jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

WD now offers something called "My Cloud" for off-site backup. You get 4TB of storage for $229.99, with no monthly fees.
It works only with certain WD drives, and the offer ends January 19. You can access your files with various devices, not just your computer.

amehta Loc: Boston

Is it the HD that's $230, or the cloud storage. Or do you get a 4TB HD for $230, with some amount of cloud storage that's in the fine print. Or are you getting a HD with "cloud" software so you can connect to it when you're away from home, access your files, and upload to it?

Do you have a link for us to peruse?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

You get just the storage, not the drive. If I had posted a link, it would have been moved to the Links section.

http://store.westerndigital.com/store/wdus/ContentTheme/pbPage.Promotions_US

Mr PC Loc: Austin, TX

Hi Jerry, computer guy Dave here. I use Carbonite personally, it's unlimited and you can get an account for about $100 a year that includes one computer and one external drive. The only problem is they won't backup RAW files. I use them for all but my RAW files. For those I use an external drive, the computer they're on and make Blu-ray disk backups at the end of each year (they hold about 25GB each). Amazon has a cheap backup solutions for files that don't need to be accessed very often and also different plans for ones that do. On my Carbonite, I can get to any of my backed up files from any computer or smartphone or tablet I have from anywhere in the world. I got a Word document once from Africa that I had forgotten. Hope this helps.

amehta Loc: Boston

No, you're paying for a drive. It's the last situation I described.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I clicked on Buy, and read more about it. You're not getting cloud storage at all. You're just buying a new drive, and then you call that your cloud. Your cloud sits on your desk.

doduce Loc: Holly Springs NC

Dave--I also use Carbonite (although I'm thinking of switching end of this month). I just checked and when I browse the back ups, it appears all my .NEF files are backed up. I've never had to restore any files, so WHEN (not IF) I have to do that, the real story will unfold.

Just interesting.

doduce Loc: Holly Springs NC

Is it a NAS?

amehta Loc: Boston

It has gigabit ethernet, so I believe it can be set up as a NAS.

And, it says "on your home network," which implies a NAS.

Mr PC Loc: Austin, TX

That's news to me, I'm a Nikon guy too and their terms of service say no RAW files. Maybe I could fool it into taking them, but in my case it's getting pretty massive and would actually be impractical. Outbound speeds are a fraction of inbound Internet, so it would take weeks to get my stuff out there. It was bad enough with what I was already backing up. It did save my bacon when I had a hard drive failure last year. I used an external drive to recover most of my stuff and Carbonite to fill in what I was missing. I'm a belt and suspenders kind of guy after seeing what losing everything has done to some of my clients who did not believe us when we recommended backup solutions. They all have new found religion now. My important stuff is in at least three places and one of them MUST be off site.

doduce Loc: Holly Springs NC

I'm with you. I've got three back ups as well.

Picdude Loc: Ohio

After reading the reviews this looks like it could be a pretty useful device IF certain criteria are met:

1) You really need a full Gigabit router, not the cheapest router you can find.

2) The drive should be hard-wired to the router with a Gigabit cable, not connected via Wi-Fi.

3) You need a good high-speed internet connection going into your house (which probably means cable - dial-up is definitely out, DSL may be a stretch).

After all that you still need to keep in mind how your computer is going to connect to your network. Most laptops have a built-in Wi-Fi adapter but typically only 10/100MB interface, not 10/100/1000. That's going to affect transfer rates big-time. You may need to hard wire your computer to your router to get full performance. Also, if you are uploading/downloading from an off-site location, you are at the mercy of the off-site internet connection. I would say it's a sure bet that most hotel/motels do not have gigabit Wi-Fi. As far as phones, tablets and such.....going to depend on where you are and what kind of antenna reception you are getting at that time.

amehta Loc: Boston

Most DSL/cable modems include gigabit connections. You can plug this device into one of those. Most laptops today also have gigabit (usually listed as 10/100/1000MB) ethernet. No additional hardware should be needed for most people to use this.

avengine

I am also looking at this my cloub 4T drive too, it is on sale in canada for ~c$200, compare to normal 4T that is ~c$140,
I have 2 mac and 2 pc, what i am not sure is can I have time machine running for 2 mac, and also use superduper to clone the drive in another 2 partitions.
what type of file structure that it use? ntfs, linux or mac format?
and you know when you has a big drive like this, you also need another one as a backup of the backup, otherwise you are in big trouble. if this monster fail.
that is why I want to wait and make sure this is mature enough for our photos storage.
bottom line the idea is very good but make sure the system is stable.

amehta Loc: Boston

The difference between this and the c$140 drive is that it attaches to the network, rather than directly to a computer.
It probably uses FAT32 or NTFS, but it doesn't actually matter, since your computers are not accessing the files directly. This technology is quite mature, it has been used by companies for years. The new thing is making it available for the home user. With 4 computers, you are the perfect candidate for a device like this.

I completely agree you need a backup for the backup. The USB port on the drive should allow you to attach a second drive to have the backup.