My Cloud EX2 Ultra NAS Setup for Infuse

@eyealar I’m setting this up for both my iPad Pro 10.5 and Apple TV 4K. The EX2 is almost formatted completely to Raid 0 (95%). What special things do I need to do to ensure fastest performance?

My first NAS. The Western Digital stuff online looked for the my EX2, but could not see it. Frankly had some help getting by this, but found it from my router’s interface. Then the next step was to get at it from Windows and then get it on the network. Then the WD stuff was able to walk through the proper setup. A bit shocked to see my 12 terabyte drive show as 6, but then fixed this by moving the unit from Raid 1 to Raid 0. This is riskier as the drives are no longer redundant as in most Raid arrays. However Raid 0 gives a massive performance boost as the drives work together to increase write speed. This is not the most reliable configuration because if one of the drives fail all of the data is wiped out! Transfer rates over wifi on my network of some existing files have been quite slow at less than 20 mb/sec (about like a regular USB connection). Via network cable saw about 60 mb/sec transfer rates roughly like USB 3.0. My pc only supports 802.11n Channel Bonding for top wifi speed, so I may try that. Not sure why the network was so slow writing to the EX2.

*if you need more details on a specific point, just ask…

Important EX2 Settings for Best Performance

• Raid 0 - if you are worried about losing data, use an external drive or cloud to backup important files

• Static IP Address - it’s easier if you take your NAS’s MAC Address and create a DHCP Reservation within your router’s interface. Choose an IP that is easy to remember.

• Turn OFF Auto Camera Roll Backup for your mobile devices - unless this is important to you, leave it off. Things like this can help save some NAS processing resources

• Cloud Access: Cloud Service ON - attempt to setup Port Forwarding as it will be MUCH FASTER than Relay Connection
• Cloud Access: USB Content Availability OFF
• Cloud Access: Dashboard Cloud Access OFF

• Drive Sleep ON - under Energy Saver Settings
• Web Access Timeout - set as low as you are comfortable with. I set mine to 20 mins, but you can go lower if you want.

• Time Machine Backups OFF - not sure if you are a MacOS user, I would avoid using the NAS for TC Backups, but if that’s one of the reasons you bought it then go for it!

• Recycle Bin Auto Clear ON - I set mine to 6 days

• Network - Link Speed AUTO

• Max SMB Protocol - for Macs set to SMB3, for windows it depends, google search for your best option.

• Enable NFS Protocol

• Media - DLNA Server OFF - you are going to be using SMB or NFS for your movies
• Media - iTunes Server OFF - unless you specifically plan to store your iTunes music library on the NAS, I would advise against it though

• Firmware Update - Enable Auto Updates ON

Even if you will be the only User accessing this NAS… I recommend creating a second User account.
• Use the admin account for setting NAS preferences, downloading & using apps (torrent, anti-virus, etc.)
• Use your second account for connecting your iPad & Apple TV to the NAS media folders.
• Make sure youprotect both user accounts with their own secure passwords/

Create a new Share Folder for your videos, use these settings
• Public OFF
• Recycling Bin ON
• Media Serving OFF
• Oplocks - OFF if multiple users might be accessing this folder simultaneously, ON if you will most likely be the only user accessing this folder. You can always switch later
• NFS - ON - leave host alone (*) & Write OFF
• User Access - give your admin Read/Write access, and other users Read-only access
• IMPORTANT: Be sure to match the User Access Settings between the Users section & Shares section

IF I MISSED ANYTHING, JUST ASK…

LOL. That is a list. For this setup moved my cable modem and tp link ac1750 over to area near my TV so 2017 LG OLED, Apple TV, and EX2 all plugged into router via cat 5e. Kind of stinks that my laptop over Wifi just capable for 300 mbps, but it is no longer hosting files thankfully.

Right now out of the box the speed is good enough (for over 50 gb file playback), but Infuse has been really crabby about finding shares from the NAS so I’m going to try the above and learn.

With Public Off, infuse can’t access in the folder. What is wrong?

I won’t be of much help. I tried to make my own shares and just ended up using the Public folder with Public setting on. My Cloud is also pretty primitive when it comes to the recycling bin so make sure you’ve got a handle on that as well.

Well I’ve merrily run out of space in one year (75% gone) and now wonder about putting large USB 3.0 drives on the mycloud ultra ex2. I’m concerned about 4K playback.

The EX2 has done pretty well for 4K playback (I often us an Oppo 203 for Atmos so most of these comments are about the Oppo). I have some trouble with Dolby Vision material and the Oppo via even a wired connection. I must say that with a quiet wifi that the ipad pro 10.5 is now doing very well with Infuse (recent improvements from firecore). With the biggest files the pro is playing back quite well and one of the repeat offenders files on the Oppo as I write this with just one little pause; very watchable for a 90 GB file. The ATV4K Infuse has handled most anything thrown at it. If Oppo gets crabby with the NAS I’ll often reboot the NAS. Even though LAN, I suspect lots of wifi traffic might not be the best choice when playing big files.

So the question now is what happens if I attached USB 3.0 WD Elements to the mycloud? Anyone have experience pushing the envelope this way? I’ve got an older 2 TB drive around from WD (six year old model), but it may be lower performance. I’m not all that concerned about wifi performance on ipad pro, but the fact its so good probably means USB 3.0 won’t be a choke point. I’m going to test before long if no one responds.

My ipad pro is in Elysium right now and doing just fine with hell unleashed from a little 86 GB stream folder!

I too am curious about attaching further USB drives to an existing cloud set up. Does this impact infuse / is it still able to stream reasonably well?

I do it rarely, but its been fine. My biggest stressful playback is playing from My Cloud with my Oppo for 4K disc backup. Even USB direct to the Oppo 203 can lose it once in a while (cold boot Oppo sometimes is necessary.) From the My Cloud you are more likely to run into issues with 4K disc backup as something else might be accessing My Cloud drive and using resources. Infuse on Apple TV 4K generally works extremely, extremely well in comparison to the Oppo. Apple TV may just have more processing power on tap as its A10X is a beast in the tablet world.

Since I’m using Oppo for Atmos playback I’ve taken to directly connecting large USB drives which are cheaper storage option than NAS plus not on very often (especially since I only plug them in when needed.) The same can be done with my clould, but not so easy as you need to eject the USB drives by logging into mycloud ip address from browser. With Oppo I just unplug drive with unit off. I’m not sure if being plugged into my cloud creates more wear as it might idle the drives when not really in use.

If you need me to I can test some scenarios, like ipad playback over wifi from USB connected to my cloud. I really should try it to figure out for myself and see to see if USB drive idles when attached. I’m on the verge of using my 3rd and last slot on Oppo so the two on the my cloud may become important.

Properly done a NAS or something like the my cloud should have its drives backed up. This all starts to get very expensive and in the long term itunes 4k movies on the cheap (try cheapcharts app) may be a better option especially since Apple just recently gave a format upgrade to one’s itunes titles from 2k to 4k when available. Its really making the economics of NAS more daunting and a true high end only option.