WD My Cloud EX2 review

The WD My Cloud EX2 is a NAS device aimed at users looking to create their own personal cloud storage setup. The model we reviewed came with a pair of 4TB WD Red hard disks pre-installed, but there are also cheaper products with two 3TB or 2TB drives, as well as a product that comes without disks if you already have your own.

Installing your own drives is a simple and, more importantly, tool-less process despite the relative compactness of the enclosure. A push-button clip on the top of the device opens the air vent and beyond that just a quick release screw stands between you and the removal of the disk caddies, which also have handles attached to them so you don’t have to turn the EX2 upside-down to get them out.

While the EX2 is a good-looking and compact device, it’s a little irritating that the USB ports aren’t immediately accessible and are instead found on the back of the device. There are two USB3 ports, but if you want to back up to or from an attached USB device, you’ll likely have to move the EX2 in order to access the ports. There’s also no one-touch backup button; there are no buttons whatsoever, in fact. This means that even basic functions such as rebooting or shutting the device down must be done via the web interface. If you want to turn it back on, you’ll have to remove and reinsert the power supply.

Out of the box, our EX2 was set up in RAID 1, meaning there was just under 4TB of space available, with the other 4TB used for redundancy. RAID 1 protects against hardware failure, but it halves the amount of usable space you have available when compared to RAID 0, where the two disks are treated as one drive.

The main attraction of WD’s My Cloud range is its simplicity, and its web interface is both simple and attractive. Under the surface and in the Storage and Settings menus there is a great deal of customisation so you can set your system up exactly how you like it. Managing users and assigning them to groups with different permissions is very easy if you have multiple family members or colleagues whom you want to give access to the drive.

Creating a share is also very easy. Simple on/off buttons denote which features will be enabled for each share, although by default some additional sharing options such as FTP, WebDAV and NFS are disabled and require you to edit your EX2’s settings in a separate menu, which seems like an unnecessary additional step.

The My Cloud EX2 has a built-in DLNA media server, so you can share your music, photos and videos easily over your home network. However, you’ll need to make sure the folders which your music, videos and photos are stored have media streaming enabled, or the devices on your network won’t be able to see them. Performance in this regard is good; we had no problems streaming video to three PCs connected to our network simultaneously.

We did however have issues trying to access files via iTunes; an experience we’ve had with many NAS devices in the past. This time around, we could only find the music stored in the public directory of the NAS and no video files, despite them existing within the same directory. If you’re looking for a NAS that can also work as a print server, you’ll need to look elsewhere because the EX2 does not support network printing.

WD is keen to promote its arsenal of mobile applications, which allow you to access your files remotely. The WD My Cloud app is available for both Android and iOS users, and there’s also WD 2Go for Windows Phone which has been updated to work with My Cloud devices.

The mobile apps allow you not only to download the files stored on your NAS, but also create new folders and upload new files. They’re simple but well designed applications that expand the capabilities of your EX2 quickly and easily, with no configuration required.

There is also a very modest selection of applications available to download and install onto the NAS itself. Some simple download scheduling applications for files accessible via HTTP, FTP or via peer-to-peer networks are pre-installed and you can also install a web server, including WordPress and Joomla, and the IceCast media server tool. It’s a tiny selection, and you could download more applications if you’re savvy enough to go hunting for them yourself, but if you want a vast array of apps you’re better off looking at an alternative NAS from the likes of Asustor or Synology.

Because of its relative low cost, the My Cloud EX2 suffers a little when it comes to transfer speeds. In our file transfer benchmarking tests, configured in RAID 1, it could only manage 52.8MB/s when writing large files, and 45.1MB/s when reading them. For small files, where performance is always significantly slower, it was able to write files at 8.2MB/s and read them at 9.6MB/s.

It’s not terrible performance, but if you’re making regular, large backups or transferring many small files, things will take longer with the EX2 than with more expensive devices. If you choose the higher capacity RAID 0, your speeds will improve, but if any disk fails you’ll lose all of your data, so we don’t recommend it.

We’re big fans of the WD My Cloud EX2. It offers an easy, friendly NAS drive, but is powerful enough to be used as part of a small home business, too. However, the faster Lacie 2big NAS is a better buy for most people.