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so right after our data loss incident a
few weeks back where the raid 0 array
failed on us
due to an intentional power outage it
was time to look for proper backup
solutions because storing everything
that isn't backed up and having no
proper archiving system for our videos
at the time was very very disappointing
so we looked into network attached
storage devices and we decided to check
out the Western Digital my cloud mirror
the mirror in the name is the key word
here where it clones everything from one
drive to the other so you have
redundancy features in case one drives
fails you still have all the data on the
other drive and I think it suits my home
environment pretty well despite Western
Digital offering more business and
enterprise solutions me having zero
experience with any network attached
storage in the past and having zero
experience with sort of proper backup
solutions I thought this was a fitting
place to start so the my cloud near
ranges in price depending on capacity
available in 2 4 & 8 terabytes the main
housing is very sleek with a curved
front panel that displays the three main
LEDs one for power in the other two for
corresponding to each drive inside the
unit the top is ventilated and also
grants you access to the actual drives
which are Western Digital red so the
other side too you know specifically for
NASA situations and by default they are
come pre-configured with the raid 1
array so everything from onedrive is
cloned to the other so you have two
identical copies in case one of these
drives fails turning a total of 8
terabytes into usable for because
everything from onedrive is gone to the
other therefore you only have 4
terabytes sort of to work with the
storage the raid array can also be
reconfigured into separate logical
volumes giving you two separate 4
terabyte drives
spanning configuration giving you one
large a terabyte drive but they're all
together right 0 or the default raid 1
and given me 1 redundancy with our
backup
archive we are sticking with rent one
the rear i/o consists of a power in a
king's interlock Gigabit Ethernet this
important dual USB three and a needle
reset switch and so the my cloud mere
tries to be a simple plug-and-play
solution but it doesn't fully achieve
that because it's a little bit more
complicated than that and for casual
consumers who are not exactly into
networking or not super tech savvy this
could cause a lot of confusion the first
thing you have to do is create a my
cloud account which will be synced to
your my cloud mirror it's a very simple
procedure but then it comes on to the
software side of things that you have to
download and sort of play around with
that isn't super intuitive definitely
needs polish so let's talk about that
now the three software's
are WD sync WD access and W smart where
as software there is very powerful but
still needs to be simplified for you
know casual consumers let's start with W
sync first this is meant to be your bare
bones of back up dragging folders or
files that you want to backup select the
desired destination on the nas or create
a new folder and you're good to go
now the sync will kick in automatically
but not immediately which was a bit
confusing in the beginning making me
think that I was doing something wrong
but eventually those files that I backed
up I've appeared on the nas and I was
able to access them with no problem
however I would love to see a better
visual indication on the progress of
that backup and letting you know let's
see how long is left until those files
are actually backed up and maybe have a
little button that says stop and stop or
pause or something like that so that you
can actually have full control of when
that transfer is being made next is WD
access which ironically is super
difficult to actually access so it
doesn't have its own shortcut for the
interface instead it's in the icons
beside the clock after which you can
either upload files immediately to the
my cloud near enter the online dashboard
or create shortcuts to the folders on
your Nass the most important function
here is map in my opinion so if you
access files often as often
mapping your access is the most
mediant way to enter the array and the
last piece of the software puzzle if you
want to schedule backups and have a
better visual representation on the
back-up progress and seeing where which
files are moving where is a WD smart
where you have three activations so it's
awesome if you have multiple users
accessing the same Nazz it's still not
as intuitive as you'd want but it is
much more powerful than the other
softwares as long as you know how to
navigate it so the UI initially is a bit
confusing but once you learn it it's
pretty self-explanatory so you first
need to select your backup source any of
your disks that are on your computer
then the backup target this is very
useful if multiple Nass solutions are
connected and you can also upload
directly to the Dropbox or if any of USB
devices are connected to an ass all will
be visible here so once that's done we
move on to the backup tab which is by
default presents with a stupid category
backup which to me is almost
counterintuitive because it will sort
your files into giant mess of movies
music other pictures mail and documents
but don't be afraid you can switch the
file backup which it makes you know ton
more sense for anybody so where you can
tick off folders and actual files that
you'd like to move to the NAS and here
you can also set a backup frequency
which is awesome
either continuous or scheduled and that
is very much appreciated and once you
enable the backup the program will
continuously monitor anything new added
to those backup folders so you don't
have to worry now what about multiple
users accessing or backing up to the NAS
that is all possible you can enable FTP
if you prefer that type of protocol for
sharing information which by default is
disabled you can add multiple users with
share access control so for example if I
had an uber so he can access the backup
archive remotely from his home and we
can share information he can upload to
it and I even can enable capacity quotas
so if he's uploading something to them
as he doesn't fully just take over all
the capacity and that's awesome you can
also access your entire backup archive
through your smartphone thanks to the my
cloud
app it works well hasn't crashed on me
yet I can access all the files that I
have on there and you can also do the
same thing from a remote computer as
long as you have the access so if you
want to share video files if you want to
have it as your htpc on the remote side
of things you can definitely do that you
can also enable the automatic video and
photo back up from your phone directly
onto the my cloud which is awesome if
you don't have the unlimited Google
photos or if you have very tiny
unsatisfying 16 gigabyte iPhone and the
last thing I want to mention is
usability on my level where I've
scheduled backups now on a daily basis
which are pretty happy with but that
initial setup man I highly dislike the
fact that we have all three software's
that you have to kind of work with to
figure out which suits your backup
workflow best I don't like that I would
I wish there was just one suite that was
intuitive simple to use although I
appreciate the under the hood
functionality all the sort of extra
advanced features with user
configuration group creation and sort of
you know in the end of the day reliable
backup to a raid 1 array so this being
my first time actually dealing with an
NES I try to look up other user reviews
and consumer reviews on the my cloud
mirror and there are two main issues
that sort of clouds this product one is
related to speed so actually
transferring and reading and writing to
the NAS and to non static IP so let me
address the first one now so the speed
of the NASS in my experience is right
where it should be depending on the
ethernet switch with a 100 megabits per
second port the transfer speed is 10
megabytes per second while plugging it
into a gigabit port on your router
grants you you know proper speeds close
to 100 megabytes per second transfer
speeds which are fine for archiving and
backing up stuff but you know it's not
very good to actually using the NASS for
any sort of high end processing and now
on to the non static IP is by default we
have a dynamic host configuration
protocol
so the IP address of the my cloud mirror
changes upon reboot or if your network
changes so this means you cannot access
the dashboard through the previously
used IP address through your browser and
this is where the WD access comes in
handy by navigating into settings to
open the new login for the dashboard and
so in the end of the day the Western
Digital my cloud mirror is a reliable
backup solution one that needs to have
its setup and the UI interface changed
to accommodate for less techie consumers
but all without ditching all those
advanced features that makes this device
extra valuable I'm happy now that we
have finally and proper archived backup
for all of our videos that any of the
member on our team can access but my
only concern now is we are actually
running out of space the four terabytes
has quickly filled up by almost three
terabytes from just the videos that I've
reproduced in the last six months alone
so yeah and so that concludes this
review I hope you guys enjoyed it my
first look at a network related
component let me know how I did with the
comment below if you have any advice or
suggestions for future network component
Hardware reviews leave them in the
comments down below if you have any
feedback on how we can reconfigure the
NASS to make it move better let us know
as well so well that would be it I'm
Dimitri with Haier Canucks thanks so
much for watching and we'll see you in
next video
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