WD Intros New My Cloud NAS Servers, On The Hunt For New Partners

Western Digital is looking to greatly expand its network of solution providers and distributors after Thursday's introduction of four new NAS products to its My Cloud lineup.

The Irvine, Calif.-based company launched the small-business-focused My Cloud Business Series consisting of two new servers, the DL2100 and the DL4100. WD also added to its prosumer focused My Cloud Expert Series with the EX2100 and the EX4100. The company said the new products will be available to its channel partners in March and is offering incentives to on-board new solution providers.

"We are opening it up to any reseller that’s out there," said Steve Smith, senior product marketing manager for WD. "The more the better. In terms of our distribution partners, I think it’s a selective approach. I think with our resellers, the sky’s the limit with the amount of resellers we bring on. We want to make sure we empower our resellers and get them what we need through our NAS Solutions Pricing Program and My WD Partner Program."

[Related: Western Digital's HGST Acquires Skyera, Plans Enterprise Flash Solutions]

Through the WD NAS Solutions Pricing Program, distribution partners will benefit from the competitive margins after signing up as a My WD partner. The My WD Partner Program offers rewards to channel partners based on earned points on WD product purchases. They also receive exclusive discounts on products in addition to a payment at the end of each quarter based on the number of points earned from product sales.

"Being a WD partner has been very rewarding," said PJ Romero, senior solution engineer at KIS, a WD partner based in Fremont, Calif. "WD has been instrumental to opening doors that otherwise would be closed to us. The My Cloud and Sentinel storage products have allowed us to fill the void between enterprise- and consumer-based storage. We are most impressed with the value and flexibility that WD brings to the table, allowing our customers more options and better features."

The two new models in the My Cloud Expert Series are redesigned from the ground up, according to WD, and feature either 1-GB or 2-GB Marvell Armada processors and up to 24 TB of storage. The Linux-based servers allow users to back up directly to Dropbox, ElephantDrive or Amazon S3. They also feature the secure WD My Cloud App, which allows users to access and share files, media and documents from anywhere via a mobile device. The DL2100 starts at $349.99, and the DL4100 starts at $529.99.

The two new models in the My Cloud Business Series feature dual-core Atom processors with either 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM for multiuser and multiapplication performance. Storage can be upgraded to up to 24 TB. All data on the servers is protected with WD Red Drives with NASware technology and can be accessed from anywhere via the secure WD My Cloud app. The EX2100 starts at $249.99, and the EX4100 starts at $399.99.

"With our products, it’s somewhat of a hybrid solution because it supports the local cloud storage, which is really important," said Smith. "We feel we are in a good position because we can offer the customer choice. If they want an integrated cloud solution, they can choose to do that and back up all their content onto the cloud. Or they can opt not to use the public cloud at all and keep everything in their own private cloud with our product. It’s that choice and that solution we are providing that’s an easy-to-use platform for them to store and access all of their content as there are a lot of different backup options that we provide to our customers."

PUBLISHED FEB. 26, 2015