Copying files from attached USB drive

What method is recommend for copying files from an attached USB drive to a share on the NAS? 

I’m aware that you can connect via SSH. Is it possible to cp files in a screen session so as to disconnect and leave it running over night or something? Short of disconnecting the NAS from it’s current location this seems like the best approach for me since via wifi I’m only getting around 5mb/s

Would this void my warrenty?

Yes.  It appears as a share and you can drag and drop files into/from it from anywhere. NO need for ssh and the like. If you are using it for safepoint, the safepoint itself will not be bevisible, so be careful not to fill it up and leave room for backup. Well, … at least on my machine.

You could either map the shares as Jamalaua suggests, and use Windows explorer to move things around, or you could use the WD MyCloud app. The latter choice will avoid having data roundtripping from the NAS to the NAS/USB

Etupes wrote:

You could either map the shares as Jamalaua suggests, and use Windows explorer to move things around, or you could use the WD MyCloud app. The latter choice will avoid having data roundtripping from the NAS to the NAS/USB

I did not suggest mapping at all.

I said it will appear as a share (the usb drive) , and wd mycloud app or whatever.; can drag and drop from anywhere,. whether mycloud app, network,. shares whaetver. 

Tthe point is he does not need ssh to copy which many people now thinks ssh  is the magic wand.

Thanks both of you for the advice. I didn’t know that the WD Mycloud app offered such. By which you mean that it does:

USB > NAS 

and not

USB > Host  > Nas

The reason I ask about SSH and Screen is that I’d rather leave my machine off in the process since it’ll probably take a while to copy. 

Does the underlining debian install come installed with screen? and will it void my warrenty installing it if is doesn’t? Does accessing ssh and performing such actions void the warrenty? 

There is a warning that pops up when you turn on SSH that using this feature will void your warranty.

“you could use the WD MyCloud app. The latter choice will avoid having data roundtripping from the NAS to the NAS/USB”

  • I hope that works.   Havn’t tried that yet (with USB attached drive), but tried copying a large number of small files (3GB, 10,000 files) from the PC to the MyCloud via the network, using the app, and found two fatal flaws:

(1) it is extremely slow, and not because of network bandwidth: each tiny file takes a second or so, must be due to protocol overhead, and

(2) all the file datestamps from Windows were forgotten, replaced on the NAS with the date of the copy operation.

Would either of these issues be bypassed when using the app to copy from a USB drive attached directly to the NAS?

If not, I’d have to use the Windows file explorer to do a massive copy from USB drive to NAS, but then the roundtrip network bandwidth would be the limit.  Would connecting the NAS to the PC directly (via a network cable but without the external network) be faster?

I do not know whether the file stamp issue would persist when using the desktop app to copy from the USB drive to the NAS.

Connecting directly the NAS to the PC would remove possible bottlenecks between the computer and the NAS, obviously, and if you have a gigabit port on your computer, you would be in good shape, but the main bottleneck is the usb connection itself. For some reason, only certain disks (in particular WD disks :slight_smile: demonstrate reasonable USB 3.0 speeds. 

For example, I get about 6MB/s to a no-WD USB2.0 disk.

My USB drive is only USB2.  But I would be very happy if I were to get USB2 speeds!  The network will probably limit me to 100 Mbps or so (not a gigabit system).  That’s the reason to use the USB drive, plugged directly into the NAS, to avoid the network.  But if the per-file overhead persists, the operation would still be terribly slow.  Using the My Cloud app, I could see, with the naked eye, its status window saying

   File: xxx, 1KB - preparing

and then

   File: xxx, 1KB of 1KB copied

and then the same for the next file, 10,000 to go…  This seemed to take exactly the same time for a 1KB file as a 100KB file - not a bandwidth issue.  And that’s with the PC’s internal SATA drive, not a USB drive.  It can write to a USB stick a lot faster!

The WD mycloud app isn’t acceptable IMO as previously stated it doesn’t preserve timestamp information. I wonder why when implementing this feature they didn’t include what seemly useful information with performing a backup. 

This solution would have been the ideal way without voiding my warrenty as I’m only connected via Wifi to the box and get like 5-10mb/s. 

inversechi wrote:

The WD mycloud app isn’t acceptable IMO as previously stated it doesn’t preserve timestamp information. I wonder why when implementing this feature they didn’t include what seemly useful information with performing a backup. 

 

 

This solution would have been the ideal way without voiding my warrenty as I’m only connected via Wifi to the box and get like 5-10mb/s. 

HI inversechi

To be honest with you I did not notice any difference using SSH or windows machine or a laptop. SSH has no advantage IMHO.

Copying 8.5 G from PC to a drive connected to mycloud  (external drive <->mycloud) using mycloud app took 5 minutes. Over Wifi, using wd app, took 5 minutes as well. Both direction reading/writing.

Is your drive a self contained USB 2 drive? as some mentioned above some drives probably have problems.

I shoved a SATA 2 drive (really old MDT brand) into a USB 3.0 docking station and connected that to mycloud and I get brilliant results 38 MB/s both directions using WD app.

For Wifi, you really need a good signal to get fast transfer speed. i use Wireless N like everyone these days (29MB/s).
If your drive is self contained USB drive then it could be comaptiblity (on either side or both). For exampel the same drive (docking station 3.0) I am using does not work with my router which has USB 2.0.

Are you doing select all to copy files or using the drop down menu and choosing copy (the 3 bars options next to the folder). But not sure if it makes any difference.

I have by now tried it using the MyCloud PC app.  Even when transfering from USB drive attached to the WDMC, the date stamps are lost.  Thus it’s useless to me.  Moreover, I had serious problems with the UI.  I’ll post more about this in another thread.  But those issues prevented me from testing the speed of transfer of many small files.  One large file was somewhat faster than via the Wireless network.

Where did you find a “select all”?  I couldn’t find such, that is one reason I could not test the transfer of a folder full of many small files.  Also, the right-click menu (which includes “copy”) only appears in the right pane, where folders do not appear.

no I was asking if you selected all files manually. I just used copy from the drop menu next to the folder.
I just used wd app for testing only. I don’t really use it. I use Windows robocopy, or you can download “fastcopy” free software. very fast for Windows only.

Like previous mentioned the WD My Cloud app does the job except losing the timestamps on files which is vital and a no go for me. I think I’ll just copy over wifi or plug it directly into my laptop which is a bit of a pain.

you are not limited to the app, Windows file manager keeps the timestam and most other file managers.

Yes but the original subject here is how to copy large amounts of data from a USB drive to the WDMC without the data making a round trip over the network to the PC and back.  I have found no solution.  Resorted to using Windows for copying, from a PC with a wired connection to the router, that’s several times faster than the wireless connection, in my system.  Also, used the Windows freeware “Fastcopy” for a somewhat faster copy of large numbers of small files.

mbraner wrote:

Yes but the original subject here is how to copy large amounts of data from a USB drive to the WDMC without the data making a round trip over the network to the PC and back.  I have found no solution.  Resorted to using Windows for copying, from a PC with a wired connection to the router, that’s several times faster than the wireless connection, in my system.  Also, used the Windows freeware “Fastcopy” for a somewhat faster copy of large numbers of small files.

 

Like any other device/computer; you have to log in to wdmycloud and copy from there to the USB drive.  If you know a bit of Linux you have a variety of options to copy (watch out for the caveat with ssh). Wether is ti faster or not, you will need to test.

Currently, I “ssh” to the box and then run “cp” command, eg.

“cp  /var/media//   /shares/Public” .

It’s pretty fast since there’s no windows PC acting as a “middle man” in the file transfer.

The only drawback is it’s command-line text based method and I have to issue “cp” command for each file I wanna copy.

Anyone know a debian pkg program that is a web-based file manager which can be installed in wdmycloud?

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