Western Digital My Cloud DL4100 review

Management and apps

The web console provides a tidy dashboard showing appliance status, storage usage and a count on the number of users, remote connections and installed apps. Shares are easily created and it's simple to decide which users can access them.

WD offers a few extra apps although their number pales into insignificance when compared with Synology and Qnap. For cloud backup, you have support for ElephantDrive and Amazon S3 where we found the latter only took a minute to link up with our account.

An app for Dropbox is provided which we found easy to use but it only supports syncing with one account. Another app links up with Acronis True Image 2015 for image base backups but you'll need to buy the software - WD is doing a deal for My Cloud users with a 3 workstation license costing 50.

The DL4100 can also run scheduled backups to remote My Cloud appliances but a lack of Rsync support means you can't run them to other vendor's NAS appliances. Data can be copied from one location to another on the appliance and if you connect a camera, it'll recognise it and copy down your prized pictures as well.

Conclusion

The My Cloud DL4100 can't match Qnap and Synology for features and backup performance isn't the best either. That said, the 24TB model on review does represent excellent value and its lives up to its name as it's one of the easiest to configure for cloud access.

Verdict

Not the fastest or best featured NAS appliance but it’s cheap and cloud access is a cinch to configure

Chassis: Desktop

CPU: 1.7GHz Intel Atom C2338

Memory: 2GB DDR3L (max 6GB)

Storage: 4 x 6TB WD Red NAS hard disks

Array support: RAID0, 1, 5, 10, hot-spare, JBODs

Network: 2 x Gigabit

Other ports: USB 2, 2 x USB 3

Power: External 150W PSU (2nd optional)

Management: Web browser

Warranty: 3-year limited for prepopulated appliances (2 years for diskless)