This lever helps eject the drives when the door is opened, as well as gently guide them into place when the door is being closed. Once the drive is about three-quarters of the way in, it hits a spring-loaded lever that will provide resistance when closing the door. Actuated on springs, the doors open outward and downward, granting easy access to the drive bay. I call these “bays” because unlike many other offerings, WD has decided to forgo drive sleds and simply make the front bay doors just that, doors. The front of the EX4 has four easily accessible drive bays, each with a release handle at their top. Curious how the EX4 would react, I pulled the right most drive out in the middle of a large data set copy – but more on this a little later. By cycling up and down through the available options, the LCD screen can display basic information about the EX4 such as hostname, IP address, drive health, temperature, fan speed and in the case of this editor, rebuild time. Next to that screen are a pair of buttons that allow the user to interface with that screen. The front face of the EX4 has a small LCD screen that can display system and diagnostic information, as well as alerts that the user might need to take note of. Immediately, there are a few things that set the EX4 apart from the NAS pack WD has decided to run with. That being said, that’s really my in-depth limit on four bay NAS boxes, so when WD came to us with the idea of us putting its new EX4 through its paces, we jumped at the opportunity. Once it’s been integrated into the storage pool, I’m back in business. I know, that if I lose a drive, I can easily take the spare drive I have sitting in an anti- static bag to the left of the NAS and replace the failed hardware with it. It has been used strictly for backup purposes for going on two years now, and I have come to trust the additional peace of mind that comes with a RAID 5 setup. I have worked with four bay NAS boxes before and currently run a small Synology unit that uses notebook drives on my personal network. What started as a simple teaser photo of a raised curtain, showing a very faint four bay unit, quickly became an all-out deluge of information on what we would come to know as the My Cloud EX4. While we were testing the My Cloud 2TB, we were given hints of WD’s next product in its My Cloud team. For those looking for a better deal, the 3TB version can be had for around $180… making the $30 jump a no-brainer. The 2TB version that we looked at had an MSRP of only $150, and can be found online at the time of writing around that price. In our review, this editor found the device approachable, not only for those whom aren’t overly technical, but also for those on a budget. Last month, we took a look at the first product in WD’s My Cloud lineup.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |