Hidden backup - can I change that?

WD Legacy Products My Book Live
1

Hi all,

After doing my first backup, I find that the files are all hidden.  This was a surprise, since I have a Seagate that also does backup, but all the files are visible and accessible.  I wonder why WD went this route.

I have two questions:

1.  Is there any way to make the backup visible and accessible?

2.  Does anyone know if WD has any plans to change this?

At least we should have an option as to which way we want to go- hidden or visible.  The hidden backup only serves one purpose, as backup, but if it was visible, it would also be useable.

Thanks for any ideas.

2

1- Accessible by typing \theipaddressofyourdriveonWindowsexplorer\smartware

2- WD said in the past it’s intentional to avoid data corruption on the backup due to user error

If I were you, I’d leave the backup alone and copy the files you need manually for access, or use another program that allows you to select a backup destination.

3

Thanks for the response PizzaMatrix.

By accessible I mean by other programs, like a media player.  I don’t know how to make the media player look under \theipaddressofyourdriveonWindowsexplorer\smartwa​re.  All it sees right now are the public folders.

I can see WD’s point, about protecting users from themselves, but at least give us the option to decide if we need protecting.  One of the reasons I bought this drive which included the backup software was because I had a good experience with my Seagate, but this software is unusable to me because it hides the data.

4

Then use another software to copy the files, I use my MBL with Windows backup but you’ll need to set a private share with a password as the target. Again, I’d suggest any backup software that allows you to select the public folder (Or any other share) as a target.

5

Yes it looks like the backup software is not going to work for me.  Too bad.  I wish they would mention that detail in the manual, before letting the user spend time upgrading the software and learning it.

I suppose to uninstall it I would go to Control panel, add or remove programs?

After I uninstall, how would I get WDQuickView back again without going through the whole setup routine again?

Thanks.

6

fred9999 wrote:

I suppose to uninstall it I would go to Control panel, add or remove programs?

Yep.

fred9999 wrote:

After I uninstall, how would I get WDQuickView back again without going through the whole setup routine again?

I think you can uninstall Smartware but leave the quickview active.

1 Like
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yeah, if you want to back up a media file, and also use it for streaming, you’d have two copies of the file on the MBL, using smartware.  If you want your backup file to also get streamed, yeah use 3rd party.

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Well that’s what I was afraid of.  When I uninstalled Smartware, the Quickview also disappeared.

Could you tell me what’s an easy way to get Quickview back?  Whenever I go through the discovery thing, it always gives me new mappings for the drive… I’d rather avoid that.

Thanks.

9

you can have smartware installed and just tell it not to back anything up.  No need to uninstall the whole thing, unless it’s really cauing some conflict.

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdfmb_live

10

Too late,  I already uninstalled Smartware.

I’d like to just install the Quickview, if I’m going to install anything.

Anyone know how to do that  (easily, without going through the setup again)?

Thanks.

11

The installation disc of the MBL gave me the option to only install the quickview.

12

Just a quick note–a backup is a second copy of your data on a different physical device and is meant to provide security if one of the devices should fail.  It isn’t actually safe to access your backed up files casually.  For example, media players *love* to change the metadata contained in music files.

SmartWare copies your files using the same directory structure as the originals and does not alter, compress, or encrypt them.  This is one thing that makes SmartWare reliable–unlike Time Machine or Windows Backup, where you must use the same software to retrieve your files.

For your scenario, I would actually just recommend disabling Music and/or Video backup in SmartWare and copying those files over manually to the Shared Music and Shared Video folders.  But I also understand that our drives are used for more than just backups.

The option to make the backup share visible would mean the SmartWare backup was no longer reliable as a backup.  Obviously, SmartWare only has one purpose–and that’s making reliable backups.  So we do not offer that option in the software or as part of the My Book Live.  But we don’t do anything to prevent advanced users–who understand they are compromising their backup data–from accessing their data manually (nor do we support doing so).

13

Thanks PM… I did some searching myself, and I guess the install disc is the only way then.  I’ll have to decide if it’s worth it.  Basically, I guess the only benefit is it will tell you if there’s a problem with the drive, overheating etc,…

I thnk my next task will be to decide if I want to upgrade the firmware.  I’m still at 01.04.06, but from reading all the problems here in the forum, not sure if I want to upgrade until they fix things. 

What’s your opinion… any benefits to upgrading, if I only use it as a backup drive and nothing more… no services, no remote access…?

Thanks.

14

I recommend the upgrade, because the sleep feature has been improved and so forth.  But if you don’t intend to use the drive with WD 2go, then there’s no need to upgrade as long as you are happy with the way your MBL currently performs.

15

Hi Nathan,

I understand and appreciate your comments.

Probably I shouldn’t be using the term “backup” for what I want to do, which is simply to copy my media files to a central location.  In reality, the media stored on MBL is a backup of my e: drive, so if either one is lost or damaged, I still have the other.

The thing about Smartware, apparently it has a performance hit (from what I’ve read, although it’s apparently better than it used to be), so if I’m not going to use it, than I don’t have any reason to keep it running.  However, if I had an option to run it the way I wanted, I would have lived with any performance issues.  Even better would have been the option to have a schedule available, and then there would be no performance issues. 

I would prefer WD software running on my WD hardware.

But I fully understand, the keep it simple principle… there’s lots of other synch and backup software out there.

16

Thanks, fred9999.  I’m glad my comments helped.  It really does sound like you have a clear understanding of what you want and how to accomplish it, which is why I took some time to explain how SmartWare thinks and why it works the way it does.  I’m particularly glad to hear you have copies of your media.

SmartWare does cause a small performance hit, although not very much after the lengthy initial backup (usually customers will see the noticeable difference when they first install and worry about that).    It shouldn’t affect performance at all if you aren’t actually using it for backups, though.  SmartWare is designed to be easy enough for users who don’t understand what a file or folder is, and it backs up changes instantly.

I understand how you feel about preferring WD software for your WD hardware.  The good news is that the MBL is just using standard Windows File Sharing (samba), so as long as your OS supports that, you shouldn’t run into any issues with any sync or backup software with remote disk support that you choose.

17

fred9999 wrote:

Thanks PM… I did some searching myself, and I guess the install disc is the only way then.  I’ll have to decide if it’s worth it.  Basically, I guess the only benefit is it will tell you if there’s a problem with the drive, overheating etc,…

 

I thnk my next task will be to decide if I want to upgrade the firmware.  I’m still at 01.04.06, but from reading all the problems here in the forum, not sure if I want to upgrade until they fix things. 

 

What’s your opinion… any benefits to upgrading, if I only use it as a backup drive and nothing more… no services, no remote access…?

 

Thanks.

If you’re just using it with no additional services, and everything you’re doing is working as you expect it to work then you’re probably fine. You know the old saying: Don’t fix what’s not broken :slight_smile: