In this post I’ll show how to enable auto-mount for encrypted volumes with the Western Digital MyCloud EX2 Ultra NAS. This is a very specific scenario but documenting it for myself and sharing with others as I saw misleading information on forum posts.
Context
A few months ago, I ran into issues with the volume on my Western Digital MyCloud EX2 NAS. After a long series of terminal commands and troubleshooting, I was able to re-enable encryption on my 2 drives, but it caused the auto-mount setting to be disabled. As a result, anytime my NAS rebooted (scheduled or after an update) I had to manually re-mount the encrypted volume.
I looked online for where to update the auto-mount setting in the admin portal. On the Storage –> Volume Encryption tab, I clicked “Modify” but I ran into the same issue other users reported: “Error – Please select one item”.
Screenshot of WD MyCloud EX2 admin portal for Storage -> Volume Encryption
Error dialog for needing to select a volume to modify
The guidance in a WD support forum (7 yrs old now, possibly updates make this no longer correct) was that you need to re-configure RAID mode for the drives. Doing so will erase all of the data on the drives (see warning below).
Configure RAID Mode screen showing warning about erasing data on drives
Solution
It turns out the solution is much easier and doesn’t require erasing all of the data on your drives. Back on the Volume Encryption tab, click the row of the volume (you’ll see a blue border for selection) before clicking Modify.
Screenshot showing selection of volume with blue border on volume
Then enter your password or select the encrypted key file.
Dialog box for entering encryption password or key file
Finally, you will see the option to select “Auto Mount” and click Apply.
Dialog box with checkbox to enable Auto Mount
Now you should be all configured for auto-mounting the encrypted volume. Hopefully this information will help others that got stuck at the same incorrect guidance I originally ran into. Thankfully this information is available in another support article, but my original searches did not find this information, so linking to it from here.
I started this post halfway through 2026 and now finishing it up a few months later, but it is never too late to get started again. This is a tradition I’ve had for many years now of writing a retrospective (2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2016, 2015, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010) or look ahead (2019, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010). In this post I’ll review some of the big goals and accomplishments that I had through 2025.
Milestones
Looking back at my 2024 retrospective, I had a number of big goals that I was planning ahead for 2025. I’m happy to say that I completed a number of those goals.
Half marathon
A little story on this one first. I recently told a friend that I completed my first half marathon in 2025. They said “ohh, you must really like running” to which I replied “no.” Then why did you do it? That gets to the heart of the matter. Why did I subject myself to almost a full year of training, weekly runs of 4-10 miles, cold / hot weather, and push my body well beyond anything I had ever done before?
The answer to that goes back many years. When I was born, I had a condition called hip dysplasia. Essentially the “ball” part of my right leg bone wasn’t fully in the hip “socket”. Doctors test for this but somehow mine wasn’t fully diagnosed or corrected. Over time the hip portion under-developed so that the joint floats more than the ball being properly in the curved socket. When I finally diagnosed this in my teen years (after it started hurting regularly with sports) the doctor told me I’d need a hip replacement by the time I was 40 and likely need other assistance later in life. Other than that, keep exercising and stop when something hurts too much.
Since that time, I’ve followed the latter part to keep pushing myself until it hurts. Originally it started out with running 1 mile, then signing up for my first 5k over 10 years ago, then moving to quarter marathon / 10k, and finally last year with a half marathon. It definitely pushed me more than I had ever thought I could go, but that was the point. My training plan, nutrition changes, and support from other runners really helped. Huge thanks also to my wife and kids who braved the bad weather to cheer me on at 3 different spots on the course. I’m so thankful to have completed (despite the terrible weather and conditions)!
I don’t plan to sign up for another half marathon given the amount of time it takes in training and away from family, but I have already completed another 5k, quarter marathon, and 10k in 2026 so far. Perhaps in the future when kids are older I would explore this again.
Reading
In 2025, I read 17 books with a goal of 8. A few standout books:
With 3 kids who are growing up in the digital age this was a very timely read. I appreciate how the author writes about not just what you try to limit with young kids, but also the timing with their developmental growth. There are certain points in development when negative influences will have an increased impact. Highly recommend.
John Cleese is a very funny person and reading this book I could hear his voice in my head as I read it. It is a very short book with not many novel ideas, but it is very succinctly written and worth reading.
As my wife and I are hitting “middle age” and our parents are getting older, this was a good reflection on how we spend our money, what we deem as important, and planning for later stages in life. The goal is not that you should spend / give away all of your money to the point of running out, but be thoughtful in when and how you want to save / spend so that you are able to enjoy experiences, etc.
I enjoyed this trio of books for the scientific walkthroughs, the outlandish scenarios, and also sharing reading with my kids who laughed greatly at a few of these.
Work and pace of life
This is a challenging area for me. Within the last ~2.5 years, my role at work has shifted towards AI (first on the extensibility side and now into core platform). With that shift, the pace of work and expectations have risen dramatically.
Years ago, what used to be a cycle of big moment releases (2-3) throughout the calendar year morphed into more of a release early and often (usually on the order of 2-4 weeks) approach. This means that there are rarely “downtimes” throughout the year to step back, assess how things went, and plan what is coming next. Not to say that one is better than the other, but the continual fast pace can lead to burn out. I’ve noticed this in myself and (even here in 2026) am processing how to adapt and take time for self-care.
Diaconate formation
As a follow-up to my 2024 retrospective, I am still in the Inquirer phase for the diaconate. I’ve completed all of my courses so far and now awaiting the next opening for Aspirancy phase in 2027. I’m still discussing timing with my family and spiritual director. If / when accepted in, this would begin a 5 yr process of discernment, classes, and formation. Currently I’m leaning towards holding off until the next cycle (2 yrs later in 2029) but we shall see what God holds for this.
Conclusion
There are many other active things going on (den leader for Cub Scouts, volunteering at church, trips with family, learning Spanish, etc.), but this is a brief overview. The important thing in writing this down has been good to get back into the habit of sharing more. Some of that is related to work / family demands on time, but I do want to take more time to get active in community (online and in-person) again. What are your goals for the current / next year?
Disclaimer: Yes, I know it is already 3+ months into 2025 as I write this. I’ve put off writing in general for too long, but it’s never too late to start back up again.
Milestone
Last year I turned 40. It feels odd to say that in general, but looking back over the last ~2 years it has been a time of big change personally, professionally, and with my family. I recently commented on a Bluesky post from a random user who mentioned they were also turning 40.
Going from 39 to 40 was a much bigger "reflection -> take action" point in my life than I would have imagined. I had a list of really big "someday I'd like to…" items that I started consciously working on and now I'm actively pushing forward with in my life.Make time for yourself.
When I was 39 and looking ahead to 40, there were a number of big things that I wanted to do in the coming 5+ years. I think that arbitrary age of “turning 40” was a good motivational kick to get started on those goals. Already I’ve started:
Learning Spanish (again) – 755 day streak on Duolingo
Training for half marathon race
Started Diaconate pre-req classes and formation discussions
Applied and accepted into management position for my team at work
If you are looking at big, audacious goals in your life, what concrete steps are you taking to achieve them and on what timeline?
Exercise
As mentioned above, one of my goals is to complete a half marathon race. In 2023-2024 I increased my walking routine on my home office treadmill, getting up to 12 miles per week (4 days a week of ~3 miles). Now that we’re into 2025 I’ve also registered for a 5k (completed in March), 10k (2 months away in June), and half marathon (Oct 2025).
A big thank you to a number of friends who have shared training plans, nutrition advice, and encouragement for my half marathon training. I’m also incorporating other strength and core workouts to help prepare. Looking forward to crossing that finish line in 6 months!
Reading
Since 2021 I have been reading books more regularly. You can view my profile on GoodReads along with “read” and “want to read” lists.  I set my 2024 GoodReads challenge to read 8 books and ended at reading 9. A few were last minute short reads at the end of the year, but still made it. One thing I did notice is that I had gotten very heavy into religious books (for classes and related) but found that I enjoyed mixing up into other topics. Going forward I’m trying spread out topics so that I keep up interest in reading more regularly.
My 3 children are starting to grow into adolescence / pre-teen. My wife and I have had conversations about making the most of our time with our children while they are still young and making memories. I appreciate how this book gives simple advice for “being present” with family members. It is not about what you buy them, lavish trips / vacations, or even the words that you say to them. It is about simply showing up and creating an environment where children feel safe and encouraged. I would recommend this to parents / caregivers, but primarily with younger children if possible.
As a Catholic / Christian, I’ve heard the story of the Prodigal Son dozens of times for decades. I read this book as part of a men’s group at my church. I was fascinated with how the author dissected various aspects of this painting, applied them to different perspectives of the characters in the story, and related it to his own personal life and journey. Even if you are not practicing a faith, highly recommend reading for reflection.
Many of us can likely relate to feeling overwhelmed, not getting enough rest, and constantly playing catch up after you do “rest”. I enjoyed the ways this author outlined building rest into your daily / weekly / annual life, how to use rest time more effectively, and setting expectations around self-care. You can’t perform at your best if you are constantly fatigued. Personally I’ve struggled with this (borderline burnout) in the past year+, so this is definitely an area I need to work more on.
For my 2025 GoodReads challenge I’ve set a goal to read 8 books again and already making progress.
Diaconate formation
As mentioned in my 2023 retrospective, I’ve begun pre-requisite classes to become a deacon within the Catholic Church. I have completed 5 requirements and only have 1 remaining. I’m already starting to read the book for the next class so that I don’t get overwhelmed with class work in addition to work / family life. I’ve also been helped by meeting every other month with a spiritual director (priest from my hometown) to discuss life, faith, and my future endeavors.
Work & management role
In early 2024, I applied for and was accepted to take a management position for my current team (M365 Copilot Extensibility CPx). I had been discussing with my then manager about moving into a management role. I had been interested to take a small step back from the technical focus of my role and instead grow in guiding the careers of my teammates. It has been just over a year since I took on this role and it has been very rewarding so far. I can’t say if this will be my continued path forever, but I look to continue pushing myself and others to be the best that we can.
One aspect that has been a challenge in the last year is the pace of work life combined with my children growing older and being active in more activities. As I tell some of my peers, the AI boom has been “gas pedal to the floor for 12-18 months” and not let up much. In the past we used to have cycles of intense pushes and then lulls to build up for the next push. With our AI advancements, most of those former lulls are now additional mini-marketing moments, pivots to more promising focus areas, or similar. I truly treasure the time off that I take for family vacations or other needs. It is important to “touch ground” so that I can recharge my own personal batteries.
Learning Spanish
One interesting side item is that I started to (re-)learn Spanish. In grade school and high school when I took 5 years of Spanish classes. I signed our family up for Duolingo (everyone now learning at least 1 language / music / mathematics) as well as try to find time to practice with others from my church (large Hispanic population) or peers at work. I’m on a 760-day streak so far and enjoying this very much. If you’d like to practice together sometimes reach out and let me know.
Conclusion
2024 (and now part of 2025) feels like it has flown by. Reflecting on what I wanted to accomplish has truly been helpful in making intentional choices on how I spend my time, deciding what I say no to (to make time for the things I say yes to), and setting up longer term plans. I hope 2024 treated you well and that you are making progress on your own goals. Feel free to share any of your experiences in the comments or link to your own reflection from 2024.
For the past few years I have been making good use of my home office treadmill (Treadly 2) as well as biking with my kids. In 2023 I increased the number of days of exercise (33% of days up to 45%) as well as total distance for the year.
I don’t have specific goals for 2024 but looking to continue my exercise (2-4 days a week on treadmill for 60-80 mins).
Reading
Since 2021 I have been reading books more regularly. You can view my profile on GoodReads along with “read” and “want to read” lists.  I set my 2023 GoodReads challenge to read 8 books and ended at reading 12. I was on track to read more but with my Diaconate classes (more on that next) my time was wrapped in classwork and required reading for my class for half of the year. A few noteworthy books from 2023:
I had previously read The 5 Love Languages with my wife. This book takes those same “languages” but adapts to them to the workplace. I actually used the lessons from this book in an org-wide initiative about Feeling Recognition. I was happy to have direct application from book to real-world in this case.
I read this book as part of a book club within my larger group at work. I found this an interesting read compared to John Doerr’s Measure What Matters. We had many lively discussions about how to apply these concepts to our semester planning and OKR settings.
For my 2024 GoodReads challenge I’ve set a goal to read 8 books again.
Diaconate classes
For the past 4+ years I’ve had reflections on my personal calling to become a deacon within the Catholic Church. I’ve been very active in various groups and ministries throughout my life, but in these past few years this has come up more regularly.
After speaking with a few deacons at our church, my wife and I finally decided to meet with the deacon in charge of formation in our diocese. He was very open and supportive of my interests and had great points for further reflection.
Currently I am in the inquirer phase and have taken 2 pre-requisite classes and just about to start my 3rd class. The whole experience has been very fulfilling as well as helping me adopt a few daily good habits that lead to improved overall well-being. I am continuing in my discernment, but any major next steps won’t happen until 2025-2026.
Copilot for Microsoft 365
In my role at Microsoft, our Microsoft Graph Customer and Partner Experience team made a large shift in priorities around May 2023 to expand our coverage of Microsoft 365 developer integrations, specifically with Copilot for Microsoft 365. This included expanding our Microsoft Graph TAP to rebrand as the Microsoft 365 Developer TAP and incorporate Copilot extensibility topics.
This has been quite the whirlwind for the past 8+ months but exciting times to be at the forefront of this new AI technology offerings. 2024 will continue with these investments across my individual team and larger org.
Family
As you might have noticed, I slowed down on blogging in 2023. This was primarily related to the above two items of Diaconate classes and Copilot for M365 work, but also to increases in involvements with my family. I’m a den leader for my son’s Cub Scout den, fill-in for coaching various sports teams my kids are on, as well as volunteering for different church programs and events. Combined with my wife returning to work part time the end of last year and that left little time for side projects with blogging.
My wife and I also celebrated our 10 yr wedding anniversary. We took a wonderful 6-day trip out to Arizona and had the most amazing time with hiking, train ride, music, and good meals.
I’ll revisit blogging and videos more regularly in the future, but for now you can take a look at 2 Copilot & Graph connectors videos I produced with our marketing team in 2023.
Extend Copilot for Microsoft 365 with external data with Graph connectors
Use Microsoft Graph Connectors To Integrate External Data With Microsoft 365
Conclusion
2023 was a packed year with new experiences, family events, and more. I hope you had a joy-filled year and grew personally and professionally. Feel free to share any of your experiences in the comments or link to your own reflection from 2023. Looking forward to all that 2024 has to offer.
If you don’t communicate the results, how are you growing / learning / improving?
Personal story
For years my wife and / or I have enjoyed hosting various events (ex. friends Thanksgiving meal, board game night, camping trip, etc.) During the pandemic we stopped hosting many of those events. Fast-forward to the past year and separate friends made comments about feeling left out at not being invited to these types of events (thinking we had continued to host but not invited them). Our lack of communication led to misunderstandings.
Applications to work
Recently I completed the Growth Series program from Reforge. One of the modules covers experimentation. The idea presented is that our growth system has a cycle of:
Growth model – Growing engagement, retention, etc.
User Psychology – Understand our users and how they make decisions
Experimentation – Tweaking variables to improve our product and reinforce growth model
Through the process of running experiments, we need to communicate out the results, otherwise it breaks the cycle and leads to a useless process. This can apply to experiments run, feedback gathered, or status on OKRs (objectives and key results), and more.
Methods for communication
How and what you communicate will depend on a number of factors.
Asynchronous or synchronous?
Targeted or broad audience?
Narrative story or metrics?
Etc.
For example, my Microsoft Graph CPx team has used a number of mechanisms including monthly newsletters, stakeholder briefing meetings, Power BI dashboards, customer story emails, and more.
Systems for success
Taking ideas from the book Atomic Habits, how can you set up systems for success, or what I like to affectionately call “fall into the pit of success”? Make your communication mechanisms visible, easy to complete, and easily motivated. This might include:
Setting a recurring team-level calendar reminder X days before due date
Create a template for how / what you want filled out
Use workflows / dashboards to collate information
Conclusion
Doing the work is important, but we must remember to complete the cycle by communicating out the results. This will help inform how we iterate and improve the next cycle. Personally, I’m keeping this in mind to improve on each project and effort I’m leading or participating in.
Please share in comments what techniques or approaches are helping you be more effective at communicating results?
This week is “Perspectives Week” (time to request or provide feedback to peers across the org / company) so I’ll share out some of my tips on how I approach this:
Where
I use our internal MSConnect tool for majority of feedback requests, but also Yammer Praise for sending kudos / feedback to people who may not have requested feedback from me.
Who
Identify a mix of people inside your group (M2, aka manager’s manager, level and below) as well as outside.
Target individuals in varying roles (ex. marketing, engineering, sales, etc.)
When
I like to request feedback 2x times per calendar year, ~2 months before my next semesterly review cycle (called a “Connect”).
This usually lands Feb-Mar and Sept-Oct. This also avoids semester planning timeframes when many teams are heads down on writing / reviewing papers.
Do not request feedback from someone more than 1x per year.
This is not a hard requirement, but I find my own feedback for someone doesn’t change drastically within a given year.
How
Customize your request for feedback.
Include specific projects / teams / work efforts that you have collaborated on to focus the person’s feedback on.
Ex. “As we have been working together on <Project X>, I would appreciate any feedback you can share on my work or areas for improvement. Thank you for your time and attention.”
Provide constructive / usable feedback.
When filling out feedback for others, take the time to share actionable or thought-provoking feedback.
Avoid “you’re doing a great job” type bland feedback.
Two final notes.
Use the feedback system that makes sense
Not everyone is comfortable with sharing feedback is an official tool. Others may prefer 1:1 chat / email / face to face.
Don’t worry if you don’t get a response
People are busy. I know a number of peers who are overwhelmed by the number of feedback requests they receive (in addition to normal work). You can “nudge” someone 1:1 if they haven’t responded on your feedback request, but also be respectful of their time.
How do you approach sharing and requesting feedback? Share your thoughts in the comments.
