Dear Community,
I would be grateful if someone could prove me wrong, but what I found in the forum so far indicates, that WD discourages people to buy multiple drives as it inhibits to use one for data and the other for backup becaus via Smartware you cannot backup one with the other.
My Situation simply is, that the 500 GB Drive of my notebook became too small for my data, which I backupped using a MyBookLive via Smartware. Firstly I enhanced the computer by an external e-sata drive of 1 TB which I still could backup together with MyBookLive unsing Smartware.
Now also the e-sata has reached the end of its capacity and it also became inconvenient to move around in the appartement with a drive wired to the laptop.
The simple solution seemed to me to buy another WD NAS-Product and then use the one to hold all my Data and the other one to back it up (togeter with the local drive of my computer and probably also the local e-sata when it is connected) using Smartware.
What I than had to find out was something, that I had not imagined. It seems to be impossible to tell Smartware to use one (or several) WD NaS Drives as Backup Source. I can only use locally installed Harddisks and HDs that are e.g. attached via e-sata. But not drives that are attached via the Network (NAS).
The Safepoint Option of the myBookLive is of no help, as it is not a Backup-Solution, it seems to be a Snapshot Copy of one NAS alone.
What I need and want is the same backup and restore comfort down to single files or folders for the data on the local dirve(s) AND the data on selected “NAS drives” likewise.
The only idea that I would have - as long as Smartware sticks to this silly restriction - is to look for an possibility to cheat smartware that a mapped NAS-Share has the same “quality” as a say mapped e-sata drive. But I dont know what makes the difference for Windows and if you can cheat it?
Does somenone have an idea how I could map a NAS-Share in a way that it is seen as a attached drive?
The other solution would be to use another Backup-Software than Smartware. I would not necessarily have to be Freeware. Does anyone has an idea?
I can imagen that the product deveolopers of Smartware will also one day find out how silly the restriction is, but I can hardly imagine that I have the time to wait for it.
It is as if they are saying: “Please buy just one WD NAS-Drive if you want to perform simple Data Storage AND Backup” For one of the two purposes we recommend to use the product or a competitor (e-sata) which would rather work together with our NAS-Backip.
Best Regards
Please comment also, if you have the same problem. Maybe it helps to rething product philosophies.
The following Threads deal wiht at least similar Problems but from different angels:
