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iPhone here, point and shoot there, memories everywhere? We at Traveling Mom know how you feel! That’s why we were so excited to try out My Cloud Home from Western Digital: a device that keeps all of your digital stuff organized and in one handy virtual storage space. What did we find? That My Cloud Home not only delivers as promised, it’s a total no-brainer to use.
My Vacation Photos are a Mess!
We just returned from six weeks in South America. We hiked Iguazu Falls, dined on a frozen Andes lake and watched endless sunsets- each more picturesque than the last. I must have taken a thousand photos. However, this leads to a big problem- my vacation photos are everywhere! I’ve got a point and shoot camera with photos in Google Drive and both iphone and android phones with photos. Add in my husband and kids’ memories and you’ve got a huge jumble of data.
And this is just one trip. Years worth of Disney vacations, family reunions, holidays…you get the idea…add up to a mish-mosh of memories. Add in a case of techno-phobia and it’s a classic case of digital paralysis. I couldn’t begin to organize my virtual life without spending hours and hours uploading from various devices and hoping I don’t run out of storage space. Then once they’re uploaded? Who knows if I’ll ever find them again?
Meet My Cloud Home
That’s why I’m the perfect person to test out the new My Cloud Home from Western Digital. I need something with huge data storage that’s idiot-proof to install and use. The Western Digital experts assured me the My Cloud was easy to use but I was skeptical. Lo and behold, the device arrived with the following “instructions”:
Installation took less than a minute, and that included going up and downstairs between my laptop and our router. It took about another minute to install the app on my iPhone and a third minute to sync Facebook, Google, and Dropbox. After one more minute everything was visible on my “My Cloud Home” app home screen.
Even better, I sent an invitation to my husband and kids’ emails so they can get their own folders on the My Cloud Home. As soon as they’re set up we’ll all sync automatically to the same space. No more trying to figure out who took that photo of the kids under the rainbow at Iguazu Falls.
I Haven’t Even Told You The Best Part Yet
The best part of My Cloud Home isn’t about the past but about the future. From now on everything syncs automatically in the background. I don’t have to think about it! Any device that can take something off of my to do list not just now but forever is a win in my book.
We have a backup drive, but it has two downsides that are fixed with the My Cloud Home. First, I have to manually back up the data- which means time set aside for a task I’d rather not do. But more importantly, the stuff is only available when I have the drive plugged in.
The My Cloud Home is app-driven. That means I can see photos and stream videos from any device that has the app, anywhere. If I want to show Grandma video of the kids’ first steps from 10 years ago I can just pull it up on my phone next time we visit.
I’ve had Dropbox at $10/month for two years now. I’m so glad I can let that subscription go as the My Cloud Home has a minimum of two terabytes of data–for photos, video, documents, anything I have been storing in Dropbox. At $159 for two terabytes, I definitely won’t need any other services to keep my data intact. Even better, I own my data as it’s on the device even though it’s accessible virtually. There’s no cloud anywhere I have to worry about.
I couldn’t visualize two terabytes and you probably can’t either. Let me help: two terabytes is 2000 gigabytes or just over 2 million megabytes. The average photo is between one and two megabytes. I take a LOT of photos but couldn’t shoot a million pictures if I tried. For one thing the kids would revolt!
The My Cloud Home is available exclusively at Best Buy. I was provided one to test but see this recommendation as a no-brainer. It’s rare that a product does all that it advertises and more. The My Cloud Home will pay for itself in a year or so if you’re paying for storage. But even more than that it will provide you a fool-proof way to keep your digital life in check.
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Techlicious, but all opinions are my own.
Jenn says
I could definitely us some new storage for all of our pics.
dee says
I will definitely have to check this out, Dia! I am always trying to figure out how to get a handle on all the photos that we take 🙂
Dia Adams, Travel Hack SheBuysTravel says
It really is a game-changer.