WD My Cloud Home: Affordable Personal Cloud for your Home Environment
I love having my data backed up on the cloud! After all, who in their right mind would want to carry all those storage devices, chargers, cables and manage those data recovery headaches when it crashes. Cloud storage is the future and the way to go! It is so easy, but I hate the time, effort and cost it takes to retrieve my data from the cloud, especially in a developing country such as ours where connectivity speeds and especially upload speeds are ridiculously slow. I prefer cloud storage at my home and home office where I have fast fibre optic internet, but I tear my hair apart when I am traveling and out of my home office environment. And that is why I like the Western Digital My Cloud Home storage device as in this point in time, it allows me to get the best of both worlds, which is a private cloud environment and faster access speeds. And till the time when we have truly fast internet all across our country, such private cloud storage devices are the way to go.
I first heard about the Western Digital My Cloud Home device late last year when it was launched in the US, but I got a much deeper insight and personal look at it when I attended their launch event in India this January. I have been using and testing the WD My Cloud Home storage device ever since. This is why I think this device is amazing!
BEST SELLING POINTS
Your own private cloud
One of the best selling points of the WD My Cloud Home is that it offers the best of two worlds – cloud storage and personal physical ownership. You get cloud storage as you know that is the way to go, but you need not be worried about having your sensitive data stored on a public cloud (Google Drive, iCloud, Amazon, etc.). And you can also use it like a regular physical storage device, which means that all your content can be retrieved immediately from your various devices (phone, tablet, laptop, television, etc.). Think what kind of a nightmare it would have been if we were playing a movie from our regular cloud storage on the television. This My Cloud Home makes entertainment streaming a dream come true.
Very affordable
There is only a one-time cost for device acquisition and no additional monthly subscription fees. And for this you get heavy duty storage, a private cloud and many more awesome benefits. The My Cloud Home comes in many storage options from 2 TB to 8 TB and the listed price is between INR 12,000 to 25,000. You might even get it for a much cheaper price during a retail or online sale. At first look, this price might look high, but once you realize how many different storage devices and cloud storage subscription accounts you avoid, you will make sure that you get your hands on it. To understand the cost dynamics better, read the benefit mentioned below.
One device for your home’s digital storage
Say, you are a family of four members. In today’s era, each one of us owns at least one physical storage device and one cloud storage account. And I am being very conservative at that. Now, that means, we have at least 4 physical storage devices and 4 cloud storage devices per family. Not only does it mean possible redundant content, too many devices means too many cables, chargers, charging points and most of all, a higher acquisition cost and more cluttered storage. Wouldn’t it be ideal, if our digital storage mirrored our physical storage, say for example like our bookshelf or library?
The Western Digital My Cloud Home is a step in that direction. It not only aims to be that one library for all your home’s digital storage needs, but it also provides individual private spaces for each user that is akin to a compartment in your library with your own lock and key.
My ‘WD My Cloud Home’ sits in the middle of my home, connected to my home Wi-Fi and my TV via the Ethernet cable. The TV connection ensures that my entertainment storage is easily accessible to any one watching the television at home. And to access the storage, all the people living in the house can access their data using their mobile, tablet or laptop using the My Cloud Home app and/or website and your WiFi connection. So, what it means is that all the home’s digital storage is in one place and all the people who are connected to the home WiFi and who have the required access rights can use this storage device like their own mini personal cloud storage device. It is as simple as that.
OTHER HELPFUL FEATURES
Super easy setup
All you need to do is connect your My Cloud Home device to your Wi-Fi router, use your mobile device to visit MyCloud.com/hello to setup up your account and that’s it! You can now start backing up your data to the My Cloud home device and start accessing and sharing it. It is as simple as that.
On the go access
Whether you are sitting in your home patio, in your garden or on your terrace, at your friend’s place, in your office, traveling to a different city or simply anywhere outside of your home environment, you can easily access your important files, favorite memories and stream videos from your My Cloud Home device using the My Cloud Home mobile app, desktop app or MyCloud.com account. The video streaming is quite smooth, though it is advised to have good 3G or 4G speeds on your phone.
Auto backup
I use Google Pixel 2 XL as my phone that allows me unlimited storage on Google photos, so I am usually not worried about running out of space, but if you are an iPhone user or any other phone user, you are bound to run out of storage space sooner or later, unless you have opted for paid cloud storage. And that is where the My Cloud Home’s auto backup feature comes in handy as it allows you to automatically backup photos and videos from your phone to the device. All you have to do is configure the settings once and enjoy auto backup throughout. And like most auto backup options, you can choose backup only on WiFi or backup on any kind of data connections.
The auto backup feature is not limited to mobile devices, but it also applies to your Windows PCs and Mac computers at home. Using the desktop app or interface, you can choose to backup entire hard drive partitions or specific folders. It also works seamlessly with Windows Backup and Time Machine software.
USB port to import photos and videos from external devices
A simple, but amazing feature of the My Cloud Home device is its fast USB 3.0 port that allows you to directly import content (photos, videos, files) from your existing pen drives, flash drives and old hard disks, thus making it your main digital storage device. There is no need to connect via a laptop and a simple plug and play will suffice. And you can monitor and work on the content using the mobile app.
File search to find content easily
The My Cloud Home mobile or desktop app or your My Cloud.com account allows you to quickly find photos, videos, movies and documents using its simple search interface. Like the file explorer on Windows, you can filter the files by date, size, folder structure, etc.
Good customizability and integration with third party applications
These days, we create so much content and end up storing it on different cloud platforms, ranging from Facebook, Google Drive, Dropbox to many more. The My Cloud Home device allows you to automatically download all your photos, videos and files from these accounts at the click of a button. Further, you can use various integrated services for a more wholesome and rich experience. This is one area where improvements keep taking place, so do ensure that you keep you app updated at all times.
Quick and easy sharing
Even though the My Cloud Home is your heavyweight storage device, it essentially functions like any other regular app. This means that with just a few clicks, you can share photos, videos and documents with your family and friends so that nobody misses a thing and the best thing is that you save a ton of money on data transfer. I am not saying that this will take over WhatsApp or other popular chat services, but it is a nice option to share private content that you do not wish to store on public servers.
MY VERDICT
I hope by now, you have realized why I am so gung-ho about the WD My Cloud Home storage device. It is affordable, it gives me my own private cloud, it looks sleek, it avoids wires, it avoids cluttered storage and it allows me to tide over the fact that we are still not truly ready for a full time cloud solution. And it gives me tons and tons of digital space that our lives seem to need more and more these days. I will keep moving towards 100% cloud storage, but until then, the WD My Cloud Home will be my preferred storage solution.
An important thing to remember
Power cuts are quite common in India and if you lose electricity at your home environment, both your WiFi and your My Cloud Home storage device are bound to switch off, which means that you will lose all remote access to it. To avoid this and to ensure 24x7 connectivity, have a UPS or power backup at home at least for your wireless router and for your My Cloud Home cloud storage device.
For more data redundancy…
For those looking for an extra layer of redundancy and backup, there is the My Cloud Home Duo, that uses mirror functionality to save your data twice on two different hard drives.
