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Sunday, December 12, 2021
Western Digital NAS forced downgrade
I have two network attached storage (NAS) devices from the Western Digital My Cloud series. They are not only useful for backup, but also enable me to access my files from a mobile device, even if my PC isn't running. They came with some free software, namely WD Sync, a software that can be set up to automatically back up whatever folders you have on your hard drive to your NAS. And all that was running perfectly well, until recently.
I received a string of threatening e-mails from Western Digital over the year, that I would absolutely have to "upgrade" from My Cloud OS 3 to My Cloud OS 5 to keep using my devices after the end of this year. So I went through all the necessary firmware and software updates. And WD Sync stopped working. If you look very closely and follow through all the links in the article on the OS 5 upgrade, there is actually a table that says that OS 5 isn't supporting WD Sync anymore, but that information isn't exactly easy to find. So then Western Digital tells you that you should install "GoodSync for WD" instead, which I did.
After a few weeks, I suddenly get a popup message. GoodSync for WD is not actually a product of Western Digital. Nor is it provided for free to Western Digital customers. The download link on the Western Digital site actually just provides you with a free trial software. And once that free trial runs out, you are supposed to pay $30 per year to keep using it.
What a shitty move! Western Digital just forced me to downgrade my NAS storage from a perfectly working free version to a version which I will have to pay $30 a year for, just for the most basic functionality of their hardware. I'm not paying that! I'll use other solutions, although it appears that Windows Sync Center only comes with Windows 10 Pro, not the Home version. And SyncToy for Windows 10 appears to be rather complicated to install. But I will find some free solution, because I am not willing to support this underhanded tactics of Western Digital to force me to move from a free service to an expensive paid for subscription.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:47 AM Permanent Link
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This is hardly newsworthy. The current approach in the industry seems to be "remove as much control as possible from the user's hands", which paves the road for the worst kind of profiteering. You're not the first one I hear complaining of forced upgrades into a subscription-based service.
Unfortunately right now if you want to keep control of your systems you need to do the work and self-build: there's a lot of NAS/mediabox linux distributions out there, grab a miniPC, some disks and do the work yourself. If you're not ready to pay with your time, be ready to pay with your wallet......
Unfortunately right now if you want to keep control of your systems you need to do the work and self-build: there's a lot of NAS/mediabox linux distributions out there, grab a miniPC, some disks and do the work yourself. If you're not ready to pay with your time, be ready to pay with your wallet......
Well, this just sent me down a 45-minute-long rabbit hole of looking up these products and this transition. Very interesting and I am sorry it is causing you to have to do so much extra work when everything was working fine for you. I just wonder if you need to access your files remotely enough times to make it worth the hassle. Or has it become a matter of principle above all?
The remote access is something I use, but not very often. Maybe once a month or so. I used it more before COVID, when I was doing business travel and used lonely evenings in hotel rooms to prepare D&D campaigns.
The backup is something that I feel I really need. I once went on a winter holiday, during which time water apparently condensed in the transformer of my PC, us having turned the heating down. When I came back and turned on the computer, still cold, there was a short circuit and I got the full 220 Volts on all circuits of the PC and completely fried it. No way to recover anything on the hard drive. I also had less spectacular hard drive failures. So I really like to have some backup. And with gigabytes of photos and files, an external hard drive is much more practical than burning stuff to DVD.
The backup is something that I feel I really need. I once went on a winter holiday, during which time water apparently condensed in the transformer of my PC, us having turned the heating down. When I came back and turned on the computer, still cold, there was a short circuit and I got the full 220 Volts on all circuits of the PC and completely fried it. No way to recover anything on the hard drive. I also had less spectacular hard drive failures. So I really like to have some backup. And with gigabytes of photos and files, an external hard drive is much more practical than burning stuff to DVD.
We installed out first NAS this year and while we haven't experienced anything as bad as your example yet I have noticed that the whole area of data storage is a money pit. Once your accumulated store of data gets above the free threshold of the major cloud providers you end up paying dearly for everything usually in the form of monthly subscriptions. The pricing models are all aimed at businesses rather than consumers. I am actually surprised that more people aren't making an issue about this. Even my kids are already banging against the limits of their free Google / Dropbox / Apple cloud storage and they are going to be generating images and video for many more decades.
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