I am looking to purchase two 4 TB My Cloud Storage devices. I want to keep one in my home (the primary) for normal use and the other in my parents home as a backup.
Basically, I want the backup (a device kept in another location) in case of a fire, theft, or anything else that may result in the total loss of the primary drive. I plan to keep family pictures and videos on it (which is not replaceable).
Would I be able to set up the back up device to automatically connect to the primary on a regular basis (either daily or weekly) to grab all the new files, videos, etc?
Would I be able to set up the back up to delete anything that was deleted from the primary automatically?
if these devices are unable to do this, do you have a suggestion that would work for me?
Bittorent sync comes to mind when syncing two NAS. Unfortunately it isn’t as easy to install on a My Cloud as it is on a WD ex2. On an ex2 you just need to download the app.
On the my cloud you will need to follow the procedures as laid out by this link
If you don’t want to kill your warranty by SSH’ing into your My Cloud, you can probably use your PC/Mac to sync your files between the two locations. I am using a software called “Beyond Compare” that compares two directories, once you have mapped the two Clouds to your PC/Mac, for differences and copies only the changed files.
I called and talked to WD presales. They told me that the MyCloud Mirror will do exactly as I need.
So basically, as I understand it, I will purchase two My Cloud Mirrors (4TB). Set each of them up as RAID0 (I think this is the one that uses both drives in the device) whereas RAID1 uses one drive for normal use and the other as a backup.
Then I put one in my house and one in my parents and they can communicate with each other.
I called and talked to WD presales. They told me that the MyCloud Mirror will do exactly as I need.
So basically, as I understand it, I will purchase two My Cloud Mirrors (4TB). Set each of them up as RAID0 (I think this is the one that uses both drives in the device) whereas RAID1 uses one drive for normal use and the other as a backup.
Then I put one in my house and one in my parents and they can communicate with each other.
Almost but not quite TheJuice.
They will mirror within the single MyCloud Mirror but not from your house to your parents house. There are no raid that will do this for you. It is Raid 1 that is mirroring and with a 4TB My Cloud mirror you will get two x 2TB drives that have the same data.
You will still need to install some sort of sync software to synchronize between your house and your parent’s house.
According to the Mirror User Manual (p74 onwards), it can do remote backups to another Mirror, or to some cloud services, without any additional sync software; remote backup facilities are built-in to the Mirror.
It won’t do RAID mirroring between remotely connected drives, but it will do remote backups.
The manual is less clear about how do start with a local backup, and then change to remote mode using the same backup; I don’t fancy transferring 4TB over an ADSL link… it might take a while… You’d definitely only want to use it for backup deltas.
A backup is different then a mirror. Usually a backup will create a pseudo structure that you must restore first before you can use, where-as a mirror just provides an identical layout of your drive as-is.
Although both will work, I wouldn’t trust a backup because of the restore; if the restore fails you are out of luck. Using Sync between two drives allows you to immediately use the backup as your primary drive until you can you replace either drive that fails.
I know… that’s why I said “It won’t do RAID mirroring between remotely connected drives, but it will do remote backups.”
TheJuice only asked for remote backups, not remote mirroring: “I want to keep one in my home (the primary) for normal use and the other in my parents home as a backup.” It’s clear that he (?) understands that RAID0 in the Mirror will give him the full, non-redundant storage in his home Mirror, and allow him to do remote backups to the remote Mirror at his parents’ house.
Using ‘Mirror’ as shorthand for ‘WD MyCloud Mirror’; I hoped that was apparent from “According to the Mirror User Manual”…
I was unaware that mirror and backup are two different things. I want to secondary drive (at my parents house) to be a mirror of the primary. I don’t want to have to do a restore, or any additional steps to use the secondary, in the case that the primary dies (gets stolen, etc.).
So, I suppose this means that your first response is the best way to go?
Yes the first route is cheaper than getting two mirror clouds. there are software that you can run on your PC that can sync two hard drives one remotely. Although BitTorrent so bc is the best way it is a lot more work to learn
even beyond compare comparing two drives for file difference will work and copies only the changes.
anyways test everything at your place with one drive acting remotely until everything works before moving one to your parents.
I have two MyCloud Devices 2TB & 4TB at two different locations, I use 4TB to back up my 2TB.
I use WDCloud Safepoint to perform the backup, it can be set to update daily, weekly or monthly. Please note that it took 2 days to successully complete backup 1.2TB of data using Safepoint.
Would I be able to set up the back up device to automatically connect to the primary on a regular basis (either daily or weekly) to grab all the new files, videos, etc?
Safepoint can.
Would I be able to set up the back up to delete anything that was deleted from the primary automatically?
When Safepoint runs, it copies over changed and new files, and it deletes files that have been deleted.
I have two MyCloud Devices 2TB & 4TB at two different locations, I use 4TB to back up my 2TB.
At different remote locations (i.e. connected via WAN/internet, not LAN)?
I use WDCloud Safepoint to perform the backup, it can be set to update daily, weekly or monthly. Please note that it took 2 days to successully complete backup 1.2TB of data using Safepoint.
1.2TB of data in 2 days means a data rate of 1.2e12/(2*24*60*60) B/s = 6.9MB/s. Only allowing for a 10b8b encoding (i.e no higher level transport overhead), this requires 69Mb/s.
Unless you have a very fast internet connection at both ends (and a totally unlimited data contract), I suspect that your devices were not connected via the internet, but were connected to the same LAN.
Also, I can’t see any means to connect SafePoint to a remote backup location; it will scan the local network for devices, but I don’t think it allows connection a remote server (unless created by a VPN?).
I think WDwws is the presales guy that TheJuice was talking to; notice the WD prefix and the suffix “wws” means works with sales As well as WDwws is also a new member with one posts. Most of us Users only signs into this Community to complain, and never to tout a WD feature.
Yup I concur with you that 69Mb/s is only possible if you have fiber or an internal lan. I just check my cable and my upload speed is only 6Mbps and 60 or 120Mbps download (mine is 60, max package is 120Mbps).
Regardless I wouldn’t use Safepoint as just below this post is the post on “Safepoint error 36123”; the error number was created by the programmer’s age of 36 followed by his password
You can actually view the individual files in the safepoint backup and I think the files are stored as-is, but the directory structure is completely flattened; thus you have no idea of where to restore the file if you have to manually recover your backup files without a Safepoint restore.
When I said ‘very fast internet’ I meant very fast internet… The dial on Ookla Speedtest only goes up to 50Mbps…
I was sure that you only meant “very fast internet” and not the other one a
nd just because the speedtest only goes up to 50Mbps doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything faster but that is download speed. Upload speed is a measley 6Mb/s
Shaw offers 120Mbs download now which is interesting and they bumped mine from 50Mbs up to 60 and the price for this high speed internet is going up an additional $3/month. This WD Tech support volunteer job is getting expensive.
