Product Comparison: WD My Cloud Ex2 Ultra vs WD My Cloud EX4

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WD My Cloud Ex2 Ultra Network Attached Storage

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WD My Cloud EX4 12 TB: Pre-configured Network Attached Storage featuring WD Red Drives

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General Specifications

Brand

Western Digital

Model

My Cloud Ex2 Ultra (WDBVBZ0040JCH)

My Cloud EX4

Origin

Thailand

About the Product

Keep your media safe in a single place on this high-performance Network Attached Storage (NAS) device, and access and stream it from anywhere with an internet connection.

Dual Ethernet and power supply ports. 512MB memory and 2.0GHz processor deliver reliable, blazing-fast performance for your home or small office.

Key Specs

Hard Drive Capacity

4 TB

12 TB

Number Of Slots

2 -bay

4 -bay

Storage Drive Type

3.5”

Hard Drive Capacity
Number Of Slots

What customers say about "Key Specs"

WD My Cloud Ex2 Ultra Network Attached Storage

This is a good solution for people who want to add network storage drive
Excellent hard drive with my information accessible from anywhere. Easy to set up.
The drive is very quiet and the fan, when it actually runs is quiet for a fan.
Love the ability to upgrade storage, love that it saves my data on two different drives, etc. Upload speeds over wifi seem excellent, given the bad internet speeds in my area.
We ordered this because it was one of the most cost effective high capacity network attached storage devices available.
The backup software they give you for free simply sucks, don't use it. The native windows back up is better (can't believe I just said that), they have a trial of Acronis with it, but you will need to buy the full version if you really want it to work correctly.

WD My Cloud EX4 12 TB: Pre-configured Network Attached Storage featuring WD Red Drives

Data safety (raid with hot swap drives) and up to 12 TB of storage for the price makes this device a must have for the home office and home networks.
You can choose diskless if you want to add your own drives, or do like me and opt for system that is configured with 8, 12, or 16 TB. These are WD Red drives which are optimized for extended run times.
The CPU speed could be faster. For example to reformat all 12 TB took over a day with the CPU running at 100%. It seems like very easily the CPU runs at max.
Operating system could be more complete, and more like a windows system. For example, Acronis True image does not find this device on the network. It may be that this doesn't conform to VMware, but I am not sure about the reason for this.
Lots Of Storage, But Much Slower Than Expected

Size & Weight

Color

Black

Height

6.75 in.

8.21 in.

Width

3.9 in.

6.30 in.

Depth

6.1 in.

8.67 in.

Weight

3.4 lbs.

12.8 lbs.

Features

CPU

Marvell® ARMADA® 385 1.3 GHz dual-core

2.0GHz Processor

RAM

1 GB

0.5 GB

RAID Support

RAID 1, JBOD, non-RAID, RAID 0

RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5, JBOD

Extras

Sync your content across all your computers, Powered by My Cloud OS 3, Designed for smooth streaming, Simplified file and folder sharing, Centralize, organize and beautifully stream with plex, 256 AES volume encryption, Multiple RAID options

FTP server, IPv6 support, Jumbo Frames support, LACP support, Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP), SNMP support, iTunes server

Included Software

Milestone ARCUS™ Surveillance software

What customers say about "Features"

WD My Cloud Ex2 Ultra Network Attached Storage

I original bought the "WD - My Cloud Mirror 4TB Personal Cloud Storage" and to me that should be taken off the shelves and have this one replace it. The other one did not have nearly enough memory/processing power for the features that were supported.
WD does have a sync application that can/will mirror all pc's that you install the sync software on, this software runs 24/7 in the background. It works well but I would still like to have a standard backup solution from the pc over the network to the storage device.
Works well for backup. Fast and easy to install. Remember depending on raid setup, you will only see half the capacity.
The drive seems to work better with a PC but then again I like Windows file explorer over Apple's Finder and I'm an Apple Fanboy.
Many RAID modes available including JBOD (Just a bunch of drives) for the most storage space. On setup everything worked and it was easy to access from most anywhere.
The backup software they give you for free simply sucks, don't use it. The native windows back up is better (can't believe I just said that), they have a trial of Acronis with it, but you will need to buy the full version if you really want it to work correctly.

WD My Cloud EX4 12 TB: Pre-configured Network Attached Storage featuring WD Red Drives

Very simple setup ( the initial setup was completely automated ) and easy RAID setup.
Acts as a NFS, NAS, iSCSI Target, can backup Time-machine, be accessed from internet, set up users with quotas and passwords. Very versatile and has APPS available.
Solid performance, nice interface, reasonable price point
WD just needs to work on their software. With better software this device is a solid five star product and I will be getting my second unit for personal use.
Poor overall transfer rates: MAX of 40MBs, but usually around 18MBs avg on full gigabit backbone. (even internal drive to drive in unit)

Interfaces

LAN Speed

1000 Mbps

Number of LAN

Number of USB

eSATA

HDMI

What customers say about "Interfaces"

WD My Cloud Ex2 Ultra Network Attached Storage

My entire network is mostly wireless and all is well. The only problem I have experienced is that the drive will not stream .mov files to the TV's. I have to use a USB drive either connected to the TV or router,
Product was easy to install and works as advertised. Although it can backup USB drive/memory sticks by plugging them in directly to the device, it can't backup a pc over the network.
This thing is excellent. No lag, works great even with multiple people locally and remotely connected to it and does not overheat.
In my experience, native network connectivity is usually reserved for enterprise grade UPS's and not all that common for a home or small office applications.
I have to use a USB drive either connected to the TV or router, strange. I am quite happy with my purchase as it has made getting all of my files organized in a central location.
The bad: on my Mac and on my wife's new PC the drive won't stay connected or recognized as a net drive after a shutdown/restart.

WD My Cloud EX4 12 TB: Pre-configured Network Attached Storage featuring WD Red Drives

It has plenty of room plus two extra USB ports for more storage.
2 Ethernet ports (gigabit) so you can have redundancy and the option to team the networks for better performance.
This unit have 2 network ports, 2 DC ports for power
The back also features 2 USB3 ports for external backup drives or adding USB based media.
I connected my 3TB seagate NTFS backup drive to the usb3 port in the back and the unit don't mount the drive properly. The event log show incompatible file system! I don't understand!. I will try another drives but this is not good at all.

Warranty / Certifications

Manufacturer Warranty

3 year(s)

2 year(s)

Certifications

CE, FCC, ICC, cUL Listed

Other Information

Manufacturer

Link

Manual

Download

MSRP