I am raising again an issue which has been marked as ‘Solved’ because the answer is still unclear.
I am running Snow Leopard (10.6.8) on a MacBook Pro and I am connected to a MBLD 6TB (Raid1) and backups progress normally but a liitle slowly.
In the Finder under ‘SHARED’ there are 2 entries:-
MyBookLiveDuo
MyBookLiveDuo-backup
I understand the first entry which I can use to access the shares setup with the WD UI. Upon opening this folder all the shares visible are mine if I connect using my access credentials. If I connect using other login credentials I see other shares I setup for family and friends. All OK so far!
It is the second entry I am having problems with because any attempts to connect results in failure. I gather it requires Samba in order to be able to look inside. OK!
I gather ‘MyBookLiveDuo-backup’ is a partition used by Time Machine but it is not stated what for? Is it for backups? I think not because I setup a share called ‘timemachinebackups’ for this purpose and this is indeed where my backups are being stored. I can see my share ‘growing’ as the TM backup proceeds. I gather I could setup additional shares to store the TM backups from my other 2 MacBook Pros. Sounds good to me!
So, what is ‘MyBookLiveDuo-backup’ actually used for?
Another thing that puzzles me is the name of the share that appears on the desktop whenever Time Machine is operating. It is called ‘Time Machine Backups’. I did not assign this name. I raise this issue because whenever I access any of my shares they appear on my desktop with the name I assigned to them. I am wondering if WD has reserved a specific name for Time Machine backups, consequently the naming convention for this partition is outside my control?
This is a protected folder (share) that is automatically created when the backup is set.
It serves no purpose other than to store Time Machine backups.
For more information about Time Machine backups on My Book Live Duo.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3561
This link bellow shows the step by step process:
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/docs/en/mbliveappletimemachine.pdf
This information is also provided on the user’s manual on page 43.
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/UM/ENG/4779-705065.pdf#page=43
Hi John012
I found confirmation of what you claim at the very end of the 2nd link (see above). It does indeed say that the ‘protected’ folder, ‘MyBookLiveDuo-backup’ is used for Time Machine backups. However, this only deepens the mystery because I have also created a share, which I have named ‘timemachinebackups’, that also contains my Time Machine backups. If I launch the Dashboard and examine the Share List I can see my share/folder and the backups. Its size is what I would expect it to be.
However, it seems totally unreasonable to expect my NAS to be used to hold 2 copies of my TM backups because that would be a huge waste of space. But if I accept that this is indeed what is happening, what is the mechanism that directs the TM backup to either the ‘MyBookLiveDuo-backup’ folder or ‘timemachinebackups’ share? In fact, is each copy identical? Has it anything to do with being a ‘Guest’ or ‘Registered’ user, the later requiring a password?
The thought has occurred to me that if the ‘MyBookLiveDuo-backup’ has been setup by the NAS firmware (?) to hold my TM backups, is there any point in my creating additional shares for TM backups?
I recall reading that the creation of additional shares could be used to store ‘archives’ of TM backups, possibly from different computers. I can conceive of instances where this could be advantageous, however, it leads me to the conclusion that when I ‘Enter Time Machine’ I am looking at an historical representation of the contents of the ‘MyBookLiveDuo-backup’ folder and not my ‘timemachinebackups’ share. Is this correct?
Nothing I have read so far eliminates the ambiguity, in mymind, as to why there are ‘apparently’ 2 copies of TM backup on my NAS. If one was an archive (fixed) and the other a ‘live’ version of a TM backup, that would go someway to answering my question.
