Western Digital WD My Cloud Personal Storage Device Available

With New My Cloud Consumers Can Easily Save, Access and Share all of their Photos, Videos and Files from Any Device, Anytime – without Sacrificing Privacy

WD^®, a Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) company and a world leader in storage solutions for the connected life, today introduced its new My Cloud™ family of personal cloud solutions. WD’s My Cloud is a complete solution for users to organize, centralize and secure the digital content from all of their computers and mobile devices and access those files from any device, from anywhere in the world. By simply connecting a My Cloud personal cloud drive to the Internet, consumers get the anywhere, any-device access they can get from the public cloud, without having to pay monthly fees or giving up control of their personal data.

“We believe that there’s no place like home for the cloud,” said Jim Welsh, executive vice president and general manager of WD’s branded products and consumer electronics groups. “Everyone is inundated with thousands of digital files scattered across multiple computers and mobile devices, and controlling that chaos is a challenge. WD’s personal cloud is the easiest, most secure and most affordable way for customers to control that chaos, with access to all of their files anywhere, anytime.”

Research firm Gartner estimates that the average household will own approximately 3.3 terabytes (TB) of digital content by 2016[1]. In line with this growth of digital content is the explosive growth of Internet-connected devices, with the current U.S. household owning 5.7 connected devices, according to The NPD Group[2]. The convergence of rapid content and device growth requires a new storage paradigm that gives consumers complete control over their digital lives. Personal cloud storage is the new standard, allowing users to keep media and files safe at home on their own physical drive and then access them over the Internet with any PC or Mac® computer or on tablets and smartphones through mobile apps. Using the My Cloud drive, users can share files, stream media and access content anywhere with no monthly fees and feel secure in the knowledge that their cloud resides in their own home under their exclusive control.

“Families are connecting, sharing, syncing, and backing-up numerous mobile devices and computers in their household, with the amount of digital data being created on these devices growing dramatically,” said Liz Conner, Senior Research Analyst, Storage Systems, IDC. “Personal cloud is an ideal solution to simplify the complex issue of organizing digital files across various devices so that users can enjoy their digital videos, photos and music on all of their devices.”

Streamlined Setup and Backup

Customers can get their personal cloud up and running in minutes with WD’s rich web-based user interface for seamless web-guided setup. WD’s software auto-detects the drive to make setup simple for novice users. Once the My Cloud drive is setup, customers can easily connect their computers and mobile devices with WD’s free desktop and mobile apps. With a Gigabit Ethernet connection and Dual-Core processor, transferring files is blazing fast, allowing customers to quickly centralize all of the digital content scattered across various devices onto My Cloud. With direct file uploads from mobile devices, important files and videos can be safely moved to My Cloud, freeing up valuable space on users’ tablets and smartphones.

Customers can also use their My Cloud to back up their computers and digital files. For PC users, WD SmartWare™ Pro software offers options for how, when and where to back up files. Mac users can utilize all the features of Apple® Time Machine® backup software to protect their data.

Complete Control

My Cloud users can store and organize their families’ photos, videos, music and important documents in one secure place on the home network. With the new My Cloud desktop app, navigating, controlling and sharing these files from anywhere in the world is simple and intuitive. My Cloud is available in 2 TB, 3 TB, and 4 TB capacities, providing bountiful storage capacity with no monthly payment required. Customers can also attach a compatible USB 3.0 hard drive directly to the USB expansion port on the My Cloud drive and instantly expand their storage capacity.

Additionally, My Cloud serves as a home’s digital entertainment hub, storing terabytes of movies and music that can then be streamed to any DLNA™-certified multimedia device such as a WD TV® Live™ media player, as well as smart TVs and gaming consoles.

Accessing the Personal Cloud

Available for iOS® and Android™ devices, the new WD My Cloud mobile app allows users to view photos, stream video and access their files from anywhere on their smartphones or tablets. The mobile app also makes file sharing and collaborating simple and secure, allowing customers to easily email files, share files as a link, and print and open files with third party apps.

Additionally, the My Cloud mobile app integrates major public cloud services so that customers can easily transfer files between their Dropbox™, SkyDrive® and Google Drive™ public cloud accounts[3].

Price and Availability

The 2 TB and 3 TB My Cloud is currently available at select U.S. retailers and online at the wdstore.com. The 4 TB My Cloud is expected to be available in November. MSRP is $149.99 USD for 2 TB, $179.99 USD for 3 TB and $249.99 USD for 4 TB. The My Cloud mobile app currently is available for download from the App Store^SM and Google Play^TM. A two drive and four drive My Cloud configuration will be available in the future.

Capacity and Compatibility

My Cloud personal cloud storage is available in capacities of 2 TB, 3 TB and 4 TB is compatible with Windows® 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista®, Windows XP, OS X Mountain Lion™, Lion®, Snow Leopard®, as well as DLNA®/UPnP® enabled devices.

• [1] Source: Gartner, “Forecast: Consumer Digital Storage Needs, 2010-2016”
• [2] Source: The NPD Group, “Internet Connected Devices Surpass Half a Billion in U.S. Homes, According to The NPD Group”
• [3] Dropbox, SkyDrive or Google Drive account required. Cloud services may be changed, terminated or interrupted at any time and may vary by country.

About WD

WD, a Western Digital company, is a long-time innovator and storage industry leader. As a storage technology pacesetter, the company produces reliable, high-performance hard disk drives and solid state drives. These drives are deployed by OEMs and integrators in desktop and mobile computers, enterprise computing systems, embedded systems and consumer electronics applications, as well as by the company in providing its own storage products. WD’s leading storage devices and systems, networking products, media players and software solutions empower people around the world to easily save, store, protect, share and experience their content on multiple devices. WD was established in 1970 and is headquartered in Irvine, Calif. For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.wd.com.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC), Irvine, Calif., is a global provider of products and services that empower people to create, manage, experience and preserve digital content. Its companies design and manufacture storage devices, networking equipment and home entertainment products under the WD, HGST and G-Technology brands. Visit the Investor section of the company’s website (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.

Media Questions for My Cloud

 

• How are the drives cooled? Any internal fans?
  • There is no internal fan. Our hardware is specifically optimized to run with optimal airflow through the system, and users enjoy using My Cloud without the noise that typically produced by a cooling fan.
• What is the name of the Operating System used on My Cloud?
  • Linux
• Can multiple My Cloud devices be paired together?
  • My Cloud cannot be physically linked to another My Cloud drive. Users can back-up the contents of one My Cloud to another My Cloud in the local network as our software will recognize multiple My Clouds. With the USB 3.0 port located on the back of My Cloud, users can physically connect other external hard drives to expand their My Cloud storage capacity or make the contents of a standard direct attached hard drive available in the My Cloud mobile and desktop apps.
• Will WD offer any Bit Torrent application for My Cloud?
  • Not at this time
• Please compare/contrast My Cloud to Wd2Go and My Book Live.
  • We have completely re-imagined the personal cloud experience by making the product much easier to setup and use, which will allow a larger audience of consumers to enjoy the benefits of a personal cloud.
  • The free My Cloud desktop app is new, providing a universal navigation experience across all computers, Mac or PC. Users can simply drag-and-drop their files to easily transfer and add content to their My Cloud. Also, with the new desktop app, users can open and edit documents directly from My Cloud and those edits will be synced for any other device or user accessing that particular file.
  • We have completely redesigned the architecture of the base operating system and cloud service. The new architecture allows more dynamic response to queries from our mobile apps, including delivering thumbnails for photos and music artwork. Our mobile apps are smarter about delivering that content. For example, on the new WD Photos app, if you dump 30,000 files onto the My Cloud, it will now tell you that it is processing files. Our My Cloud app will also display this content (including thumbnails).
  • In terms of speed and performance, we incorporated a Dual Core Cortex A9 processor on the My Cloud. Users should see significant performance gains as compared to the My Book Live product.
  • We added a USB 3.0 port on the My Cloud. This allows users to expand the capacity of the product and also ‘cloud-enable’ any external hard drive attached to My Cloud.
  • We have significantly enhanced the configuration dashboard. This provides real-time information on what the My Cloud drive is doing and provides quick links to common tasks (for example adding users, shares and cloud devices).
  • We are including Twonky 7 DLNA server with this product (vs. Twonky 5 that shipped with the My Book Live).
  • WD Smartware Pro backup software now ships with the My Cloud. The software simplifies backup for PC users by allowing them to set regular intervals of backup. WD SmartWare Pro also allows users to backup to their Dropbox account. For Mac users, My Cloud works seamlessly with the Time Machine backup system.
• How is this different from a consumer NAS device?
  • WD has made significant improvements from our own initial NAS products as well as competitive products, with an emphasis on making the new product much more accessible to a less technical audience, while still maintaining more technical features for advanced users. The product is the best way to centralize all of your digital content typically stored on various computers, public cloud services, tablets and phones, so that your photos, videos, music and other files are then accessible across all devices at any time.
• So, all of the apps (mobile and desktop) work from across the cloud?
  • Yes
  • Does your app provide for synchronizing with other volumes in my system?

For example, if I want to make my E: internal drive my main storage drive, does your app allow for automatic synchronizing of E: to the external My Cloud drive?

• Not at this time. We continuously work to improve the consumer experience and a syncing feature will be introduced.
• What about upload speeds?
  • This is completely dependent upon your uplink speed from your home network to the cloud.
• Most public cloud storage services seem able to only upload about 10GB per day or so. What about yours?
  • There is no limit on how much content you can upload to My Cloud on a per day basis. All of your content is stored locally on your My Cloud in the home and that drive is now your personal cloud so that you can access it anywhere with our My Cloud mobile or desktop apps.