The My Cloud EX2 is a welcome addition to WD's line of personal cloud solutions. Designed for small and home offices, this 2-bay NAS is good looking, compact and easy to use. Available as a diskless enclosure or a populated system that works right out of the box, the EX2 offers integrated file, FTP and backup servers as well as multiple drive management options including RAID, JBOD and spanning modes. The NAS also provides a number of options to secure your data from loss. Along with disk mirroring, the EX2 supports USB, LAN/WAN and cloud backups. If that's not enough, WD gives users the ability to customize the NAS using industry-leading apps, including aMule, Icecast, Joomla, phpBB, SqueezeCenter and more.
Where the My Cloud EX2 really shines is its ability to be accessed from pretty much anywhere. Like everything else with the device, setting up Cloud Access is very easy. If your router supports uPnP, the EX2 will automatically open the ports it needs. If not, it will establish a relay connection with WD's servers. Either way, there's no need to mess around with firewall rules. From here, you can use WD's My Cloud desktop and mobile apps to access all of the content on your personal cloud from nearly any device.
The My Cloud EX2 is available now as a diskless enclosure as well as a populated system in 4TB, 6TB and 8TB capacities. Prices on Amazon.com currently range from $200 up to $597, with the 4TB version reviewed here going for about $370.
Highs:
- Easy to setup and manage
- Accessible from anywhere using desktop and mobile apps
- Two tool-less, hot-swap drive bays
- Supports RAID 0, 1, JBOD and Spanning modes
- Integrated file, FTP, backup and P2P download servers
- Supports USB, LAN/WAN and cloud backups
- Twonky and iTunes media servers
- Customizable using third-party apps
- Two USB 3.0 expansion ports
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Good looking and well constructed design
- Quiet operation
- 2 year warranty
Lows:
- Mediocre write speeds
