WD has recently announced its latest addition to their prosumer personal cloud storage solutions – the WD My Cloud EX2, a high-performance two-bay network attached storage (NAS) system. The WD My Cloud EX2 is designed from the ground up for creative professionals and prosumers that need to reliably save, share, back up, stream and manage large amounts of digital data. Check out the rest of its features, specifications, price and where to buy below. There is also a video review below to give you more idea about this new cloud-based storage solution.
WD My Cloud EX2 Features
According to Jim Welsh, executive vice president, WD Branded Products and worldwide sales: “WD is committed to providing a comprehensive portfolio of personal cloud solutions as the need for digital data storage continues to dramatically increase,” “With the My Cloud EX series of products, customers will be thrilled with the advanced features, high-performance and reliability that only WD can provide.”
Complete Data Control and Protection
Several data management and security features allow customers to select their preferred methods for managing and protecting their movies, photos, music and digital files. Drive management options include RAID 0, RAID 1; JBOD and spanning modes, while data protection options include RAID 1, USB, cloud or LAN/WAN backup. The My Cloud EX2 comes preconfigured in RAID 1 mode to protect data right from the start and is easily configurable into other data protection modes. Customers can use their My Cloud EX2 to centralize and back up all of their computers and notebooks with WD SmartWare Pro software for PC users, and with the Apple Time Machine backup software for Mac users.
High Capacity and Ultimate Reliability
My Cloud EX2 provides several capacity options for customers to choose from, including a diskless enclosure allowing users to build their own NAS with the drives of their choice, as well as populated systems in 4 TB, 6 TB or 8 TB capacities. Additionally, customers can attach compatible USB 3.0 hard drives to the USB expansion ports on the My Cloud EX2 to instantly expand their storage capacity. The populated My Cloud EX2 features WD Red hard drives for ultimate reliability in the unique 24×7 NAS operating environment. WD Red drives are powered by NASware 2.0 technology, improving drive reliability and protecting customer data in the event of a power loss or disruption.
Anytime, Anywhere Access
The award-winning WD My Cloud mobile and desktop app provides anytime, anywhere access to the entire My Cloud product family. WD My Cloud mobile app users can easily view photos, stream video and share, save and manage files from anywhere on their iOS and Android devices. The mobile app makes file sharing and collaborating simple, allowing customers to easily email files, share files as a link, and print and open files with third party apps. The WD My Cloud mobile app integrates major public cloud services so that customers can easily transfer files from their Dropbox, SkyDrive and Google Drive public cloud accounts. With the WD My Cloud desktop app, navigating, controlling and sharing digital files from anywhere in the world is simple and intuitive.
Advanced Features
My Cloud EX2 includes advanced data serving options including an integrated file server, FTP server, backup server and a P2P download server. Additionally, users can download and run a host of third party apps, including aMule, Icecast, Joomla!, phpBB, phpMyAdmin, Transmission, SqueezeCenter, and more.
Users can also stream videos and photos to connected TVs, media players, gaming consoles and other DLNA/UPnP devices with the included Twonky 7.2 server, DLNA-certified 1.5 media server, and built-in iTunes server.
Compatibility
My Cloud EX2 is compatible with Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, OS X Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion, Snow Leopard, as well as DLNA/UPnP enabled devices.
Price and Where to Buy
My Cloud EX2 is currently available at select U.S. retailers as well as on popular online stores. The MSRP are as follows: $199.99 USD for the diskless My Cloud EX2, $369.99 USD for 4 TB, $469.99 USD for 6 TB and $569.99 USD for 8 TB. The WD My Cloud mobile app currently is available for download for free from the App StoreSM and Google PlayTM. My Cloud EX2 comes with a two year limited warranty.
WD My Cloud EX2 Review
The WD My Cloud EX3 review video below is courtesy of CNET.
WD My Cloud EX2 Specifications
Below is a detailed and complete WD My Cloud EX2 Specifications.
| Interface | Gigabit Ethernet Power supply (DC in) USB 3.0 expansion port x 2 |
| Drive bays | 2 x 3.5 inch hard drive bays, hot swap capable, trayless design |
| Internal hard drives | WD Red NAS hard drives (Included in 4 TB, 6 TB and 8 TB populated systems only) |
| Processor | 1.2 GHz |
| Memory | 512 MB DDR3 |
| System requirements | Windows® 8.1 or earlier, Windows 7, Windows Vista® or Windows XP (SP 3) operating systems Mac OS® X Mavericks, Mountain Lion™, Lion™ or Snow Leopard® operating systems DLNA/UPnP devices for streaming Router with Internet connection |
| Supported web browsers | Internet Explorer® 8 or higher Safari® 6 or higher Firefox® 21 or higher Google Chrome™ 27 and later on supported Windows and Mac OS platforms |
| Network protocols | DHCP client or static IP NTP client Dynamic DNS (DDNS) Apple Bonjour® and Windows Rally™ Jumbo frame support VLAN (802.1Q) UPnP port forwarding iPv4/iPv6 iSCSI SSH |
| Network file services | OS Supports: • Windows XP Home/ Pro (SP 3) • Windows Vista/7/8 (all versions) • Mac OS X Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion and Snow Leopard CIFS/SMB for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux NFSv3 for Linux and UNIX AFP for Mac OS X Microsoft® Distributed File System (DFS) WebDAV Server |
| Security | Active directory support for Windows server 2003/ 2008/ 2012 Volume encryption (256 bit AES) |
| File system | EXT4 for internal HDD Supports the following formats for externally attached USB drives • FAT/FAT32 • NTFS (read and write capability) • HFS+J (case sensitive) • Linux EXT2, EXT3, EXT4 |
| FTP server | Support port setting Set port range of passive FTP Option to report external IP in PASV mode Client language selection Anonymous FTP Secure FTP support Support File eXchange Protocol (FXP) FTP bandwidth restriction (upstream/downstream) IP address block (block access from undesired IP address) |
| Download management | HTTP downloads from a URL to a user specified folder on the NAS FTP downloads of files or folders from an FTP server to another files/folders on the NAS P2P torrent download manager |
| Disk management | RAID 0/1; JBOD; spanning RAID migration: • JBOD to RAID 1 Hot swapping (RAID 1) Disk roaming Array roaming |
| Power management | Drive spin-up/down (including attached WD USB drives) Automatic power recovery Scheduled power on/off Graceful shutdown on UPS low battery Fan control Network UPS Wake On LAN |
| Remote access | My Cloud and WD Photos™ mobile apps My Cloud desktop app Web access |
| User/Group management | Max no. of users: 512 for Samba, 800 for ADS Max no. of user groups: 64 for Samba, 200 for ADS Max no. of network shares:128 Supports up to 10 concurrent CIFS connections User/group assignment for network sharing/FTP Quotas for groups or users Assignment of users to multiple groups Batch assignment of users to groups Batch user creation Importing users (CSV delimited format) |
| Backup management | Remote backups: Backup to a My Cloud EX2 or My Cloud EX4 locally or remotely Apple Time Machine support Backup internal files or folders of the device to other files/folders on the NAS Cloud-based backup services • Amazon S3 (http://aws.amazon.com/s3/) • ElephantDrive (http://home.elephantdrive.com/welcome/wdc/) Disk sync management for the attached USB ports |
| System management | Alert notifications • Event UI messages • UI alerts (with message acknowledgment required) • Email notices • QuickView pop-up messages Network recycle bin • Supports Windows CIFS • Supports Apple AFP System/FTP log (syslog client) HTTP/S (web) administration interface (HTTP server) Firmware upgrade Configuration backup and restore SNMPv2 System information • CPU percentage • RAM usage • Network performance |
| Media streaming | UPnP AV media server (Twonky v7.2) DLNA 1.5 certification Supports WD TV® Live™, Xbox® 360, PlayStation® 3, Windows 8, connected TVs, Blu-ray® players & digital picture frames iTunes support |
| Add-on support | aMule - peer-to-peer file sharing application Transmission - BitTorrent client Icecast - media streaming app phpBB - Internet forum application Joomla! - content management system SqueezeCenter - streaming audio server phpMyAdmin - My SQL administration tool WordPress - blogging tool and content management system NZBGet - NZB file download management software Git - revision control and source code management system |
| iSCSI | iSCSI target • CHAP authentication • iSNS (Internet Storage Name Service ) • Up to 64 iSCSI targets Volume virtualization: NAS can be configured as an iSCSI initiator and capable of mapping any iSCSI target of the other device to be one virtual volume. • Virtual disk drive (via iSCSI initiator) • Max number of virtual disk drives supported is eight (8) |
| Power supply | AC input voltage: 100V to 240V AC AC input frequency: 50 to 60Hz DC output voltage: 12V DC, 3A |
| Temperature | Operating temperature: 5° C to 35° C ( 41° F to 95° F) Non-op temperature: -20° C to 65° C (-4° F to 149° F) |
| Available capacities | 0 TB, 4 TB, 6 TB, 8 TB |
