How To Upgrade WD My Cloud From 1TB to 2TB Drive

[bs]

[mybs data=”1″ title=”How to downgrade firmware from V4 to V3″]

Warning: The problem will be trying to authenticate and fail. Need to Hard Reset the unit – unplug – use a paperclip push the reset button – plug the power back – keep holding the button for 40 seconds. This will reset the unit and we can re-install the software. Do NOT upgrade to V4 automatically. Turn it off so you don’t have to downgrade.

Follow the instructions here.

: Putty login to SSH

: Turn on SSH

: Check for version

: current version 4

: change to version v3

: Ctrl X to exit and save

: Click Y to save

: Click enter to return cd to DataVolume

: Wget the v3 firmware from the website

: downloaded

: Unzip the file

: remove the zip file

: restore the firmware to v3 command

: progress

: final reboot – check the blue light

[/mybs]

I bought my first cloud server WD My Cloud 1TB for $70 when it’s on sale. I knew that I would upgrade it to 2TB since I have a few in my HTPCs (now they’re obsoleted), although the device is brand new, but after reading the “how to unbrick…”, I decided to try it, the worst scenario is I would be out of $70. I do trust WD quality. For people who don’t have WD 2TB+ laying around, it’s cheaper and more efficient to buy units with 2TB-4TB, the price increments are actually very minimal. Don’t do this unless you have WD drive, NOT any other brand. I used the Samsung 2TB and it didn’t work, wasting a few nights trying.

You need to remove the drive from the case. Regardless on how I read the how to on youtube, I still broke all the lock taps. If you do it carefully, you can still open without breaking anything. There are 4 lock taps and they’re not at the same heights, so look at the pictures, lift the tap and slide the case forward to remove, it’s tight but doable.

I removed one of the lock guides to remove the drive easier.

: 4 tabs need to pry open from the lock

: What the lock tab looks like

: These are where the lock tabs go

: Slide the case forward to remove the cover

: push the lock guide out to slide the drive out

: tilt the drive and pull out lightly

: This is how the board mated to the drive

: 3 screws with stand offs need to be removed

: Slide upward to remove the board from the drive

: Slide the board upward to separate from the drive

: Remove the brackets both sides

: Remove brackets from both sides

: single bracket

: Test the drive with 1 screw installed for stability

Now it’s the software part, the best is to create an image of the original drive. Original means no users, no data, nothing… I did the quick factory restored from the dashboard, make sure none of important data is on it.

Reboot and login as admin, not creating any user. Turn on SSH. I reverted the firmware V4 back to V3 to make sure.

I used Windows 8, so I need to download Putty_exe_download.

– Type in device ip address to connect – use user name=root and password=welc0me (zero not o).

dd if=/dev/sda of=/DataVolume/shares/Public/mycloud1tb.img bs=1M count=5000

This will create an image “mycloud1tb.img” in the Public folder.

– Now copy the “mycloud1tb.img” to an 8GB USB flash drive if you don’t have a Mac and use PC to do the restoration.

– The Mac OS X is more reliable, although it takes longer. I had 2 drives that failed after restoring using systemrescuecd and usb flash drive. They’re fine with Yosemite restoration.

– For the Mac, I use the USB external device to connect my 2TB hard drive for the commands in the terminal. It does take a lot longer to restore compare to the PC way which is less than 5 minutes.

sudo dd if=/mycloud1tb.img of=/dev/disk2

– When it’s done, need to use gparted to extend the EXT4 partition from 1TB to 2TB.

– Plug into the main-board and test to make sure everything works before putting it back in the case.