather than transcoding videos and music on the drive, the cloud apps merely function as a file server, so you have to download files before you can watch or listen to them. We've seen other NAS drives (yep, Synology) which offer transcoding on the fly, and with a 2GHz processor and 512MB of RAM it shouldn't be beyond the capabilities of the WD My Cloud EX4. If you're on a data-limited mobile tariff the ability to resize files for your device is crucial in reducing your bill, although the app will warn you if you're using too much.
The cloud works both ways, though, and the WD My Cloud EX4 includes support for backups to the cloud via ElephantDrive and Amazon S3, so you can be sure your data is well protected. If used in addition to a RAID 5 configuration you'll essentially have your data cloned across three drives on the My Cloud EX4, and twice across the web.
We're impressed at how snappy the WD's interface is, and even when you're accessing it via a smartphone on a 3G network it's surprisingly responsive. File transfer times are decent, if unexceptional. We tested it with an Ethernet connection via powerline adapters and managed to get a 20mbps file copy speed, which dropped to 12-14mbps when we connected via 802.11N WiFi. A little secret with NAS drives is to connect your laptop or computer directly, which achieved a blistering 56-60mbs transfer speed, but this scenario is rather impractical for most users.
In terms of power use it's not going to add hundreds to your electricity bill, and it happily sat around the 24W mark while it was in use, which dropped to 17W when the disks span down. A nice feature here is that you can set up a power schedule, so the drive comes on when you wake up and powers down when you go to bed. It's also whisper-quiet thanks to its single rear exhaust fan.
Verdict
Disappointingly, the use of the 'Cloud' buzzword on WD's My Cloud EX4 is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, it lets you access your files from afar, but you're going through WD's own servers - so it's technically their cloud and not yours. It's also not all that different from accessing a computer via a remote desktop app. We're guessing that connecting directly to your home or office network via a smartphone brings up all sorts of security headaches, but it still feels as if WD's cloud promise could be better delivered.
We liked
WD has certainly put a lot of effort into designing the My Cloud EX4, and it feels solid and reassuringly weighty while looking like a proper piece of business equipment. Setting it up is straightforward and there are very few points where we felt completely stuck, making it ideal for those inexperienced in the mysterious ways of NAS. It's also very, very safe, with lots of options for power supplies and backing up your data.
We really like the My Cloud EX4's software interface, too – it's stylish and unique, and it makes fine-tuning the drive a doddle. DLNA and UPnP support mean that the drive can become the heart of a home network, and the built-in downloading apps and iTunes support let you fill it with music and movies to your heart's content.
We disliked
While WD has made everything in the My Cloud EX4 fairly painless, this comes at the cost of more advanced features and functions. Its apps are very few in number, and dwarfed by the sheer amount available for Synology drives – but this could improve in the near future if developers can be tempted by WD's carrot. We also found the mobile apps lacked features, and would have been better implemented had they included on-device transcoding.
Final verdict
WD's My Cloud EX5 certainly has the foundations of a decent and solid NAS system, and it's ruggedly designed and well thought-through. As an (expensive) introduction to NAS it's perfect, and more casual users will find it easy to setup and use on a day-to-day basis.
Where it lacks at the moment is in terms of apps, both in-built and third-party. While Synology's drives tend to be a bit more fiddly and complicated, we prefer them for the sheer array of available plug-ins and software. Investing in the drive, as it stands, is a bit of a gamble until developers code decent and useful apps for it.