Western Digital has launched its new My Cloud hard drive. It’s an external drive that allows the user to essentially create their own personal cloud storage service, all locally saved to the drive itself.
It’s not really a cloud in the modern sense, considering that the information is still all saved to one physical location, but it’s a very useful-sounding product nonetheless.
So what does it do?
The WD My Cloud isn’t the first to do this, but it is one of the first to try to simplify the process for the average consumer. It’s a hard drive that connects directly to your router, allowing you access to it not only within the same local network, but from anywhere in the world so long as you have an internet connection.
You’ll need a password and to get past the 128-bit encryption, but you can sync your phone or tablet with an accompanying app so that you don’t have to log in every time you want to stream a movie or share a photo. If you lose your phone, just change the password.
It’s very much the hard-drive of tomorrow, and we expect to see a lot more products like this in the near future. There’s very little new technology here; just a new(ish) way of utilizing established tech.
Sharing
Probably our favorite thing about the My Cloud is that you don’t have to download a file to share it. If you’re on a restrictive 3G/4G plan, or you’re overseas and you don’t want to spend too much on roaming charges, you can access your My Cloud, locate a file and then email it as a link to someone. They then open the link and can view the file, saving you a huge amount of precious data.
You can also grant access to other users by generating a 12-digit code, granting them access to the entire drive. Just make sure you keep tabs of who you’ve allowed access and what you’re saving.
The one issue with this is that if you were to give someone access to a large file, say an HD movie, they’d be using both your and their monthly data caps to access it. You’d be uploading while they’d be downloading. If this is a regular occurrence then you’d better watch your usage meter.
Backing up
To address this, My Cloud can be automatically backed-up via its USB port. To do this you need to plug a separate external hard drive in to the USB port on the back.
Obviously this isn’t a perfect solution, hence why we think of this more as an awesome external hard-drive than a cloud.
The same USB port can be used to extend the storage capacity of the My Cloud, once again using an external hard drive.
It’s up to you if you want to use any external drive for added storage or backed-up info.
So what’s the point?
We can see that WD is trying to appeal to the consumer using the “Cloud” buzz phrase, but it’s not entirely accurate here. What you essentially have is your own personal encrypted hard drive that can be accessed by you, securely, from anywhere in the world. This is very cool.
It’s useful, it’s secure and it’s apparently quite fast. Best of all you get quite a bit of storage for a reasonable price. Best of all, unlike subscription services like Drop Box, you can store terabytes of data on the My Cloud and you only need to fork out the initial payment.
Just remember that, despite this being a “cloud” in the sense that you can access your stuff from anywhere, it’s as fragile as a single normal hard drive. Don’t think of this as a safety locker for valuable info. Instead, this is a gadget that makes what info you have more accessible for you and anyone else you want to share it with.
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