New user, general help and Time Machine questions

Hello all,

I am a new My Cloud user.  I am not a computer/tech oriented person but I am young and comeptent so I can usually figure things out.  My Cloud is my first time using any type of personal data backup.  I would like to use it to back up two computers, both Apple laptops.  One is running Snow Leopard and one is running Mavericks.  I have been able to use the desktop app and drag files to the drive.  This is easy but takes FOREVER! My older laptop crashed after several hours and only transferring a fraction of the files.  Even the new laptop has literally been running since last night and still has a couple hundred files to go.  Is that normal?  Is there any way to avoid timeouts/crashes?  Does it keep running if the computer goes to sleep?  Can I close the computer while files are uploading?

Secondly, I have been unable to get time machine to work.  I started a backup on my older computer and just like my experience with manually dragging and dropping files, it worked for several hours, got less than 10% done, and then said the backup could not be completed.  I am getting error messages such as “Time Machine could not complete the backup - the backup disk is not available” and “Backup Failed - The backup on WDMyCloud is already in use.”  Can both computers back up to My Cloud at the same time, or should I do one at a time (is that why I am getting these error messages)?  What exactly does time machine save?  All files on the computer (such as iTunes music)?  What about configurations and settings?

Thanks

In the past 24h (since I’ve had the unit) I’ve also had a prompt pop up (once on each computer) to log in to “re1000”, asking for a username and a password.  I have a RE1000 wireless range extender on my home network that I use for an unrelated purpose, why is it asking for the login info for this unit?

EDIT: So the newer computer (running Maverick) has been uploading some files I dragged into the desktop app for almost 24h now.  It was also working on a time machine backup when I got home from work at 545 and had a message that an earlier attempt had failed.  When I got home it had completed about 19GB of the backup, and now after 3 hours it has still only completed about 23GB of the backup.  The total about to backup is 114 GB… at this rate it will literally take days! This can’t be right, can it?

The speed ot upload is often limited by the performance of your wireless connection. For kicks, try to connect your Mac directly to your router through an Ethernet cable. Provided you have a gigabit switch in your router, you should have a high performance connection.

The other thing is the network protocol between your Mac and the NAS. For some reason, you are better off using the SMB protocol, rather than the default AFP protocol for mounting shares to your Mac. You can choose the protocal when you connect to a server through Finder. Test this around and verify one protocol vs the other makes a significant difference in your setup.

When you use Time Machine, you don’t control the protocol, but you can tweak your systems to support SMB.

http://rajeev.name/2007/11/03/time-machine-with-smb-and-nfs-shares/

After the initial time machine backup, will subsequent backups be faster?  Like it only looks for differences and changes?

I’m really just looking for something to work out of the box, I’m not looking to change settings or mess with things to get it to work.  And I can’t set my computer aside for three days at a time to let it back up.  And I REALLY dont like that it is apparently messing with other things on my home network.

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Yes, after the initial machine backup only changes will be backed up.