Backup utility; where is it?

Software WD Utilities
1

Hi

I just plugged a USB drive into my WD TV Live Hub and looked on the TV menu (and web interface) for the backup feature, but as far as I can see, there isn’t one. Given that all drives eventually fail, I find it utterly astounding that there’s no backup feature on this device. Has this not been discussed before on the forum (a search for ‘backup’ didn’t reveal very much information)?

Bri 

2

Also, whenever I plug a USB disk into the box it tries to update the media contents (even though it is set not to). Both that and the lack of backup utility are a bit irritating to say the least.

Bri

PS: It would be good to have SSH access to this box so I could use Linux cp command to back it up; anyone here hacked into it yet as backing up hundreds of GB by dragging it through the PC’s network card and then back over the network to the box’s USB attached drive is a totally ridiculous situation. I’ll try sticking the USB drive into a Qnap NAS and pull the info that way (at least that’ll save me having a PC switched on over night) but I can’t say I’m at all impressed that there’s no backup to USB option in the WD box.

Edit: That doesn’t seem to be an option either as it’d need rsync enabled in the WD 

3

For someone so obsessed with a “Back Up” option, you would have thought you would have checked this out before you bought the box.

I don’t know off the top of my head if any have a backup, not that I have looked.

And if you don’t want to drag back GBs to a PC, where did you want the backup to go, surely not onto another hard drive that may fail, how many hard drives do you need, a backup of a backup of a backup.

It seems you want a Hard drive backup system, I wanted it to play videos. :slight_smile:

4

Backing up is rather simple. First buy a back up disc. Then find yourself a sync app or backup app. Copy all the files you want on your WDTV-hub to the back up disc. From there sync them with you WDTV-hub.

Be aware you’ll get a back-up app that can back-up to network drives…!

It will take sometime though… the missing back-up is not such a problem. The slow drive in the hub is.

5

RE: Backing up is rather simple. First buy a back up disc. Then find yourself a sync app or backup app. Copy all the files you want on your WDTV-hub to the back up disc. From there sync them with you WDTV-hub.

Hi

Yes, but the way I wish to drive it is to rip DVD’s then deposit them to the WD over the network (I don’t keep them stored on my PC). After adding 10 or so new ones, to plug in the USB drive and back the WD up locally (so I don’t need a PC switched on all the time). I will now have to rip DVD’s to a USB drive, physically take it through and then plug in and sync it that way; it doesn’t seem a very efficient way to do things when a simply ‘backup to USB’ option could be added to the WD on screen menu (or even via the web interface).

RE: And if you don’t want to drag back GBs to a PC, where did you want the backup to go, surely not onto another hard drive that may fail, how many hard drives do you need, a backup of a backup of a backup.

Hi

All HDD’s fail in time; it’s not a matter of if, but when. I’ve owned many different NAS type devices over the years (Netgear ReadyNAS, D-Link, Qnap and even a £60 unbranded CPC NAS) and all have had the option to back up to a USB drive. This is a media player, but it is effectively sold as a type of NAS (it even has Twonky on it) so you’d expect some way to back it up. I wouldn’t expect to have to check there was a backup to USB option; it should just be there.

It is a well acknowledged principle that you should have backups of any data you keep on a HDD. To do this with full WDTV box over the network would take days, and whilst this is in progress, you have to leave a PC switched on to do it. All I am saying is that there should be an on screen button to back up to the USB drive, so you could just plug in the USB drive, start it and let it trundle away at its own pace.

Yes, I want it to play ripped DVD’s as well, but when that drive eventually packs in, I don’t want to have to rip all the DVD’s again; to not have a backup is to bury your head in the sand (I’ve had to rescue 5 people’s dead NAS’s and 3 peoples dead PC’s over the past year; all because they didn’t bother to take backups).

Bri

NB Yes, I do have two HDD backups for my current systems; I have an on-site and off-site backup of my own NAS. I’d not sleep well if I didn’t have backups as that would be an insane gamble to take (I know from other people’s sob stories)! :slight_smile:

6

Hi

Is there any way WD could consider enabling an FTP service on the WD box? If they did, I could plug a USB disk into my Qnap NAS, then use the bacup from FTP server (Real Time Remote Replication) to extract the data from the WDTV box.  That way, the NAS (whihc is always on anyway) could congtol things rather than leavig a PC on for days.

Bri

7

I think the easiest way is to use replication sync software for the files in the directories to a remote drive, otherwise every backup of media would be large and take a long time, once you’ve ripped your media, there are only occassional changes, when you add/remove media.

I had a similar problem, nearly filled the hub with my media I spent a few months ripping, so I bought a cheap 2 TB external WD elements drive to add more space and back up the HUB drive, as I didn’t want to go through the ripping again to rebuild it if I lost the drive.

I kept my movies directory (about 650GB) on the WD live hub 1 TB internal drive, I’ve moved my TV Series,music & pictures (about 350GB worth) to the external USB drive plugged into the hub.

I created a directory on the external USB drive called .backup, the WD ignores this directory for the media library as it is a hidden directory starting with fullstop (had to use DOS command MKDIR for this as explorer doesn’t like creating files starting . I made a copy of the movies directory from the hub to the external USB drive .backup directory (did this on the hub copy directory option which is much faster than using via network PC).

I made a copy of the TV Series/music/picture directories onto my PC.

I now use a PC package called Puresync, which is freeware for personal usage, to synchronise the directories between the HUB/USB/PC, you can set it up on lots of events or time, I just run it manually when I’ve added media, as I’m not adding that much media now its setup, the occassional movie, picture or CD. If the drive crashes on the hub, or media is deleted by mistake, I have copies on the external USB or PC, if I lose the drive on the external USB or PC, I have copies on the other drives.

I had abit of media compiling as I moved files around, the only other problem I found was that the sort by folder option does not show all the media on the hub, I have to go into the Hub drive or the USB external drive, If i remove the folder filter, it shows all the media on both drives, but removes the folder structure, so its really messy and takes allot longer browsing media, so the way I have it set is filter by folder, choose Hub for Movies, external drive for TV Series, Music & Pictures.