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Storage solutions specialist WD, formerly known as Western Digital, expanded its My Cloud family of personal cloud solutions with My Cloud EX4, a high-performance four-bay network attached storage (NAS) solution for creative professionals, workgroups and users looking to store large amounts of data.
With Easy-Slide-Drive technology, the EX4 allows customers to install or hot-swap drives without the need for a screwdriver, toolkit or trays. Additionally, customers can attach compatible USB 3.0 hard drives to the USB expansion ports on the EX4 to expand their storage capacity.
The appliance arms users with multiple options to secure digital data from a potential loss by providing RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 or allowing users to select from spanning and just a bunch of disks (JBOD) modes for more options to manage data. Customers can also use the EX4 to back up all of their computers and devices with WD SmartWare Pro software for PC users. Mac users can utilize all the features of Apple Time Machine backup software to protect their data.
The EX4 can also back up itself, either to another EX4 in a different location, or to cloud services such as Amazon S3 and ElephantDrive. To ensure 24/7 data protection and reliability, the appliance also includes redundant power supplies and Ethernet ports.
The EX4 is currently available at select U.S. retailers and online through WD’s Website, with a suggested retail price of $379.99 for the drive-less My Cloud EX4, $799.99 for 8TB, $949.99 for 12TB and $1,149.99 for 16TB. All appliances come with a two-year limited warranty, the company noted.
Featuring the WD Red line of hard drives designed for home and small office NAS systems, the drives are powered by NASware 2.0 technology, which is designed to improve drive reliability and protect customer data in the event of a power loss or disruption.
Additionally, WD Red hard drives feature 3D Active Balance Plus, an enhanced balance control technology that helps improve overall drive performance and reliability.
Customers can also customize their NAS, monitor system health, manage users and energy saving features with the EX4 dashboard, as well as use a suite of third party apps, including aMule, Icecast, Joomla!, phpBB, phpMyAdmin and SqueezeCenter.
The WD My Cloud mobile app, available for Apple iOS and Google Android devices, allows users to view photos, stream video and share, save and manage files from anywhere on their smartphones or tablets. The My Cloud mobile app currently is available for download from the App Store and Google Play.
The mobile app makes file sharing and collaborating possible, allowing customers to email files, share files as a link, and print and open files with third-party apps.
In addition, the My Cloud mobile app integrates with major public cloud services so that customers can transfer files from their Dropbox, SkyDrive and Google Drive public cloud accounts.
“The reception for our recently introduced My Cloud personal cloud platform was extremely positive,” Jim Welsh, executive vice president and general manager of WD’s branded products and consumer electronics groups, said in a statement. “Our single drive My Cloud system is the perfect solution for users that want an easy and private way to store all of their data at home and then share, save and manage it from anywhere in the world, on any device.”