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Western Digital’s wireless backup drives get a better look and a better app

Western Digital’s wireless backup drives get a better look and a better app

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Western Digital My Cloud Home
Image: Western Digital

Western Digital is introducing a new version of its wireless backup drives today with a tweaked design, a simpler setup, and an improved app. The most immediately noticeable difference is the new design, which sees Western Digital switching away from its rounded “book” style over to a boxier, two-tone look with a textured bottom half. I think it looks better — the old ones were very “mid-2000s MacBook.”

The new drives — which let you wireless back up files at home and then access them remotely — are also getting a slightly different name, My Cloud Home (instead of just My Cloud), and a new app, too. The app has also been redesigned and looks much cleaner than the old version. Western Digital hasn’t provide a detailed look at it just yet, but it pretty much has to be better than the old app, which seems to have barely graduated from Holo-era Android design.

Up to 16TB of storage

It’s not entirely clear if the new app will have additional features — Western Digital is highlighting its ability to sync files from a Dropbox and Plex account to your drive, but the existing app can already do that. Apparently the new drives can be set up entirely over mobile, which is supposed to be new. A representative for the company says the new drives were designed “from the ground up" for this new software platform, so the new app won’t be available to existing My Cloud owners.

The drives go on sale at Best Buy tomorrow, with prices ranging from $159.99 for a 2TB drive to $699.99 for a 16TB dual-drive that mirrors files across two separate disks. The dual models go under the name My Cloud Home Duo.