The My Cloud DL4100 is a great addition to WD's line of business class NAS devices. Available as a diskless enclosure or a populated system that works right out of the box, this compact, 4-bay NAS bridges the gap between the company's prosumer Expert series and the Windows-based Sentinel series. The DL4100 is powered by a dual-core Intel Atom processor and features enterprise-class redundancies such as dual gigabit ethernet and power supply ports with fail over. WD's new NAS also runs their user-friendly My Cloud OS which offers a multitude of features for small business environments. Along with integrated file, FTP and backup services, the DL4100 provides support for multiple RAID options, iSCSI, Active Directory and AES 256-bit volume encryption. Also, like the rest of the My Cloud family, it be accessed from pretty much anywhere using WD's desktop and mobile apps.
As far as performance goes, the DL4100 wasn't the fastest 4-bay NAS to come through the 'Labs. Nevertheless, its performance was a big improvement over WD's previous My Cloud devices. Using only one of the DL4100's gigabit ethernet ports, we were able to read at speeds as high as 118 MB/s and write at speeds in excess of 97 MB/s.
The only real complaint I have about the DL4100 is the selection of third party apps. While WD offers a number of industry-leading apps, including aMule, Icecast, Joomla, phpBB and Wordpress, this list hasn't changed much over the past year or so. Even with the addition of the Dropbox sync app, the list pales in comparison to what is available on the NAS devices from companies like QNAP and Synology.
The My Cloud DL4100 is available now as a diskless enclosure as well as a populated system in 8TB, 16TB or 24TB capacities. Prices on the WD Store currently range from $530 for the enclosure up to $1529 for the 24TB version reviewed here.
Highs:
- Powered by dual-core Intel Atom processor
- Four tool-less, hot-swap drive bays
- Easy to setup and manage
- Accessible from anywhere using desktop and mobile apps
- Supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, JBOD and Spanning modes
- Integrated file, FTP, backup and P2P download servers
- Supports USB, LAN/WAN and cloud backups
- iSCSI target and initiator
- Two USB 3.0 expansion ports
- Dual gigabit ethernet and power ports with failover
- Good looking and well constructed design
- LCD display
- Memory can be expanded up to 6GB
- Quiet operation
- 2 year warranty
Lows:
- Limited third-party app support
- Pricey
