WD My Cloud Home: Affordable Personal Cloud for your Home Environment

I love having my data backed up on the cloud! After all, who in their right mind would want to carry all those storage devices, chargers, cables and manage those data recovery headaches when it crashes. Cloud storage is the future and the way to go! It is so easy, but I hate the time, effort and cost it takes to retrieve my data from the cloud, especially in a developing country such as ours where connectivity speeds and especially upload speeds are ridiculously slow. I prefer cloud storage at my home and home office where I have fast fibre optic internet, but I tear my hair apart when I am traveling and out of my home office environment. And that is why I like the Western Digital My Cloud Home storage device as in this point in time, it allows me to get the best of both worlds, which is a private cloud environment and faster access speeds. And till the time when we have truly fast internet all across our country, such private cloud storage devices are the way to go.

I first heard about the Western Digital My Cloud Home device late last year when it was launched in the US, but I got a much deeper insight and personal look at it when I attended their launch event in India this January. I have been using and testing the WD My Cloud Home storage device ever since. This is why I think this device is amazing!

BEST SELLING POINTS

Your own private cloud

One of the best selling points of the WD My Cloud Home is that it offers the best of two worlds – cloud storage and personal physical ownership. You get cloud storage as you know that is the way to go, but you need not be worried about having your sensitive data stored on a public cloud (Google Drive, iCloud, Amazon, etc.). And you can also use it like a regular physical storage device, which means that all your content can be retrieved immediately from your various devices (phone, tablet, laptop, television, etc.). Think what kind of a nightmare it would have been if we were playing a movie from our regular cloud storage on the television. This My Cloud Home makes entertainment streaming a dream come true.

Very affordable



There is only a one-time cost for device acquisition and no additional monthly subscription fees. And for this you get heavy duty storage,  a private cloud and many more awesome benefits. The My Cloud Home comes in many storage options from 2 TB to 8 TB and the listed price is between INR 12,000 to 25,000. You might even get it for a much cheaper price during a retail or online sale. At first look, this price might look high, but once you realize how many different storage devices and cloud storage subscription accounts you avoid, you will make sure that you get your hands on it. To understand the cost dynamics better, read the benefit mentioned below.

One device for your home’s digital storage

Say, you are a family of four members. In today’s era, each one of us owns at least one physical storage device and one cloud storage account. And I am being very conservative at that. Now, that means, we have at least 4 physical storage devices and 4 cloud storage devices per family. Not only does it mean possible redundant content, too many devices means too many cables, chargers, charging points and most of all, a higher acquisition cost and more cluttered storage. Wouldn’t it be ideal, if our digital storage mirrored our physical storage, say for example like our bookshelf or library?

The Western Digital My Cloud Home is a step in that direction. It not only aims to be that one library for all your home’s digital storage needs, but it also provides individual private spaces for each user that is akin to a compartment in your library with your own lock and key.



My ‘WD My Cloud Home’ sits in the middle of my home, connected to my home Wi-Fi and my TV via the Ethernet cable. The TV connection ensures that my entertainment storage is easily accessible to any one watching the television at home. And to access the storage, all the people living in the house can access their data using their mobile, tablet or laptop using the My Cloud Home app and/or website and your WiFi connection. So, what it means is that all the home’s digital storage is in one place and all the people who are connected to the home WiFi and who have the required access rights can use this storage device like their own mini personal cloud storage device. It is as simple as that.

OTHER HELPFUL FEATURES

Super easy setup

All you need to do is connect your My Cloud Home device to your Wi-Fi router, use your mobile device to visit MyCloud.com/hello to setup up your account and that’s it! You can now start backing up your data to the My Cloud home device and start accessing and sharing it. It is as simple as that.

On the go access



Whether you are sitting in your home patio, in your garden or on your terrace, at your friend’s place, in your office, traveling to a different city or simply anywhere outside of your home environment, you can easily access your important files, favorite memories and stream videos from your My Cloud Home device using the My Cloud Home mobile app, desktop app or MyCloud.com account. The video streaming is quite smooth, though it is advised to have good 3G or 4G speeds on your phone.

Auto backup

I use Google Pixel 2 XL as my phone that allows me unlimited storage on Google photos, so I am usually not worried about running out of space, but if you are an iPhone user or any other phone user, you are bound to run out of storage space sooner or later, unless you have opted for paid cloud storage. And that is where the My Cloud Home’s auto backup feature comes in handy as it allows you to automatically backup photos and videos from your phone to the device. All you have to do is configure the settings once and enjoy auto backup throughout. And like most auto backup options, you can choose backup only on WiFi or backup on any kind of data connections.



The auto backup feature is not limited to mobile devices, but it also applies to your Windows PCs and Mac computers at home. Using the desktop app or interface, you can choose to backup entire hard drive partitions or specific folders. It also works seamlessly with Windows Backup and Time Machine software.

USB port to import photos and videos from external devices

A simple, but amazing feature of the My Cloud Home device is its fast USB 3.0 port that allows you to directly import content (photos, videos, files) from your existing pen drives, flash drives and old hard disks, thus making it your main digital storage device. There is no need to connect via a laptop and a simple plug and play will suffice. And you can monitor and work on the content using the mobile app.

File search to find content easily

The My Cloud Home mobile or desktop app or your My Cloud.com account allows you to quickly find photos, videos, movies and documents using its simple search interface. Like the file explorer on Windows, you can filter the files by date, size, folder structure, etc.

Good customizability and integration with third party applications

These days, we create so much content and end up storing it on different cloud platforms, ranging from Facebook, Google Drive, Dropbox to many more. The My Cloud Home device allows you to automatically download all your photos, videos and files from these accounts at the click of a button. Further, you can use various integrated services for a more wholesome and rich experience. This is one area where improvements keep taking place, so do ensure that you keep you app updated at all times.

Quick and easy sharing

Even though the My Cloud Home is your heavyweight storage device, it essentially functions like any other regular app. This means that with just a few clicks, you can share photos, videos and documents with your family and friends so that nobody misses a thing and the best thing is that you save a ton of money on data transfer. I am not saying that this will take over WhatsApp or other popular chat services, but it is a nice option to share private content that you do not wish to store on public servers.

MY VERDICT

I hope by now, you have realized why I am so gung-ho about the WD My Cloud Home storage device. It is affordable, it gives me my own private cloud, it looks sleek, it avoids wires, it avoids cluttered storage and it allows me to tide over the fact that we are still not truly ready for a full time cloud solution. And it gives me tons and tons of digital space that our lives seem to need more and more these days. I will keep moving towards 100% cloud storage, but until then, the WD My Cloud Home will be my preferred storage solution.

An important thing to remember

Power cuts are quite common in India and if you lose electricity at your home environment, both your WiFi and your My Cloud Home storage device are bound to switch off, which means that you will lose all remote access to it. To avoid this and to ensure 24x7 connectivity, have a UPS or power backup at home at least for your wireless router and for your My Cloud Home cloud storage device.

For more data redundancy…

For those looking for an extra layer of redundancy and backup, there is the My Cloud Home Duo, that uses mirror functionality to save your data twice on two different hard drives.

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My Travel Storage Partner: SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick

We are living in the era of selfies, Facebook live, real time sharing of photos and videos on instagram, snapchat, WhatsApp, twitter and facebook, YouTube videos and so much online and offline consumption of content. We seem to be creating, consuming and sharing content at a scary pace.  But, unfortunately our mobile devices (phones, tablets, phablets, etc.) haven’t quite kept up with this increasing need for extra space. Whether our device comes in 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB or 128 GB, we still end up deleting data from time to time. Additionally, there is that huge cost impact to procure mobile devices with extra storage space and there is the issue with responsiveness once the device is loaded with data. There are cloud storage solutions like Google Drive, Apple iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. that come to the rescue, but they need good stable internet connectivity to be easily accessible. Plus, data access further bores a hole in your wallet. So, the question here is how do we address this growing need for storage without spending too much money, sacrificing responsiveness or depending on always staying connected to the cloud. With this food for thought, I scoured the web for solutions and that is when I came across the SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick. From the time I started using this device, I have been hooked to it. This article is my personal review of using this wireless storage device on my travels and why I am in love with it.



As a frequent traveler, travel blogger and photographer, I definitely am one who guzzles data. I capture tonnes of memories of my travels through my DSLR and phone and these videos and photos consume storage at an alarming rate. Then, there is real time sharing ,working on the move and personal entertainment. In simple words, I have huge storage needs. These days, my travel storage partner is a 200 GB SanDisk connect wireless stick that looks like a USB stick, but it packs quite a punch. Here are some scenarios from my travels where I have found it to be extremely handy.

Helpful Travel Scenarios

1) Storing Travel Memories is always ON 

Earlier, I used to worry about clicking too many photos or capturing long travel videos. After using the SanDisk Wireless Connect, that worry has disappeared and I now save all my travel memories. Editing them is a different issue, but at least I have all the raw data. If I capture these memories on the phone, I wirelessly transfer it to the SanDisk wireless stick and if I use my DSLR, I transfer it to my stick via the USB drive.

2) Lots of Entertainment for Long Layovers



Travel means delays, layovers and different kind of journeys where you need to consume a lot of content to kill time. Personally, I prefer watching series of TV shows and the latest movies. And as we all prefer to watch them in Full HD, they do take up a lot of space. But, with the SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick, I can easily access them wirelessly on either my mobile or my tablet. And if I feel like watching it on my laptop, I can use it as a regular USB stick. In case, I am traveling with family or friends, 3 devices can simultaneously access and consume content from the wireless stick. This could be the same movie or different movies. I think this is one of the coolest features of this device. Even when 3 devices simultaneously stream content from the SanDisk wireless stick, there is no buffering at all. However, battery does drain out pretty fast.

3) All my Music Store for long trips and workouts

It doesn’t matter whether it is to kill time, for my workouts, for my city walks, for my wildlife photography or for those late night hostel parties, the traveler in me always needs his music. With 200 GB of space that can be accessed wirelessly and without any hassle, I can listen to my music absolutely anywhere. I could be in the middle of the desert, on a boat cruise or inside a train, my music is never far away from me.

4) Doubles up as a backup Hard Disk

I have 32 GB on my phone, 64 GB on my tablet, 256 GB on my laptop and about 256 GB of memory in CF cards. Even with such space, I always prefer to have with me some additional storage. The SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick provides 200 GB of storage that can be accessed wirelessly and that can easily dove tail into my backup hard disk if I ever need one.

5) Free up Space on my Phone



With the amount of selfies and pictures that we click every day, I am pretty sure all of us run out of in-built phone storage pretty quickly. Thanks to cloud storage, our photos get backed up and we can safely delete photos and create additional space. However, cloud storage is not accessible always. Especially, if you are out on an adventure trip, on a boat cruise or in an area with poor internet connectivity. In such situations where I find myself often, I find a lot of use for my SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick. It works like a backup medium, but in an offline mode. And once we find connectivity, we can either put them up on the cloud or let it remain on the device. After all, 200 Gigabytes is a decent amount of storage to have.

Super Friendly Features

1) Portable and Compact 

The SanDisk Connect Wireless Connect is a super small sized device that weighs only a few grams and can be stored easily in your daypack, fanny pack or even your jeans pocket. It can be easily charged via the USB slot of your laptop or your battery pack. It takes about 1 to 2 hours to charge completely.

2) Idiot-Proof Use 

Once charged, all you have to do is switch on the power button and depending on your device (Android or iOS), you download the app, open it and you are connected via Wi-Fi. The user interface is super simple with a easy to use explorer and you can seamlessly transfer files from the device to up to 3 simultaneous devices. As the wireless stick is compatible with both Android and iOS, these 3 devices could be a combination of both Android or iOS.

3) Decent Wireless Range

I kept the wireless stick about 100 feet from my mobile and it still transferred files wirelessly without sacrificing speeds.

4) Secure Wi-Fi Feature

By default, the SanDisk connect device comes with an open connection, but in case you are worried about safety, the device allows you to encrypt your connection with a password that only you and your family/friends know. This is a great feature to secure the personal information stored on your phone or tablet.

Potential Improvements

1) Needs Charge Every Night

The battery is one area where I feel improvements can be made. Right now, it provides 4 hours and 30 minutes of continuous video streaming and about 8 to 10 hours of regular use. During my travels, I found that I had to transfer the wireless stick every night if I planned to use it all day long either for backup or for streaming. Luckily for me, I always plug it into my laptop when I am working and it ends up charging fully. As I usually carry a battery pack with me, I am also ready for any contingencies.

2) Battery drops rapidly with multiple devices

3 Simultaneous devices being able to access the data on the wireless stick is a cool feature to have, but I noticed that when I did this, battery did drain out fairly rapidly. Again, not a deal breaker, but it would have been nicer to have more battery backup for such a cool feature.

Verdict

I am absolutely in love with my SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick. With more and more phones and tablets doing away with external storage options, such a wireless storage option makes the life of a traveler super convenient. Easy to back up, store or access your files without having to trust the cloud, the SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick is my perfect travel storage partner. Have you tried it as yet?

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