Western Digital Announce New Product Line – My Cloud

Cloud storage for a number of people is a precarious storage solution as the worries about other people potentially having access to their data is something that lingers over the public cloud storage market. Many people are familiar with current online cloud storage options such as Dropbox (of which I’m a user myself), iCloud which all iOS devices have access to, and Google Drive amongst others.

The problem with all these options however is the fact that you can’t yourself pinpoint exactly where your data is stored and all of these providers will tend to scan your content for viruses etc, meaning that its not going to be up there without it being viewed in some way or another.

Being able to have you data stored at home and then shared out to the internet in your own personal cloud is a solution that for many users has not been possible for a long while. True if you had the knowledge, you could share a drive on to the internet, presuming you had a router that supported that feature such as Netgear’s R6300 and you know what your IP  address was at all times, but this is not the most secure nor the easiest of options either.

This is now where Western Digital have stepped up to the mark to create a drive that simply plugs into the existing home network and with the use of a mobile app or desktop management program, is able to share file, securely through 128-bit AES encryption, to anywhere in the world. Bring forward the ‘My Cloud’.

Built around a dual core ARM A9 CPU and paired with 256MB or DDR3 memory, the small system that is no bigger than their current products such as the MyBook Elite, comes in a range of capacities ranging from 2TB up to 4TB. On top of this the My Cloud also features a USB3.0 port for expansion by connecting another storage drive that will show up as a separate shared folder on the system, or which can be used to create a backup of the entire system in the form of ‘Safepoints’.

The My Cloud can be accessed either on the local network via a desktop management app or can be remotely connected to from anywhere in the world via the mobile app or web based user interface. Sharing files to friends and family is also very simple, files are given a unique URL, and this can be sent to a third party so that they can get access to that file only. Access to sync the drive with other cloud solutions such as Dropbox is also made simple with seamless integration through the mobile app. The mobile app will also be fully backwards compatible with the current line of My Book Live devices and users will notice that the WD-to-Go app will be updated to the new My Cloud app through their relevant app store

The My Cloud, priced at £129 for the 2TB model and £159 for the 3TB model (4TB model due later in the year in November is awaiting UK pricing) will be available from today through a number of online e-tailors such as Dixons online. This makes the price for storage far cheaper than online cloud options which charge a yearly fee in some cases only provide a fraction of the storage capacity for a higher cost.

Source – WD Press event