Problems with WD SmartWare 1.5.1.6:
(1) As far as I can tell, continuous backup keeps track of additionas and changed files but not deletions. This causes a problem when a major reorganization of files takes place (as must happen from time to time). The backup then contains multiple copies of a file in multiple locations, and restoring that backup will then create the chaos of multiple copies.
(2) When you erase a SmartWare backup volume from a MyBook drive, the software continues to think that the files are backed up, so it is impossible to start a new continuous backup.
The immediate solution appears to be to erase the backup volume, then uninstall SmartWare and erase its data files so that it “forgets” the previous backup has been made. This is really IMHO an ugly kludge.
It would be nice if:
(1) SmartWare included a dialogue to remove backup volumes, INCLUDING the data on that backup. It would allow the user to view the backup volumes on a supported drive, showing the date first created and date last updated, and optionally the backup configuration used to write it. The user would be able to select and remove any volume, so that the same backup could then be started anew; and
(2) It would also be nice if a user could just mark a backup volume as closed and start a new one, without the software thinking that files had already been backed up.
In the ideal world (and, as competing software has offered in the past) we users would be able to make multiple backups over the same storage space thus allowing us to complete a second backup to the same external drive before deleting the first one.
How about it, WD? Can SmartWare do this now? If not, can we expect it in the next release?
