And, rather than offering conventional RAID modes the 5N2 uses Drobos own BeyondRaid software to automatically protect your data (which comes in handy if, like me, you can never remember the difference between RAID 0 and Raid 1).And if your Mac starts behaving oddly and you think you might have been infected by malware, you can just reboot your Mac and use Time Machine to restore the entire macOS to an earlier, untarnished state.Hard drives are pretty cheap these days, but as we all start to own more and more desktop computers, laptops and mobile devices, it starts to become both expensive and rather impractical to buy a separate backup drive for every single device in our home or office.If youd like to read more about the advantages of NAS, the amount of storage youll need and the features to look for, jump down to our buying advice.
Program Time Hine Software To AutomaticallyHowever, youre probably better off getting the newer My Cloud Home model shown here, which is a little more expensive, but is faster and provides additional features such as support for the Plex Media Server software (although thats probably not a must-have for Mac users). The slimline white-and-silver unit is neatly designed, and only measures 2in wide, so itll sit easily on your desk or on a shelf close to your router without taking up too much space. That provides RAID 1 mirroring for extra data protection, but if you want more sophisticated RAID features, as well as the ability to install and remove drives yourself, youll need to step up to the My Cloud Expert or My Cloud Pro models. The iOS app can perform automatic backups of your photos and videos, while the Mac app lets you use Time Machine for your backups (and there are Mac and Windows versions of the apps available too). That will be handy for people who want an extra backup of their current work files or projects in addition to the basic Time Machine backup. ![]() You can even back up photos and albums from Facebook on to the drive for safekeeping if you want to. You cant simply double-click the drives icon on the Mac desktop in order to open the drive and then drag-and-drop to copy folders or files on to the drive. For some reason you have to open the apps pulldown menu and view the contents of the drive through the app instead. You cant create individual user accounts on the Mac either, so youre forced to use the app on an iPhone or iPad if you want to invite someone else to create their own personal folders on the My Cloud Home drive. In fact, the company doesnt even call it a NAS drive, opting for the more user-friendly personal cloud label instead. If you feel a bit more comfortable with jargon such as NAS and RAID, you might want to step up to WDs expert range with the My Cloud EX2 Ultra instead.). You can buy the EX2 Ultra with a pair of drives pre-installed, with a wide range of prices depending on the storage you select. Theres a Gigabit Ethernet port for connecting to your network, and the EX2 Ultra also has two USB ports that allow you to connect an external USB drive for additional storage. ![]() If you want even more safeguards for your important files, theres also an option to back up data from the EX2 Ultra on to an external hard drive connected to one of its USB ports. Theres also a My Cloud app for iOSiPadOS and Android that allows you to back up and share files using non-Apple devices as well. But while the nondescript black box isnt much to look at, its absolutely packed with features designed to keep your data safe and will earn its keep in your office. This shows how you can simply slot the drives into the 5N2 and then connect it to your router - and the 5N2 even has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, which can be bonded together to provide higher performance for devices such as the iMac Pro, with its 10GB Ethernet interface. This installs a pulldown menu into the main menu bar at the top of your Macs screen, providing instant access to the drives main features. Once the drives have been installed theres a series of lights on the front panel that indicate the status and health of each drive, along with a row of blue lights that act as a capacity gauge to let you know when youre running out of storage. It even has a small built-in battery that can protect the 5N2 from power failures, keeping it running long enough to complete the current task and then shut down without losing any data.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2020
Categories |