How can MyCloud be full?

I just got 4TB MyCloud in January and I back my desktop computer up on it. My computer hard drive is something less than 1TB. I’m now getting a message that MyCloud is full and I don’t know how that can be. I’m not typically technologically challenged but I don’t know how to distinguish between when I’m looking at MyCloud and when I’m looking at the files on my computer hard drive. And if MyCloud really is full (of what, I don’t know!), what can I do about that?

Hi,

Id recommend checking on the dashboard to se if the information regarding the used space is correct, then from there you can start working to verify the issue.

Interesting, my drive is filling up…1 Tb of ghost data that I cannot see, and also I cannot connect to dashboard. I am wondering if the drive has been hijacked?

Do you have FTP enabled and is the router/gateway configured to allow remote FTP access?

Are you using WD Sync?

Have you checked which Share’s or subfolders within those Shares are storing a large amount of files and what those files are?

I went into my dashboard and it confirmed that the drive was full. Since it was just a backup of my computer I started deleting folders to see how it affected the MyCloud space. I deleted EVERYTHING and only freed up only 200Gb; 3.7Tb was still tied up by something that I couldn’t see. I ended up doing the Quick Restore (which I accessed through the dashboard). It took about 10 minutes and that took care of it. It fixed the problem, but I don’t know what the cause was.

I don’t know what FTP is so I’m not sure on that question. Yes, I am using WD Sync. I don’t really understand what the Shares are. I had me and my husband set up as users and we both had folders under our names. I never did anything with the Public or SmartWare folders when I set MyCloud up in January,and to my knowledge we never used those folders. I did click on them today and couldn’t see anything there.

FTP is a way for people to upload content to a network attached storage device, server or computer/mobile device. The My Cloud Dashboard allows one to enable FTP on the Settings > Network page.

The key is to find out which folder is taking up the most space and then figure why it is taking up so much space. The Dashboard may not give one the granular details to figure out which specific folder is taking up so much space. One can review each Share through the Dashboard > Share page to see which Share is using the largest amount of data storage.

People who use WD Sync have reported the program ■■■■■ up a lot of space on the My Cloud due to how it allows one to restore a deleted file. If one is running WD Sync on multple computers and is Syncing a large amount of data that may account for the My Cloud getting filled up.

https://community.wd.com/t/wdtemp-folder/145676

If you have not already done so you may want to read through the My Cloud User Manual at the following link to familiarize yourself with the device and its features/settings.
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/?id=439&type=25

Thanks for your help today, Bennor. I still don’t know exactly what my problem was but I have some suspicions after reading your information. I’ve read up a little more on WD Sync and it says that the deleted files and previous versions of modified files are saved as hidden files and those may well be what was taking up my whole drive. I’ve not been able to find info about the possibility of turning off this feature of WD Sync or how to access those hidden files to delete them if they fill my drive. If this was my issue and it can’t be turned off, I will probably have the same problem of a full drive in another couple months. Would you recommend using WD SmartWare Pro or Windows 7 Backup and Restore over WD Sync? I like having something that automatically backs up my files because I never remember to do it manually.

The WD Sync and WD Smartware programs perform slightly different functions and have slightly different levels of control over how much of the program the user can control. WD Sync doesn’t appear to be designed to backup a large amount of files, rather its for keeps a small number of file synced between a computer and the My Cloud. The Smartware program while a backup program does have a versioning feature that can be configured to retain a set amount of deleted/changed files. Both programs are basic and in some respect limited. Generally the Windows 7 OS embedded Backup and Restore does not allow for backing up to a network access storage device like the My Cloud. There are various third party backup software programs that will backup to devices like the My Cloud.

More than a few users here have moved from using WD Sync to using third party sync programs like Free File Sync (http://www.freefilesync.org/) that offer more options and control.

As has been indicated above one should go through the My Cloud and figure out which Share or sub folder within a Share that is storing the most data files. One can then start to determine a cause. If one is backing up or syncing large amounts of content or entire hard drives from multiple computers then one can quickly fill the My Cloud.

Found this post while looking for a solution to my MyCloud (4TB) reporting it was out of space - when it was OK a few weeks ago.
I enabled SSH and logged into the box and used “du” to identify the folder which was causing the problem. The folder “/mnt/HD/HD_a2/WDSync/.WDSyncHistory/.WD Hidden Files” was populated with 2.2TB of what appeared to be temporary files - deleting this fixed my space issues.
Clearly the recommendation to use http://www.freefilesync.org/ seems like a really good suggestion to me :slight_smile:

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FYI i had circa 700gb of data that was clogging up mycloud EX2 that i didn’t know i was there.

I looked into lots of ideas including the recycle bin option and clearing it within the mycloud settings tab.

In the end i realised it was all to do with the fact i use the WD sync programme and it was storing all the files synced between my computer and mycloud. These were all contained in the hidden folder WDsync history. Once i enabled hidden files on the mycloud drive (Done through windows or mac os not the mycloud) i could simply go into this folder and delete all this old stuff.

Hopefully this will help someone else.

Hey all
As i passed for the same problem looks like everyone is going trought this at some moment in their WD MY CLOUD thiing.
Now, i was running out of space again like everyone. I read a lot about it and decided for the solution proposed on this forum. So, i enabled SSH and accessed via Putty. EVerything seems normal, so i started to look inside a lot of things.
My problem was another, i discovered that my TImeMachineBackup enabled into WD MYCLoud seems to enable new folder every year. I Looked and i had 4 folders for Mac backup…it’s this Odd or what?
So i saw that using DU command in unix timemachine has 3,4TB of files… what the hell is that ?
I toolk the decision to remove the old folders and stay with the last one, the new one, and voilá, i got 2,8 TB free space.
Now, to WD guys…This is not easy going for everyone and i am sure that the most part of people cant do it.
How come you make a simple app that can do the manage for all this ■■■■? is not worthy so many work to have a maintenaince into my drive…ASAP i qwil change to a better backup thing. This is impossible to do

Before removing files

After first folder removed

Thank you