My Cloud

Simon · Oct 31, 2013, 22:27:21

I've got a mental block on this. Can someone explain, in dummy terms, how these actually work?

http://store.westerndigital.com/store/wdeu/en_GB/DisplayAccesoryProductDetailsPage/productID.288053800?psrid=40106550

For example, could I store my music on it, and play all of that music, including playlists, etc, via my iPhone, when I am not at home? If so, how does that work? How would my iPhone connect remotely to the My Cloud device?

Steve · Oct 31, 2013, 22:45:10

The disk is available via your LAN and also via the Internet as your personal 'cloud' drive. At home it probably acts as a DLNA media server and you access your media via an app on your phone there's a few freeware around or WD may provide one. It's a similar situation via the internet probably fairly straightforward via a PC, a mobile device will use an App to gain access through your router to the drive obviously you pay 3G tariff prices.

I can do the same with my router Asus RT N66U whereby an attached HDD can be set up as a Cloud drive

What I failed to achieve is an iTunes Music server it just doesn't seem to play ball hence the reason for using DLNA

Simon · Oct 31, 2013, 22:50:33

Ah, so if I was playing music all day, away from home, it would effectively be streaming that music to my iPhone, and I'd be using 3G data. OK, I think that answers that one then. Thanks, Steve.

Steve · Oct 31, 2013, 23:25:54

Yes it's fine at home and ok if you've got enough bandwidth on a WiFi hotspot

Simon · Oct 31, 2013, 23:36:17

Yes, not quite the solution I was looking for. I've actually just bought a barely used iPod Classic 160Gb off eBay, quite cheaply, so that will alliviate my storage problem for now.

pctech · Nov 01, 2013, 10:36:07

Was looking at one of these myself as a backup and remote access solution for my documents.

Not had a great experience with WD drives so might look at building my own NAS box using Seagate drives.

Gary · Nov 01, 2013, 10:57:56

A lot of the newer routers now have USB 3 ports which allow better transfer speeds, also with more powerful processors they don't crash or slow down as much. Thing is they all seem to have a limited number of compatible drives they can work with which is an issue.

Glenn · Nov 01, 2013, 10:58:51

Look for a HP Microserver when they do their regular cashback deals, they can be had for around £100 inc cashback. Add the drives you want, then use FreeNAS, NAS4Free or an alternative.

Gary · Nov 01, 2013, 11:03:47

Quote from: Glenn on Nov 01, 2013, 10:58:51
Look for a HP Microserver when they do their regular cashback deals, they can be had for around £100 inc cashback. Add the drives you want, then use FreeNAS, NAS4Free or an alternative.

Sounds like a good idea, Glenn.

pctech · Nov 01, 2013, 11:14:43

Thanks Glenn I'll keep an eye out.

Steve · Nov 01, 2013, 11:59:31

I just stuck a 1TB usb drive had lying about on the router Ausus RT N66U, set it up as a cloud drive, it also is a network share,DLNA media server and can also be setup as an FTP server.

The format seems to be the only critical issue ext 3 it prefers but is happy with FAT and NTFS

Technical Ben · Nov 03, 2013, 12:57:06

Quote from: Simon on Oct 31, 2013, 22:27:21
I've got a mental block on this. Can someone explain, in dummy terms, how these actually work?

http://store.westerndigital.com/store/wdeu/en_GB/DisplayAccesoryProductDetailsPage/productID.288053800?psrid=40106550

For example, could I store my music on it, and play all of that music, including playlists, etc, via my iPhone, when I am not at home? If so, how does that work? How would my iPhone connect remotely to the My Cloud device?

It's a HDD caddy/server with wifi and backup software on a CD for you to install.

Or, as "advertisers and buzzworders" like to call it "a cloud".

"Cloud" also refers to (but not limited to):
A laptop
A PC
A Mac (book Air)
Air
A HDD on Wifi
Wifi adapter
Wifi Adapter connected to a HDD
Badger connected to Wifi
HDD connected to a PC connected to Wifi
Server
Distributed computing system
BitTorrent
A Cloud
Distributed computing server equipment
Distributed hosting
Websites
Website hosting
Smoke
Google
Yahoo
Half of Apple if you believe the PR
Half of MS if you don't believe the PR
Email
Online backups and upload services if on a single machine or distributed servers.
Online backups and upload services not on a single machine and not on distributed servers.
Online backups and upload services not online but saved locally
Online backups and upload services not online but not saved locally.
Virus scanners that download new updates
HTML based virus scanners that run locally but pretend to be run "server side".

I think that's all I can remember off the top of my head. So I tend to avoid any product with "cloud" in the title, as it breeds confusion. That's what the advertisers want!

Technical Ben · Nov 03, 2013, 13:00:44

Quote from: Simon on Oct 31, 2013, 23:36:17
Yes, not quite the solution I was looking for. I've actually just bought a barely used iPod Classic 160Gb off eBay, quite cheaply, so that will alliviate my storage problem for now.

Which is the real answer.
Old Ipod = £100 for 160GB and all the music you can need.
New Ipod = £100 for 16GB and £££s worth of "3G" download service to stream the other stuff you could not fit on it.
It's all about charging more for providing less.

pctech · Nov 03, 2013, 16:32:19

Flash storage is still rather more expensive than the mechanical hard drives in the older ipod but at the time those were sold that was the going rate (probably 40 quid for the hardware and 60 quid to Apple's margin)

Technical Ben · Nov 04, 2013, 11:52:50

True I guess.

Glenn · Dec 02, 2013, 20:12:41

HP N54L Microserver now £124.99 after cashback http://www.box.co.uk/HP_ProLiant_MicroServer_704941-421_N54L__1341681.html

Glenn · Feb 01, 2014, 08:36:18

Now available with £100 cash back from Ballicom.

Cashback form from HP

Simon · Feb 01, 2014, 11:35:19

I'd forgotten about this - and it'll probably stay forgotten.

mk1 · Feb 01, 2014, 12:04:12

So i own a WD mybooklive the my Cloud function only works via the WD app, and is very limited in its capabilities (for example you can't sync files). My experience with the WD NAS drives is poor as I have had 5 of them replaced through RMA's (although i did get a newer model in the process). Almost every time a firmware update is release several software bugs appear!
There is a useful forum on this drive which has several modifications one can apply to the WD mybooklive drives such as OwnCloud.

For music on your iPhone, I assume you keep you collection on iTunes? Have you looked into iTunes match ~£20 a year and you can stream or download music to your iPhone. I have a 16GB iPhone but it shows my whole iTunes library, which i can just play on the fly (streaming) or download of offline viewing.

Steve · Feb 01, 2014, 17:57:43

I used iTunes Match for a year or so but now use Google. I think if you've got free WiFi or a decent 3G service they both open opportunities for your music library,

Glenn · Feb 28, 2014, 21:56:02

Quote from: Glenn on Feb 01, 2014, 08:36:18
Now available with £100 cash back from Ballicom.

Cashback form from HP

I bought one, it's now very nicely running XPenology a Synology clone, a few clicks to install Plex Media server, also a central store for my data.

Technical Ben · Mar 01, 2014, 19:04:18

Well, I managed to get NAS4Free running on an old PC, so I could do my backups that way...... after reading the 500 page manual.

Simon · Mar 01, 2014, 19:25:37

You mean, you're supposed to read manuals?

Technical Ben · Mar 02, 2014, 08:39:04

With anything over consumer grade, it's probably a requirement. I've no experience, but I've seen some horror stories of tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds of kit getting broken or unused due to pressing the wrong button. No doubt the reason the business/enterprise level IT staff get the wages, because they's got the experience and knowledge.

PS, actually I can think of a couple in my previous job. Not sanitizing/sanity checking text input in a webbrowser/server before sending the data to the main system. First rule of data input and storage. So the system had a corrupt file as it had illegal characters in the fields.

The other would be the RBS computer failure, but I was not working for them, so it was not me!