I'm looking for a wireless external storage device to store/backup important files, home videos and personal pictures.

It would be great to have access to these files, pictures, and videos remotely (from an iPhone, or laptop outside the home), but this isn't as critical as easy wireless backup of files.

Our home has a few laptops that would need to send files to this backup device, and access them...all wirelessly.

I was looking at these two options and wanted to get some input from the experts here to see if one is better than the next, or if there is a completely separate device I should consider:

1.) Western Digital - My Cloud - 4TB Storage Capacity - $199

2.) Seagate - Personal Cloud Media Storage - 4TB Storage Capacity $219


Would you recommend one of these over the other? Or would you recommend something else?


Thanks in advance for any help!

MyCloud is pretty easy, but doesn't play well with the wife's Mac. Not that it's problematic, and maybe it's my lack of Mac experience, but it doesn't want to work as a network drive the way it does for windows.

Thanks Anais. My cloud looks pretty good.

They have a My Cloud (with one 4 TB HD) priced at $199, and a My Cloud Mirror (with 2 4TB HD's) priced at $439. The My Cloud Mirror's two Hard Drives are set up identical for redundancy in case one hard drive fails.

The My Cloud Mirror is just over twice the cost of the My Cloud with the same storage capacity (with a 2nd identical HD). Is the My Cloud Mirror worth the extra price for the average person backing up important pictures and videos?

When the average person says they "have backed up their important pictures and videos" what they mean is they have moved them all to an external hard drive. This is NOT BACKING up their data. This is storing them on external media. If that one drive fails, all data is lost.

Backing up data means having a second copy on external media.

Which of these describes you? If it is the first, then the redundant hard drive is a good option, imo. If it is only going to store a second copy of your data, the added expense of mirrored drives is probably not needed.

Admittedly, I fall into the first.

So I will need two copies of my data to be safe. Taking this safety a bit further, I think I will actually get two separate devices and keep these devices at separate locations. This way, if something happened to the My Cloud device at my home (fire, flood, etc...), I would still have my data if I had one at another location.

This solution will end up being less expensive than a My Cloud Mirror as well if I'm not missing anything.

My Cloud Mirror 4TB x 2 - $439
vs
My Cloud 4TB - $199
Something like My Book External Hard Drive 4TB Capacity - $139

I was hoping to get two My Cloud devices ($199 x 2) and have them sync automatically at the two different locations, but it's not possible with the My Cloud. To sync at different locations, I would need two My Cloud Mirrors and that would bump the price up to more than I'm willing to spend ($439 x 2).

With the My Cloud + Basic External HD setup, I would use the My Cloud at my home to wirelessly back up data from our computers on our home network. Then every couple months or so, I would bring the external HD home and copy the data from the My Cloud device to the external HD.

The downside would be the hassle of bringing home the external HD and copying the data from the My Cloud to it every couple months. How long would it take to copy a couple TB's?!?


Am I making things more difficult then they need to be? Is there a better solution? Or would the My Cloud + Basic External HD at two separate locations be the best way to go?


Thanks for all the help!!!