Hi all,
I need some suggestions on the best way to back up my 3TB MyCloud drive given the equipments available to me, as I heard that if the HDD in MyCloud device ever fails, data recovery can be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
I have recently bought a WD Blue 3TB internal HDD and it’s still in it’s still a fresh drive with no data on it.
My plan is to first map the MyCloud drive to my PC as a “local” drive, then hook this new WD Blue HDD onto my PC, create identical folder structure on this drive as the MyCloud, then finally use Window’s folder sync (or any good third party folder syncing apps) to sync the contents in the folders between the 2 drives.
I know the WD MyCloud has a USB port designed for backing up, but I’d personally like to be able to see the content of the backup on my PC, additionally, I can use the WD Blue HDD to store other contents I have that I don’t need to be backed up.
So my questions are:
Will this work? Since the data on MyCloud are encrypted will I be able to sync folders freely on Windows 10?
Any other more effective backup solutions given the eqipments I have?
Any good alternatives to the official Windows 10 folder syncing tool?
I’m very open to suggestions and would be appreciate any help/advice.
That’s true of any HDD. Which is why everyone recommends backups.
Yes, it will work. All you’re doing is the reverse of the more usual process of backing up a PC to the MyCloud. You need to decide which is the ‘master’ disk, and which is the backup. It’s more usual for the PC to be the master, but it’s not wrong for the NAS to be the master.
The data on the MyCloud is NOT encrypted. You will be able to access and sync the folders without problem.
An internal disk will be the fastest transfer, so your proposal is better and simpler than any external drives. The downside is that you cannot lock the backup disk away, or put it in a firesafe.
You probably want to think about what sort of backup mechanism you want for which types of files, and, again, which disk is master. If your MyCloud has other users, who will change their data autonomously, then you want your PC backup disk to be a slave, operating in a mirror backup mode. If the MyCloud is a shared repository, then you may want to use a sync mode (where disks are multi-master, and changes at either end are replicated). You may even consider real-time sync mode for some files.
I use FreeFileSync, operating in mirror mode for backup to extrenal disks (for media and infrequenctly modified data), and in manual sync mode for some files I access via the PC and via the MyCloud (with tablets and remotely).
First, there is a difference between backing up the My Cloud and syncing contents from the My Cloud. Syncing and Backing up are two DIFFERENT functions and accomplishes two different tasks.
Backing up the My Cloud contents is generally a one way affair. You are copying the data from the My Cloud to another location; either to a USB hard drive attached to the My Cloud or to another local network location.
Syncing contents from/to the My Cloud generally means a two way process, content is being synced from your computer TO the My Cloud and from the My Cloud TO your comptuer.
Your thread title states backing up yet you are talking about syncing, which is it? Do you wan to backup the My Cloud or sync the contents of your computer and my cloud?
The contents of the My Cloud is not typically encrypted unless the user encrypted the contents of the files/data. You can use WD Sync (http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en) to sync files to/from your computer and the My Cloud. WD Sync has a number of issues, some prefer to use third party solutions like Free File Sync (http://www.freefilesync.org/).
There are numerous programs/software to backup your computer TO the My Cloud. Including the WD Smartware program. To backup the My Cloud to another location the My Cloud INCLUDES a backup option called either Safepoint or Backup depending on the firmware version of the My Cloud. See the My Cloud User Manual or the My Cloud Dashboard Help for more information on using either Safepoint or Backup to copy the entire contents of the My Cloud (and its settings) to another location, be it a USB hard drive attached to the My Cloud or another location on the local network.
To backup the My Cloud to a local hard drive one will have to configure either the entire local hard drive or a folder on the local hard drive for “Sharing”. Do an internet search for directions on how to configure Sharing of your local hard drive or folder on your computer’s Operating System. For example see the following link (the subsuection “How to Share Partitions or External Hard Drives with the Network”) for general Windows 10 directions:
Thanks for the information! I don’t know why I thought the data on MyCloud are encrypted. Thanks for clarifying. So is it right to say that if the MyCloud device fails (not the HDD), such as the ethernet port is somehow broken, then it is relatively easy to retrieve data on the HDD? Say if I extract the HDD out of the device and plug it into my PC will I see the same folders on the HDD? Thanks!
One further comment. When using a USB hard drive attached to the My Cloud the USB hard drive shows up as a “Share” within the My Cloud and is fully accessible to anyone who can access the My Cloud. One would still have complete access to a hard drive installed into a USB enclosure/hard drive docking station and then connected to their My Cloud. One would simply “map” the USB “Share” to their computer and it would be treated as an attached hard drive.
Thanks for the information! You’ve made a very good point about Syncing and Back up, I never really thought about that (my bad!). Say if I use Free File Sync to sync a folder between MyCloud and on my PC’s local disk, if the image/video files on MyCloud somehow become corrupted, will this reflect on the synced folder on my PC’s local disk? This would be a very undesirable behaviour…
Cheers for that, I didn’t know that either! That would open up more options for me on how to utilise my WD Blue 3TB HDD, may put it in an external HDD enclosure! Thanks!
