My Could EX2 Ultra Stops Working with macOS Time Machine

My Cloud OS 5 My Cloud EX
1

Sorry if this has already been discussed, but I couldn’t find an obvious thread. I have an 8TB WD MyCloud EX2 Ultra, and I’m using it with my MacBook Air (Apple M2) and backing up to it over my WiFi network via Time Machine. I am also using it to back up multiple external hard drives attached to the Mac via USB. Not sure if it’s important, but the external drives are not always connected to the Mac.

After I first configure everything and complete the first backup, everything is great. For a while. Then, sooner or later (usually within a couple of weeks), it stops backing up. I get the message “Backup Delayed…” in the Time Machine menu, and every time I try to complete the backup, I get error messages (error 19, to be precise). The only thing that fixes this is complete, start-from-scratch revamp of the process — which means I need to wipe the WD drive and start again, obviously not something I want to do since it means deleting the pre-existing backups. Nonetheless, I’ve done it — twice — but the problem keeps happening.

I would like a PERMANENT (or at least reasonably permanent) solution to this problem. I’m tech-savvy, but not a network engineer, and quite frankly I don’t have time to be one. This is the reason I got this drive in the first place: it seemed the best way to “fire and forget” on my personal backup strategy. Predictably, WD tech support wasn’t much help.

I hope there is a solution to this issue that allows me to continue using this drive that I spent a chunk of money on. But I’m willing to hear solutions that involve switching brands or even strategies (cloud backup, perhaps?). I want an easy, reliable way to back up all of my many terabytes of data without getting a software engineering degree. I thought this WD drive was it, but I may have been overly optimistic.

Any suggestions, either specific to this problem or more general, would be appreciated.

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1 Like
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Hi @MirrorPete
Have you opened a Support Case? If not opened, for more information, please contact the WD Technical Support team for the best assistance and troubleshooting:

3

Since your external drives are not always connected, Time Machine might have trouble handling those drives in the backup. Try disabling Time Machine for external drives and creating a separate manual backup strategy.

4

Yes, I opened one. They were not much help. And again, the point isn’t to just revamp everything and do the same thing in a few weeks. I’m looking for a permanent solution.

5

Thanks for the reply. But since the whole point of getting this thing was to have a NON-manual backup strategy, I’m resistive to simply throwing up my hands.

If having separate external drives that don’t always connect is a common problem, I wonder why WD hasn’t identified it and fixed it. I suspect it isn’t the issue. In any case, it’s impossible to leave my drives permanently plugged in, so this will always need to be part of any backup system I have. If there’s an “external drives mean you can’t use NAS backup” best practice in the industry, this is the first I’ve heard of it.

6

Is the NAS up to date?
Have you tried to restart the NAS? I remember the SMB stack to sometimes crash. Is Time Machine accessing the NAS via SMB (smb://)?

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Yes, it’s up to date. I have no idea if it’s accessing via SMB. How would I check that?

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If the backup has not been set a long time ago you should be on SMB.
Did restarting do the trick ?

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Restarting either the My Could or my MacBook has no effect.

10

Right.
How reliable is your wifi? Time Machine backups got better with better wifi (ex wifi 6 is incredibly more reliable)

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This all started with the upgrade to macOS 15. There seems to be an issue with the new mac SW communicating to the WD box.