Reviews

Western Digital My Cloud Business DL4100 (4TB) review: Long in the tooth

A well-built business NAS, but the DL4100 is showing its age and looks slow beside modern rivals

21 Jun 2020

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Price

£467 exc VAT

Good connectivity
Strong range of apps

Disappointing performance

Part of Western Digital’s My Cloud Business NAS lineup, the DL4100 is getting long in the tooth, but that doesn’t mean it’s ready for retirement. You can buy it as a barebones, driveless enclosure or in 8TB and 12TB filled prepopulated versions, with our unit shipping with a pair of WD Red 4TB drives and the other two bays left free. Drives are fitted in well-engineered slide-out caddies, making it easy to remove any problem drives and fit new ones.

There’s nothing too exciting about the DL4100’s design, but it’s sturdy and well-executed – not to mention the only NAS on test with a two-line LED display, which is always useful for quick alerts and messages. Connectivity is strong, though, with two USB 3 ports split front and rear, plus a USB 2 port at the back. With dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, you’re covered for link aggregation or a connectivity failure, and WD gives you two power supply inputs, so that it’ll keep running with a spare PSU should the main one die. Just watch out for the noise levels; it starts off making a racket and makes quite the hum even when that dies down.

The DL4100’s biggest strength is its software. Rather than go for a desktop-style interface, WD has opted for a control panel interface where different elements handle different functions, with a bar at the top providing shortcuts to the homepage, users, shared folders, apps, cloud sync, backup, storage and soon. It also has better app support than the similar TeraStation 3220, including DLNA Media Server features, a WordPress server, home automation and more. And while it’s not quite as versatile as Synology’s software, WD’s My Cloud file sync features and Windows app do a great impression of a Dropbox-style cloud storage service, only running locally within your network, under your control.

This is a solid, business-focused NAS, but it has one weakness that really holds it back. As it’s based on an older Intel architecture and a dual-core Atom processor, it struggles to compete with the faster, Celeron-based NASes, trailing behind them on both backup tasks and sequential file transfer tests. It’s close, but we’d say the Buffalo is the better business NAS, while Asus and Synology win when it comes to the home.

Western Digital My Cloud Business DL4100 (4TB) specifications

Model number	WDBBAZ0040JBK-EESN
Price (inc VAT)	£467 (£560)
Warranty	2yr RTB (driveless), 3yr RTB (populated)
Dimensions (WDH)	170 x 232 x 192mm
Noise level	Not stated
CPU	Intel Atom C2338
CPU cores	Dual core
CPU speed, cores	1.7GHz
RAM/maximum RAM	2GB/6GB
Bays (free)	4 (2)
Drive type	3.5in SATA 6Gb/sec hard disk
Max internal capacity	24TB
RAID modes	JBOD, 0, 1, 5, 6, 10
Bay type	Slide-in caddy
Hot swap?	Yes
2.5in drives supported	No
SSD support	No
Status display	5 x status LEDs, 2-line backlit LCD
Gigabit Ethernet ports	2
10GB Ethernet ports	No
USB ports (rear)	USB 3, USB 2
USB ports (front)	USB 3
Other	Additional PSU socket
802.3ad link aggregation	Yes
Load balancing	Yes
Network failover	Yes
Major network protocols	SMB, AFP, FTP, NFS
iSCSI target	Yes
USB expansion options	Yes
NAS OS/firmware	Not stated
Main desktop software	WD SmartWare Pro, WD Sync, MyCloud mobile apps
Remote access	GoodSync
Cloud integration	Dropbox, Elephant Drive
Backup	Acronis TrueImage
Media	Plex, Squeeze Centre, IceCast
Surveillance	No
Testing and Development	PHP
Other major services	Joomla, Transmission, WordPress, aMule