I’m using WD SmartWare Pro 2.4.12, and a WD My Passport Ultra USB drive for backups.
My internal “C” drive is 1TB in size; the Passport Ultra drive is also 1 TB in size. All of the data on my hard drive amounts to 228 GB in size, yet the backup data takes up 878 GB on the My Passport Ultra drive, almost four times as much as everything on my “C” drive. I started with a fresh, empty backup drive a few months ago, and now it’s running out of space.
What am I missing here? If everything on my hard drive is being backed up, then I would expect the total used space to be the same, or almost the same, on both the C drive and the Passport backup drive. Instead I am gradually running out of space on the backup drive. How can I fix this?
SmartWare Pro was set for 5 backup versions; I changed it to 1. Do you think this is likely the reason that the backup drive was filling up so quickly? When it says 5 versions, does it mean the latest 5 changes to that file?
Windows built-in backup program is not setup or configured.
I’d also wonder if you’ve got shortcuts or something in there which is basically making the same files/folders get backed up multiple times.
Simplest way is to have a look at the backup in Windows Explorer. It should be in the root of the MyPassport, under the smartware.stor folder and then down under your machine’s name folder and drive ID sub-folder. Have a nose through that and see if you can see why it’s overlarge.
It would appear that every file is being backed up from two to five times each, sometimes more.
If I were to delete a file, would all of its backups be deleted also? If not, it would help explain why the backup file just keeps growing. Apparently the Recycle Bin is also backed up as well.
I’m having the same problem with the same drive. C: has only about 3 GB of stuff, and the terabyte drive is nearly full. I changed the setting from saving 5 copies of everything to one. Now there’s a message to “free up space” on the drive. I did what DarrenHill suggested and deleted some stuff, but there’s nothing apparent that would be taking up so much space. Under the Backup tab on the SmartWare the Passport shows that there’s 1.8 TB worth of “Additional Files.” What are “Additional Files?”
How do I free up more space when I can’t even see what’s taking up that space?
I agree; if my entire hard drive is backed up, why would the backup drive contain four times as much data? And what would be the point of having more than one copy of any one file?
@Ken313 - I think I would suggest to delete the backup (delete the smartware.stor folder) and start again now that you have set Smartware to only backup a single iteration rather than the normal 5. Quite why it is seeing the file as changing and so repeatedly backing it up I’m not sure, but it sounds like what it is doing anyway.
See if that helps, and if not and it carries on repeatedly backing up, I’d try uninstalling and reinstalling Smartware again. It looks like it’s getting something wrong somewhere for some reason, possibly a configuration issue or something when it was installed.
@drive_full - if I remember correctly the “additional files” are files that are on the drive but aren’t associated with or under the control of Smartware (basically all files outside the smartware.stor folder). As far as the software is concerned they are files that are taking up space on the drive but that beyond that it knows nothing about.
“Additional Files” probably come from the Windows Backup utility ----- check START Control Panel System and Security Backup and Restore Manage Space. This will show Data File Backup, System image, Other files and Free space, as used by Windows Backup.
@DarrenHill, I am having the same problem with my 1TB Passport Ultra almost full when I have over half of my 1TB hard drive space left. I am using WD Backup instead of WD SmartWare Pro. When I view my Passport in Windows Explorer, which folder should I browse to search for issues?
Same for My Passport Ultra 2TB. Give out on the WD Backup software that come with the harddisk, and downloaded WD Smartware. No problem with WD Smartware. Hence I believe is the WD Backup software that keep the history, and thus require more few times more than the actual size of backup files. WD should improve the software to allow number of history people wants to keep. For me, I just want incremental / differential backup, that come with the WD Smartware. .
I am using WD My Book but I’m thinking the mechanics of freeing us space on the external WD hard drive will be the very similar. I am running Window 7 - went into “control panel” - clicked on “backup + restore” + clicked on “manage space” directly under the My Book F: and a " manage windows backup disk space" box opened up - under " data file backup" I clicked on “view backups”. A box opened up and I was able to delete older backup periods and subsequently freed up a significant amount of space in the My Book. You are also given the opportunity to free up additional disc space by changing how windows retains older system images. Hope this helps. gs
