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 2^nd 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 In the end we really feel the My Cloud EX4 8TB is outdated in terms of performance but if you’re on a rather tight budget it’s still a very tempting offer because of its features so we really suggest checking it out.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