O-Sense
INTRODUCTION
It has taken a few years to happen but it finally seems that NAS (network attached storage) devices/servers have finally replaced HTPC systems in most homes not only because of their compact size compared to regular desktop cases (always for systems that can accommodate 3.5" drives) but also because of their low power consumption and out of the box functionality. We've still to reach a point in time where NAS servers can also be used for PC gaming so with that in mind they can't really replace regular systems (at least not yet) but right now consumers and enterprise users can perform the majority of tasks they do with Windows and Linux by using the available applications by each manufacturer and/or 3rd party developers. WD may not be the most popular brand in the NAS market (just like Seagate and Buffalo) but their My Cloud solutions have a very good track record and since some of you asked we decided to test the My Cloud EX4 model.
WD, a Western Digital company, is a long-time innovator and storage industry leader. As a storage technology pacesetter, the company produces reliable, high-performance hard disk drives and solid state drives. These drives are deployed by OEMs and integrators in desktop and mobile computers, enterprise computing systems, embedded systems and consumer electronics applications, as well as by the company in providing its own storage products. WD’s leading storage devices and systems, networking products, media players and software solutions empower people around the world to easily save, store, protect, share and experience their content on multiple devices. WD was established in 1970 and is headquartered in Irvine, California.
The My Cloud EX4 model has been around for quite a while (slightly over 2 years to be exact) so its Marvell 88F6262 Kirkwood ARM SOC single-core CPU running at 2GHz with the somewhat "limited" amount of 512MB DDR3 RAM and supported SATA II connectivity do seem out of place. WD has also placed an LCD screen, 2 USB 3.0 ports, two RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet ports (link aggregation is supported) and two dual power supply ports (redundancy is supported although only one external power supply is included in the package) on the My Cloud EX4 so at least in terms of connectivity it does quite well for a 2+ year old NAS model. Our sample came with four 2TB WD Red SATA III HDDs (the NAS is also available with 12/16TB capacities or driverless) preconfigured at RAID 5 but the My Cloud EX4 also supports RAID 0, 1 and RAID 10 as well as spanning and JBOD modes. So the time has come for us to check and see exactly what you can expect from the My Cloud EX4 both in terms of features and performance.
SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES
PACKAGING AND CONTENTS
The My Cloud EX4 ships inside a large black box that has a product picture at the front, the company logo and the amount of storage capacity installed (if you don't get the driverless version).
Some of the product features are showcased on the left side with the help of three pictures while a fourth picture is used to showcase its rear connectivity options.
The complete features list is placed on the right side of the box.
WD goes into slightly more detail regarding the features of the My Cloud EX4 at the rear of the box.
Opening the box we see the NAS wrapped inside a plastic bag and placed between two foam spacers while the rest of the bundle is placed inside a small cardboard box.
Inside the box we found the My Cloud EX4 with its 4 pre-installed hard drives, power adapter with two power cords (EU/UK), Ethernet cable, warranty paper and a quick installation guide (our sample was far from new so we don't know if anything else should be in the box).
THE MY CLOUD EX4 EXTERIOR
The WD My Cloud EX4 NAS is a medium to large sized 4 bay model that measures 220.2mm in length, 160.1mm in width and 208.6mm in height (weighs 3.3Kg without the drives and 5.8Kg with the drives).
To showcase its size we placed the My Cloud EX4 right next to the TS-451+ by QNAP and as you can see it's quite larger mainly because of the extra LCD screen.
Part of both sides is perforated to allow hot air to exit the enclosure.
The fascia is polished and aside the LCD screen and the 4 drive bays (each bay has its own blue status LED) it also has the on/off power button and two buttons with which you can control the information displayed.
Unlike most other manufacturers WD has used 4 tool-less (push-out), hot-swappable bays.
Our sample came fitted with 4 Red 2TB NAS Hard Disk Drives (previous NASware 2.0 version, 5400 RPM, 64MB Cache).
Moving at the rear we see a 90mm exhaust fan (2400RPM), two DC in power ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports and the reset button.
THE MY CLOUD EX4 INTERIOR
Getting inside the My Cloud EX4 is not hard, just remove the 5 screws at the rear and pull the top cover backwards (as usual since we don't want to compromise the unit in any way we will not be taking it apart).
On the main PCB we see a 2GB SLC Flash module by Samsung and 512MB DDR3-1600 module by Nanya (10-10-10 timings).
We also see the Marvell 88SX7042 4 Port SATA II controller and the EtronTech EJ168A USB 3.0 Host Controller.
THE LCD SCREEN
Although you can't change anything with the LCD screen and the two scroll buttons still it can provide you with useful information aside the name of the NAS.
So you can check the status of your drives (available space, free space, health), current speed of the rear 90mm fan, NAS firmware version, system temperature and the IP address assigned to the NAS.
SETUP
To setup the NAS you should download the My Cloud Ex4 setup program from the official WD support page.
After you run the program it will detect and connect to the NAS.
You can create a personal cloud account for the NAS or skip it and do it afterwards.
Once the operation is complete you can also choose to install the My Cloud program.
WEB INTERFACE PART 1
Since we got the My Cloud Ex4 with a huge delay from when it got launched the firmware is brand new and so the web interface is white and different compared to what's showcased on the box.
Prior to entering the web interface you will be required to agree with the end user license agreement and choose a language.
The main tab gives you a good idea off what's going on with the NAS including the free space (here we see all 4 WD RED drives in RAID 0), type of data on the NAS, connected devices, system health, firmware version, connected users and installed applications.
To get valid results from our tests which we can compare to the other NAS in our charts we also used 4 Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB SATA III hard disk drives (here we see them configured in RAID 5).
If you click on the diagnostics tab you will see the current temperatures of all 4 drives and the entire system.
You can also check for new firmware updates by clicking on the firmware tab.
WD has made it possible to generate new activation codes for use with new mobile devices (Cloud Access) so to do that you will need to click on the cloud devices.
Adding and removing users is very easy from the users screen (you can also separate/assign them in groups).
You can manage all available shared folders on the NAS from the shares screen.
Allowing (or not) new devices to have access via cloud to your NAS can be done from the Cloud Access screen.
Local, remote and cloud backups are all available through the Backups page.
Changing the current drive mode, checking the current drive health and using iSCSI and Volume Virtualization can all be done through the Storage page.
WEB INTERFACE PART 2
Via the current (stock) installed apps the My Cloud Ex4 supports HTTP downloads and P2P BitTorrent downloads (you can download files directly to the NAS) and can be also configured as an FTP server (you can create and monitor FTP accounts, setup access permissions, throttle bandwidth, manage IP blocking and use FXP).
Every setting regarding the NAS itself is placed under the Settings tab and from the General page you can change the name of the NAS, setup the time and language and you can also enable/disable cloud access, energy saving modes and time machine (MAC) backups.
Network related settings like services, windows services, remote server feature and port forwarding are all located inside the Network page.
Inside the media page you can enable streaming of media to all DLNA/UPnP connected devices (iTunes server support is also present).
You can run system diagnostics, format and check the drives for errors, hibernate and restart the NAS and create/share ISO images from within the Utilities page.
The My Cloud Ex4 can also notify you of errors via email and/or sms.
Although the NAS can be configured to automatically search for firmware updates you can also do so yourself from the firmware update page.
Unfortunately the My Cloud Ex4 doesn't have nowhere near the amount of extra apps you can install (always compared to QNAP, ASUSTOR, Thecus and Synology) still it does have available some very popular apps like Acer abFiles (makes it easy to access files from mobile devices), Acronis TrueImage (clone drives, secure wipe drives and backup the operating system, applications, settings and all of your data) aMule and Transmission (P2P downloading), Anti-Virus Essentials, IceCast (internet music streaming utility), Wordpress, phBB, phpMyAdmin, Joomla, Logitech SqueezeCenter, and NZBGet.
WD MY CLOUD APPS
Currently you can use the android WD My Cloud application seen above to remotely access/stream media files from the NAS.
WD however also makes a Windows program which can also be used to stream/access media files from the NAS but it can also be used to access backup files (SmartWare and Time Machine).
TESTING METHODOLOGY – PERFORMANCE RESULTS
Originally we had decided that since some of the NAS servers/devices we've tested in the past are no longer in our possession (naturally) we would keep performing the exact same testing methodology we did in the past for as long as possible in order to provide accurate comparison results. However since our real-life tests are not enough for some people we also decided to throw in ATTO and Crystal Disk Mark to cover the more demanding users. However as always we will be using up to six Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB SATA III hard disk drive(s) with 3.5” compatible units and up to two (for now) Enterprise Capacity 2.5 HDD V3 2TB SATA III HDDs with 2.5” compatible units to perform several upload/download tests with 10.9GB (Single) and 40,8GB (RAID) files. Tests are repeated a total of 4 times after which we record the average numbers (from the 4 peak ones) into our charts. The network device used for 1GbE tests is the same Netgear D6300 AC1600 Gigabit ADSL2+ Modem/Router we’ve been using lately when performing tests on NAS servers. Since the 25th of June 2015 for 10GbE tests we’ll be using a Netgear ProSafe XS712T 10G Smart Switch and an Intel XT540-AT2 10GbE PCIe card (10GbE compatible NAS cards will be provided from each company and stated in each review).
SINGLE DISK TESTS
RAID TESTS
TEST RESULTS – TEMPERATURES / POWER CONSUMPTION / NOISE LEVELS
TEMPERATURES
POWER CONSUMPTION
NOISE LEVELS
CONCLUSION
When WD released the My Cloud EX4 NAS there were already many models in the market with much higher performance levels (you can see many of those in our charts) so all the weight fell on its price/features ratio which even today is a very good one (as you will all see later on). Still there’s no denying that in terms of performance and even power consumption the My Cloud EX4 falls behind most models in our charts so for really demanding users and/or offices and companies this is not what we’d recommend (at first we thought this was due to the RED drives so using our very own should increase performance but in the end performance was obviously bottlenecked by the single core CPU and the 512MB of DDR3 RAM). It also has no HDMI output (thus can’t be used to watch media to a TV screen) and no out of the box support for IP cameras (surveillance feature) which means you need to spend more for a license (unfortunately WD was unable to provide us with one to test that feature). The good news is that the My Cloud EX4 is very easy to setup and use (its UI resembles that of some Cloud HDDs in the market today) and never crossed 37dBA during all our tests a number that puts it at the top of our charts. It also has a very easy to use eject/mount system for the drives and dual power ports which means you can use two power adapters (you will need to get a 2nd one) to enable the redundancy feature something which we see mostly with far more expensive Rack NAS models.
What about price? Things are quite good here since currently the WD My Cloud EX4 8TB NAS retails for USD589.95 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 690Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) when just the 4 RED 2TB drives (the new NAS models come with NASware 3.0 HDDs) on their own cost roughly USD350/380Euros. Of course you can always opt for the new and faster EX4100/2100 models which are not really that more expensive (reviews coming soon) but the same applies for everything in the market. In the end we really feel the My Cloud EX4 8TB is outdated in terms of performance but if you’re on a rather tight budget it’s still a very tempting offer because of its features so we really suggest checking it out.
PROS
- Build Quality
- Trayless Design
- Dual Power Ports (Redundancy Feature)
- User Friendly GUI
- LCD Screen
- Low Noise Levels
- Price (For Some)
CONS
- Performance Levels
- Power Consumption
- No Surveillance Feature (Extra)
- No HDMI Output
- Not Compatible With 2.5" Drives
