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I just bought a Cloud WD external HDD

S

sagah

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 7, 2013
73
1
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I bought one of these to replace an old 2tb time capsule. Trying to transfer all my saved data across was driving me crazy as it would either error, slow down, or re boot itself. I spent about 3 days trying to troubleshoot and in the end I took it back and will stick with a time capsule.

It is supposed to be a network attached drive so I am not actually sure if you can plug it directly into a computer via USB.
 
When I was in the market for an external I was eyeing that pretty seriously, but decided against it, at least until I have a workspace of my own, with my own router to plug into. Aside from that, seems like a solid choice.
Ended up with the WD Ultra 2TB. So far it's great, very small and seems fast enough despite only being 5400rpm.
 
If it works like other cloud drives it is not designed to hook directly to your Mac.
It's designed to connect to your router where you access it wirelessly.
The USB port is for adding an additional external drive for more storage or for connecting USB flash drives or cameras for instant file transfer.
 
I see. Then I guess the smart choice would be to buy a non-cloud WD 4TB?
 
sagah said:
How do I set it up so that the HDD works both with Windows and Mac?
Click to expand...

It does sound like you would be better off with the USB version.

If you want to use it for Mac and Windows, you will need to format the drive the correct way. I would set up two partitions. You can do this in Disk Utility. Setup the first partition as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) so you can use it for OS X Time Machine backups.

Then setup the second partition in the ExFAT format. This format is read/write capable in both Mac and Windows so you can use that partition to move files back and forth between your Mac and PC.
 
Its a NAS designed to be on a network which means you'll need to connect it to your router.

For a single computer, a USB based external drive will be a better option.
 
Weaselboy said:
It does sound like you would be better off with the USB version.

If you want to use it for Mac and Windows, you will need to format the drive the correct way. I would set up two partitions. You can do this in Disk Utility. Setup the first partition as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) so you can use it for OS X Time Machine backups.

Then setup the second partition in the ExFAT format. This format is read/write capable in both Mac and Windows so you can use that partition to move files back and forth between your Mac and PC.
Click to expand...

Does that mean if I divide a 4TB by 2 2TB sections, iPhoto couldn't get past 2TB?

----------

If you access it wirelessly, does it work good enough to play bluray movies that are stored in the Cloud HDD?
 
Compress your Blu Ray rips using handbrake, you won't be able to stream raw Blu Ray rips over most ISP connections.

PS get a Synology NAS instead of the WD.
 
Why the Synology NAS?

If I compress it wouldn't the quality be not as good?
 
There is a USB place on the WD.
But no USB cable.

Does that mean I have to buy a separate cable?

Or, is the cable suppose to connect only to other extensions of HDD?
 
sagah said:
There is a USB place on the WD.
But no USB cable.

Does that mean I have to buy a separate cable?

Or, is the cable suppose to connect only to other extensions of HDD?
Click to expand...

I'm sure your drive came with a manual. Have a look at that!
 
Here's my nightmare story about a WD low power drive:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1655890/

My advice would be to test it, because they, and now Seagate seem to be doing some weird things to their backup drives. I would recommend Scannerz or Scannerz Lite for testing it but I'm pretty sure the don't test networked drives - I assume it's because network delays could be presented as system faults of some sort. What you might try is to continually copy a lot of data to the drive for about 20 minutes and see if it freezes. That's what mine did.

The lesson I learned from this is that if I want an external drive that can be versatile, I'll buy the raw HD and put it in a case myself. No more surprising sleep cycles, no power management fiascos, no more "this only works right with our drivers," no more drivers needing update or else they erase the entire drive, etc. etc.
 
"The lesson I learned from this is that if I want an external drive that can be versatile, I'll buy the raw HD and put it in a case myself. "

How do you do that? Is it easy? Cheaper?
 
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