I have tried it but

I am a new My Cloud User. Hardware is OK and basic functions as well but SW is a different matter. My conclusions are as follows (please correct me if I am wrong. I may have missed options…)
Backup: Renaming or deleting a file/folder naturally leaves the original in the backup. This makes the backup very difficult to use after a while. Full backup or syncronization at intervals seems a necessary option.
Sync: It seems that the files to sync must be on C:. This is no good if I wish to sync a file on another logical unit. Pity, because this would have solved the backup issue for me.

The rest (apart from the web sharing option which I have not tried) seem to add very little to the direct web interface to the unit.

As Windows appears to have problems with empty passwords it should be pointed out (and explicitly required in the application) that any user given rights to a Private resource must have a nonvoid password.

Backup vs Sync couldn’t be more different.

A Sync is in no way a backup.

If you were delete or mangle a file, then a scheduled Sync runs, the other copy is now deleted or mangled as well with no chance of recovery.

Backups will keep versions of files for as long as you choose.

The only time I would think you would be “using” backups is if you needed to restore something. And when you do a restore, you just choose which date to restore, and things are put back the way the were on that date.

I know the difference. Being a user with no particular characteristics,
mail, internet, word and excel etc, i.e. a very lowfrequent data change
I wish to protect myself against a hardware breakdown of my local PC,
keeping data as up to date as possible. Disk crashes have occurred over
the years. A time efficient sync gives me precisely that security with
perfect data relevance. A backup on the other hand gives me the
possibility to reuse an erlier version of a file, limited to the actual
backup date. Modern versions of Word and Excel allow me to reuse an
ealier version of the file (with restrictions).

I do backups of course. For many years I have been using a software in
the free market, Cobian Backup Gravity 11, which, alas, no longer seems
to be developed. This SW gives me a choice of backup types (Full,
incremental and differential) and the option to do Full backups at
intervals. Very clean difference between time stamped backups and hence
simple to analyze. I have not come across a better solution although I
have not been actively searching. Backup technology is not my field of
interest.

There are obviously interesting inherent possibilities in combinations
of the two models for users like myself.

You may have noticed my conclusion that a user can connect to Private
resources on My Cloud if and only if permissions have been defined to
the resource AND the user has a non-void password. At least that
eliminated my problem. If I am right this trap could easily be avoided
when defining the user permissions in the management software.

Regards
Torsten

Den 2017-01-19 kl. 15:03, skrev TonyPh12345:

Yeah, I’m still puzzled by that.

I just tested your theory – I created a new user on my My Cloud, did NOT set a password.
Then, on the share automatically created for that user, I set it to PRIVATE, with only that user having access.

I was able to connect to it from a Windows 7 Home Premium x64 client with no issue at all – no password needed.

Connecting to share:

Challenged for credentials, for which I provide ONLY the user name…

Connection immediately successful, and I can create and manage files in that share:

I was wrong. Empty passwords is no problem. The reason for my confusion
was another (as far as I understand). It appears that a network user
(W10 in my case) can only access a shared network resource as ONE of the
users with accounts on the shared unit. Hence if I first successfully
connect as user A to a resource on MYCLOUD to which I have permissions I
am henceforth limited to that identity (restarting my computer as the
sole option?). If I try to connect to a resource to which A has no
permissions (intending a change to/act as user B) it is not allowed
although Windows actually asks for credentials (which was the initial
reason for my confusion).

As always, dialogs broaden your knowledge. My network experience is
limited to a fairly small, local, private network.

Thanks for your interest. Let us leave it here

Regards/Torsten

Den 2017-01-19 kl. 18:20, skrev TonyPh12345: