WD's new My Cloud EX4 is a four-bay network attached storage (NAS) solution targeted to creative professionals, prosumers, workgroups and just about anyone looking for a reliable way to save, share, back up, stream and manage massive amounts of digital data.
My Cloud EX4 uses the WD Red line of hard drives, which are specifically designed for home and small office NAS systems and are powered by NASware 2.0 technology, which is designed to improve drive reliability and protects customer data in the event of a power loss or disruption. Additionally, WD Red hard drives feature 3D Active Balance Plus, an enhanced balance control technology that improves overall drive performance and reliability.
The single drive My Cloud system is a great solution for users that want an easy and private way to store all of their data at home and then share, save and manage it from anywhere in the world, on any device. With Easy-Slide-Drive technology, My Cloud EX4 allows customers to easily install or hot-swap drives in seconds, without the need for a screwdriver, toolkit or trays. Additionally, customers can attach compatible USB 3.0 hard drives to the USB expansion ports on the My Cloud EX4 to instantly expand their storage capacity.
My Cloud EX4 arms users with multiple options to secure digital data from a potential loss by providing RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 or allowing users to select from spanning and JBOD modes for even more options to manage data. Mac users can utilize all the features of Apple Time Machine backup software to protect their data.
The My Cloud EX4 can also backup itself, either to another My Cloud EX4 in a different location, or to cloud services such as Amazon S3 and ElephantDrive. To ensure 24/7 data protection and reliability the My Cloud EX4 includes redundant power supplies and Ethernet ports.
The My Cloud EX4 serves as a home's digital entertainment hub, configurable for up to 16TB of movies and music that can then be streamed to any DLNA/UPnP certified multimedia device such as gaming consoles, smart TVs and WD TV Live media players. The Twonky 7.2, DLNA-certified 1.5 media server and iTunes server make for simple streaming of large movie and music libraries.
Additionally, the integrated file server, FTP server, backup server and P2P download server provide advanced data serving options for My Cloud EX4 users.
Customers can also customize their NAS, monitor system health, manage users and energy saving features with the My Cloud EX4 dashboard, as well as use a suite of third party apps, including aMule, Icecast, Joomla!, phpBB, phpMyAdmin and more.
Available for iOS and Android devices, the WD My Cloud mobile app allows users to view photos, stream video and share, save and manage files from anywhere on their smartphones or tablets. The mobile app allows customers to email files, share files as a link, and print and open files with third party apps. The 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.
My Cloud EX4 — compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 and higher — provides several capacity options, allowing customers to choose from a drive-less enclosure that allows customers to customize their capacity and add additional drives as their library of digital content grows, or an 8TB, 12TB or 16TB model. My Cloud EX4 is currently available at select U.S. retailers and online at the wdstore.com. The manufacturer's suggested retail price is US$379.99 USD for the drive-less My Cloud EX4, $799.99 for 8TB, $949.99 for 12TB and $1,149.99 for 16TB. The My Cloud mobile app, for use with iOS devices, is available for download from the Apple App Store.
