A quick introduction to the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra

The Western Digital (WD) My Cloud EX2 Ultra is a high-performance, pre-configured, 2-bay Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. Here's a quick introduction.

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Introduction to the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra

When looking for a NAS device (esp. in South Africa), there are a couple of features one must consider before spending large amounts of cash.

Western Digital is a well-known hard drive brand, and the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra has plenty of online support and coverage. It is also actually commercially available in South Africa or can be imported from Amazon.com.

WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra comes with an integrated Marvell ARMADA 1.3 GHz dual-core A9 processor, 1 GB RAM and runs My Cloud OS 3, making it perfect for an ultra-fast data transfer experience.

Before buying this device, here are the other important features one might want to know about.

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The unit of the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra

The unit of the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra comes standard in gunmetal black. This was also the case with Western Digital’s previous My Cloud versions.

The shell and box of the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra.

The unit measures 10 x 16 x 17 cm (LxWxH) and includes the hardware, hard drives and a (silent) fan on the inside. The front has three blue LEDs (power, disk 1 and disk 2) to indicate function.

Storage capacity of the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra

The WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra comes in a variety of storage sizes. If you have some spare hard drives lying around, the 0TB version would be perfect.

To make use of its ultra-high performance abilities, 4 TB, 8 TB, 12 TB, 16 TB and 20 TB versions are also available.

WD Red hard drives are built for NAS storage systems. They are both reliable and high-performing drives.

Its two Western Digital Red hard drives are specifically built for NAS systems to provide improved and reliable performance within 24×7 environments.

On the back

On the back, the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra have cooling vents, a reset button, two USB 3.0 expansion ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a cable lock port and a power port.

Cooling vents, a reset button, duel USB 3.0 expansion ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a cable lock port and the power port on the back of the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra.

Reset button

The reset button has two modes: a 4-second reset and a 40-second reset. The button itself is hidden above the USB ports and can only be pressed by using a small sharp object (such as a paperclip). Resetting is done to restore the device to a degree of its factory default settings, and not only to reboot the device.

USB ports

The storage capacity of the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra can be expanded by adding one or two compatible USB 3.0 hard drives. USB 3.0 can transmit data at speeds of up to 5 GB/s or 640 Mbps.

The added hard drives will be mounted as Shares and will be available to the rest of the network as separate locations (i.e. won’t be striped according to a RAID configuration with the rest of the drives).

Cable lock port

A cable lock port is available to enable the unit to be secured using a standard laptop locking device.

Ethernet connector

The WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra has a Gigabit Ethernet portable to run at a maximum speed of 1000 Mbps. The packaging includes a CAT5 Ethernet cable able to transfer data at this speed.

Unfortunately, the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra does not support Wi-Fi.

Power input port

The back of the unit also has a 2.5 mm male power socket. A 12 V DC / 3 A (36 Watt) power supply with an adjustable wall socket connector was distributed with my 12 TB unit.

Some sources report that 16 TB and above will need power that matches 48 Watts.

Installing the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra

Setting up the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra is as simple as connecting the power and the Ethernet to a local network. After connecting, the settings are accessed from any device on the network using a web browser.

Installation and configuration are done through a networked device and a web browser.

The steps are supplied in the simple installation guide included in the box. The initial setup is done through a step-by-step Wizard interface. All the settings, including creating the admin account, additional users, groups, Shares (shared folders), backups, Cloud access, IP settings, etc. are easy to set up via this interface.

Conclusion

Here we quickly introduced the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra. It is perfect for home or small office use.

Exciting features include plenty of storage space coming at an affordable price, a small and sleek look, ease of use, and simple connectivity over a local network. The WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra is well worth it when looking for smaller mass storage devices.