I purchased a 4TB mycloud to use as a repository for unattended network backups from Linux and Windows PCs on my home LAN. I am currently experimenting with Clonezilla and rsync on my Centos 7 linux server; Windows Server Backup on Windows Server 2008 R2 server; and Acronis ATH 2010 from my Windows 7 desktop.
From the architecture of WD’s software products, I get the impression that the intended usage of the WDmycloud device is for remote internet access versus my desired internal usage as a LAN-based NAS. To protect against unintended access from the internet through the router, I disabled cloud access in mycloud settings and this appears to be working.
However, I am having trouble coming up with a simple system of network shares and users that will accommodate the diversity of operating system platforms and backup software among the attached PCs and servers on the network. In this regard, I have a couple of questions:
I understand that the internal mycloud o/s is linux, and root shares created from the mycloud admin dashboard can be tagged “nfs” for use by linux client mounts, but can mycloud root “shares” be “shared” between Linux and Windows clients? For example, can the directory structure be //mycloud/backups/linux/ and //mycloud/backups/windows/ rather than //mycloud/linuxbackups/ and //mycloud/windowsbackups/ ? My uninformed inclination would be to minimize the number of root shares on the mycloud device, but I don’t know if this is necessary or advisable.
I assume that other owners are using the WD mycloud to back up diverse PC network clients, and wonder what mix of backup software is being used to accomplish this? Acronis ATH 2010 seems to work fine from my Windows 7 desktop, and I made one Windows Server Backup from the Windows Server 2008 R2 machine, but I am having problems with FreeFileSync (uses SFTP) and WDsync from Windows Server 2008 R2 machine. I have not gotten to the point of backing up the Centos 7 server, but am looking at Clonezilla for disk images and rsync for file archives.
The single bay/single drive My Cloud is primarily a low cost network attached storage device with limited remote access capability.
If you haven’t already done so you should read through the My Cloud User Manual (https://support.wdc.com/product.aspx?ID=904) to learn about the various features of the My Cloud and how to configure/use them. Or see the embedded My Cloud Dashboard Help.
You can name the new Shares what ever you want. Both Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS and Android will see that Share “name” and be able to access it (generally using Samba/SMB or AFP for Mac). You can further configure a Share for Private and provide per User access (Full Access, Read Access, No Access) to that Share (and all of its contents). If you need othe support like NFS do a subforum search, magnifying glass icon upper right, for NFS to see additional discussions on using NFS and the limitations if any of using it.
Supported Operating Systems
Windows 10
Windows 8.1
Windows 7
Windows Vista
While Free File Sync doesn’t indicate that Windows 2008 isn’t supported its possible it may be. There are a number of free backup programs that may or may not work on Windows 2008 but will generally work for most recent consumer Windows/Mac versions when it comes to backing up across the local network.
Thanks for the suggestions, Bennor. Here’s where I am so far:
I made some progress connecting to the WD mycloud from the Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 platforms. On Windows Server, I could not connect with either FTP or SSH (SFTP, SCP, SSH protocols), but was successful after mapping either a Public or Private mycloud share to a Windows drive letter, then accessing the mycloud via the Windows drive letter. All this was done via a remote desktop into the Windows server. Although Windows server is a primary domain controller for the local network, I have not explored the ramifications from a domain user perspective through extending shares via Active Directory.
FreeFileSync seems to work very well in a one-way sync of source and target directories when the mycloud shares are mapped to Windows drive letters. I could not get WDsync or FreeFileSync to work with only FTP/SSH and no Windows letter mapping.
The next step for me is to try FreeFileSync’s capability to export a GUI sync profile to a powershell script. If that works, I can use Windows Backup for automated drive image snapshots and scheduled nightly execution of the powershell batch script for file-based synchronization.
Then it’s over to the Centos 7 linux server to experiment with rsync and Clonezilla.
