Western Digital wants to make it “My Cloud” with new hard drives

 

 

The problem with backing up your files to the cloud, is what happens if that service goes down? Or is compromised? Or ups their fees? Western Digital is putting that all under your control with the new My Cloud line of hard drives, which will allow you to access your files wherever you go, the world over.

This is hardly a new idea, and is mostly a new spin on the venerable concept of Network Attached Storage. But Western Digital will doubtless make it an awful lot easier to use, allowing you to get into your backed up files using both mobile and desktop apps. And since you're not paying for the service, you don't need to worry about the originals disappearing if a company goes under.

In addition to giving you online access to your files via smartphone or computer, it also features media streaming to DLNA-certified devices, built-in software for backing up on the PC, and is compatible with Time Machine for Mac users. It also integrates with Dropbox, Google Drive, and SkyDrive so you can move files between, or even have multiple redundant copies of the same information. And, if you run out of the built-in disk space, you can expand it by linking in another hard drive using the USB 3.0 port.

For photographers, the My Cloud hard drives feature one other potentially useful feature. Plug your camera into the USB port, and it'll automatically back up the entire thing.

My Cloud is based on Western Digital's earlier My Book Live NAS devices, but with streamlined use and setup for people who don't fancy struggling with the complexities of setting up networked drives.

My Cloud will be available in 2 TB, 3 TB, and 4 TB, for $149.99, $179.99, and $249.99, respectively. The smaller two are available for purchase now, with the 4 TB version set to head out in November.