WD My Cloud Home Duo

From £280 (with 2x 1TB) FROM westerndigital.com

5 Like the old Apple Time Capsule, the Home Duo is designed as an appliance which is instant to set up and simple to use. Unlike other systems tested, you don’t have to enable services or create file pools; the only real option is whether to mirror its two drives in RAID 1.

In return, you get fast storage for your Time Machine backups, special treatment for photos, and file sharing. There are no options to run a web server or any other services of conventional NAS systems. With near-zero configuration, there’s also little you can do to address

problems that might arise. A single white light on the front of the case indicates problems using different patterns and frequencies of pulsation: ‘slow breathing’ rhythm means the system is busy, but you can’t connect to it to find out more.

Currently, this doesn’t support SMB for making Time Machine backups. WD needs to update its software for future compatibility.

> VERDICT

Near–zero configuration Good performance Limited troubleshooting No current SMB support