Western Digital My Cloud EX4 NAS: The WORST Tech I've Ever Owned

Sounds like you got a dud. I have direct experience with 3 of them, two in a small office and one I bought for my home. They've been running nonstop for 6 years. Only serious problem is the firmware update WD put out that turned on all the 'sharing' apps and the CPU just couldn't handle the load. Probably just too little RAM. Fortunately I was able to revert and recover from that. I wish it was possible to gut the WD system and salvage the RAID hardware - put in some open source RAID software to run on a quality SBC.

I have 3 WDMyCloudEX4 and they are pretty good

After Western Digital die
How you recover the data?

I have My Cloud Expert Series EX4100
Product Numbers WDBWZE0000NBK-NESN What is the maximum amount of space that can be added?

EX4 glacial speed. Difficult to manage file structure. I have two of them. WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY. Better to have a more expensive SAS

I can only relate.... worst is just a kind word for this piece of s**t

I have one too and although it still works I can report that it is maliciously slow. To the point where if it's busy doing something a device can't even open a simple picture even after 1 minute. It often just locks up and then for whatever reason it's fine again. I recently deleted a whole lot of stuff off it and since then it's been virtually unusable. The gateway where you are can do admin also hardly ever works - it just freezes up. have no idea why this NAS is so bad but virtually from day one I was horrified how slow it was. Worst money I ever spent on something computer related. The only good this is the actual WD drives in it are still good with no failures.

The fan on device failed, MyCloud Ex4 still worked for a couple of years. But now it it won't work all. Hopefully it didn't damge the drives. So, here I have 4 6TB NAS, waiting to get a new NAS unit. Do you recommend anything that does the trick and I would have to sell an eye for it?

Thanks for your review, and needless to say I am now getting another WD NAS system ever!

Well I bought one of these years ago when it was the newest thing, So yea 8 or 9 years ago. Used it for a few years, some iscs for a home serveri and file backups. Then i discovered Nas4Free about 6 years ago and built a setup with Supermicro/Xeon, 8 drives. Noisy with all those fans... expensive to refresh out the drives, 4 at a time using an external drive copier... The EX4 was almost thrown away but instead I recommissioned it just this week, as I don't use the iscsi any more. Set it up raid 10., latest firmware. For me, heat was always the issue here. Drives don't last long when they cook, and cook they do in the EX4. So I removed the top, and drilled a 4" hole out, then used heavy duty double stick rubber tape and taped down a 120mm fan. Used a PCFan-AC adapter to power it. This, along with the latest firmware has improved it to useful status. It used to cook at 50+c but now with 2tb being copied over to it- it's running at 36c. I copied over my files and turned off that noisy Supermicro PC- it worked great but I don't need an 8 drive nas any more. Next I am going to see how it backs up via USB to an external drive... If that doesn't work out, I will start shopping for something better...

Mine's worked well for years. Just recently the cooling fan starting making noise, my plan is to replace it and let it work for another couple years until NAS is an obsolete tech.

I built a NAS system in 2014-2015 with XigmaNAS using components of my choice for ₹ 15000 (not incl disks). I ran out of SATA ports recently, so am in the market again. Saw EX4100 go for ₹ 21500 and I admit it lured me a bit (though it had no more SATA ports than my current system). I didn't make the purchase, as I felt I could make a far better system for ₹ 35000, and seeing this video, boy was I right?

In India, I no longer see combo motherboards with sub-10W soldered CPUs. Ryzens are definitely an overkill, though there are decent B450 motherboards with 6 SATA ports and 1-2 NVMEs.

Every WD NAS I've bought has sucked, and I owned the EX4 myself as well. Mine didn't die on me, but it sure felt like it was sometimes. Gotta say I agree, never buying another WD NAS, I've had it with them, don't know why I was ever faithful to the brand.

Now I use OpenMediaVault on a custom AMD Ryzen server. Is the setup more complex? Yeah, a little. But the results? Never been happier. I used to think my file transfers went slow cause of my network or the HDDs, but nah, it was the NAS the whole time. Oh and the current uptime? Months.

Wd cloud is piece of sh….. Buy Synology.

Fitted mine with WD gold drives (they were on the compatibility list) one failed a few months later. Checked the list to replace them and they were no longer on the list. OK fine ....bought 2 WD red drives One failed a few months later. It drops network access on occasion. and its SLOOOOOOOOW copying large numbers of photos (the reason it was purchased). This has left such a bad taste in my mouth I will never purchase anything from WD ever again. For a NAS to actually damage drives is unforgivable

AVOID Western Digital. Get a Synology. Thank me later.

I had this for a couple of years and I was so extremely relieved when I switched to a Synology DS918+. The WD was a hopeless chunk of slowness....

Haha, how ironic, in 2021 i have the same issue with the My Cloud Home NAS from Western Digital, mine has forced me to leave it off for a good week twice already before allowing me to access my files and I lost clients because of the stupid drive. Their customer care is just as useless as their drive. They lost me as a client because I am very skeptical about using any Western Digital product in future.

Synology costs more, and the software is worth every additional dollar. WD drives are great but Hitachi drives cost less, avoid Seagate.

I had the same problems. This MY CLOUD EX4 is garbage!

I own an EX4 since 2014.
If I copy large files (3GB), it gives me a trasfer rate of 60MB/s. You think it's great ???
If I copy a bunch of small files (4500 files / 450 directories / 150MB), it begins very fast, then it slows down to 180B/s and 1 minute/file. REALLY A BAD DEVICE. I'm never gonna buy a WD again.
BTW: after this, also a large file takes months ... a restart is required.
There are no apps installed, the configuration is the absolute minimum. A NIGHTMARE !!!

I've got a QNAP too. There I've got no problems. It's the best NAS I ever had.

Can you watch the videos o films from navigator with the WD's file Explorer? Or Need download the videos to play?

I've had one for years now and really only one nagging issue. The GUI is suuuuuuper slow. File xfers are fine. No other issues.

I've had one for years now and really only one nagging issue. The GUI is suuuuuuper slow. File xfers are fine. No other issues.

I have a few questions
1. Can I select the hard drive among the 4 in which I want to store my files?
2. Will the device work if I have inserted only 3 hard drives instead of 4?

I'll never do a NAS ever again. I will only ever build an actual server. Never a NAS. But for now, help!

But when it won't boot? Like mine just did! What now? Nothing on the net!

I have to agree.. have had one for years and HATE IT.

I am truly sad to see the bad results you had with your EX4. I had the same unit you show in the video, it has been running constantly, with the exception of 2 times where we moved our office to a different location and we shutdown the unit for the move. The rest of the time, was always up and running, never turned off for almost 5 years already and barely I got a problem in one of the disks about a week ago. A small chat with WD support department, they pointed me to the right HDD to buy, got it replaced and the system is backup and running again. No problems whatsoever with the display as well (as I mentioned, running constantly for almost 5 years). You might have receive a lemon or something with hardware problems just to start with, or, as it happened to us before, we got a 'refurbish' unit 'marketed' as brand new. That will be difficult to determine, specially when the unit is completely gone. Sad to hear it did not work for you. It worked and still working for us very well. Just for the record, we also use a Buffalo Terastation (rack mounted) and our bigger SAN is basically an HP Proliant Server all SSD units running FreeNAS. Honestly, nothing can beat this last one.

Thanks for the info

In the last two years we've moved all of our clients from WD to Synology. MUCH more reliable hardware, and their customer support is phenomenal.

I do not own this but have so far no problems with anything from WD. Thanks for the video!

i think your opinion condemning all WD NAS devices based on the performance of a single device is hugely unfair.
i've had my ex4100 since early 2016... never EVER had a single problem with it whatsoever..

the problem is not the device; its the user; simple; I have deployed 23 of these devices; been running still 2+ Years counting; all 23

Mine has been powered on and used daily since September 2014. No problems. I use it primarily for my movie collection but i also have music and pictures on it. I just bought the PR4100 because I needed more space.

Well i have my one for 4 years or more allways up and runing at all time !!! Sorry you

I bought one of these on clearance at Fry's in 2015 or so, it still works, but has never worked well. Always really slow to access, some computers can't see it on the network, and... well I wouldn't buy another. Replacing it with a LaCie 5Big here pretty quick if that works as well as I hope.

Sadly, I'm in the same situation ... fortunately my NAS is still semi-functional but some files simply will NOT copy to another drive ... I get "Error 0x8007003B: an unexpected network error occurred" ... I've managed to "salvage" about 90% of what I had on the unit but as you pointed out, a NAS is supposed to be a "reliable" source in RAID 5 and my EX4 does NOT feel reliable at all ... not to mention it's incredibly SLOW! I'm in the process of looking for a replacement NAS.

Sorry to hear you've had so much trouble with this. Mine is almost 5 years old and hasn't missed a beat. Granted it is slower than I would have liked but it has never failed or let me down. For me, this has worked as advertised.

I have a Ex4 with 4x3 TB RAID 5 since ca. 4 years. I only use ISCSI drives on it and it works perfectly, even with full direct Veracrypt drive encryption. 0 Issues, it works quiet, is fast and reliable. My QNAP is much louder and slower.

I know this video is a couple of years old but I wanted to add some info. I fully agree that this thing is garbage. Mine is still going but just barely. Any day now I expect that the second power supply connection will just die like the first one considering its been giving errors for a year now.
I would recommend Synology over the WD NAS devises. Or if you have a spare desktop laying around you can FreeNAS it :)

I have one of these at the office it has been running for almost 3 years now with no issues we back up and use it for a scan server to storage files with no issues

After trying to get my EX4 to boot for 3 weeks by leaving it off for days, I decided that it could be a thermal problem. I took the drives out and put the unit in the refrigerator for 1/2 hour. When I put the drives back in and reconnected, the unit booted.

My EX4 is working for 7 years now without any problem at all....same as my WD EX2 Ultra

I do have a peace of shit like this. Terrible, we should get paid for our mistake buying this crap device

My EX4 has been awesome, maybe I just jinxed myself but have not had single issue with it. Was looking to get another just because it has been so good but now thinking twice. Mine sits behind a UPS system, maybe that is why it has been so reliable.

Hello Juan , WD Red Are Not Enterprise Drives

Was an awful system.

How long ve u been used it until it died?

I have this EX4 also, and not doing anything extreme with it. I see updates now and then still coming to the firmware. So I can say, they haven't given up on support of the software. Maybe it would perform a bit better when more ram was possible to put in. Some NAS devices arent user upgradable, but with voiding warranty it is possible. Unfortunately this is not the case with the EX4.

WD MYCLOUD 3 Tb gives me"Files not backed up" when I referenced it after two scheduled backups. Unfortunately I deleted 200 GB of files photos vids drawings docs and data thinking this was actually backing up anything instead it was just referencing my computer hard drive hardware as if it was MYCLOUDS backup drive hardware which it was not. There is nothing on this MYCLOUD hardware except what it did not backup and 31 GB of what it claims to be back up but is actually all thats left of the 232 GBs it never backed up and that 31GB is not on the MYCLOUD iT's NOW whats left of all files on my computer hard drive hardware and this MYCLOUD is stiill not referencing itself as a backup but referencing my computer hard drive hard ware as it's own backup. It can't retrieve files folders ect from MY CLOUD that doesn't exist and is nowhere to be found in this MYCLOUD when tabbing MYCLOUDS retrieve tab it grays out meaning there is nothing to retrieve in the My Cloud backup hardware device. My new question to be ignored like a plague and avoided from MY CLOUD SUPPORT is: SWITCH TO FILE BACKUP- iS THE CURRENT SELECTED DRIVE/PARTITION THEY ARE REFERENCEING IN THEIR SOFTWARE POP-UP REFERING TO MY COMPUTER DRIVE PARTITION OR THE MY CLOUD DRIVE PARTITION( which I didn't know it had it's own drive partition and still don't? Because the last thing I want is this POS to screw up my computer partition like it screwed up 200 GB of files I can't even recoup off my computer partition after MYT CLOUD claiming it was backing up my hard drive when in reality it was just referencing my computer files on my computer hardware and there is nothing really on their hardware but their own 31GB of software if you can get it to work at all. And is only directly accessing my hard drive. I don't need this as another way to reference my hard drive i can do that myself without an additional device in between claiming it does everything it doesn't with crap software that doesn't work twice in a row.