Smartware Backup fills up Mybook Live

Hi,

I have a 1TB and a 3TB Mybook live and a desktop PC with 1.5TB storage. I use the 3TB as a backup for everything and there are no other files on it (other than backup files). 1TB is set to automatically update a restore point on the 3TB. Using Smartware, I backup my PC to the 3TB as well. Everything was working fine till yesterday when the 3TB drive is now full (128 kb left). 1TB cannot do the restore point update and smartware stops backup right after I click start backup. The PC plus the 1TB contains much less than 3TB of data. I know Smartware keeps old versions of changed or deleted files but it should delete those files when drive is starting to fill. Also isn’t Smartware aware of the restore point on the 3TB? How can I remove the unnecessary old versions? Is there a way to set a quota on the amout of drive space that can be used on the 3TB so there is always room left for the restore point from 1TB? Thanks for any suggestions

just go into the smartware settings and reduce the number of backups (versions) that it keeps.  Put it to one, unless you really think you’ll need to recover changes from a while back.

 no quota ability.

Thank you for your reply cman548. I had already set it to one version. The thing is I download stuff to my computer and after I’m done with them I delete them. I don’t have many edited or updated files. Since the program keeps at least one backup version, it never deletes anything. Stuff keeps accumulating. Also it doesn’t show a warning that the drive is full. Now that it has 128 KB left everything is stuck and the drive won’t even go to sleep. I am gonna try and go into the backup directory and manually delete files that should have been deleted long time ago. What I don’t understand is that there is a quota setting for thirdparty time machine backups but not for WD’s own smartware backups. Go figure. 

I use the “files and folders” backup method so I can selectively backup.  For example, when I dump a bunch of photos from my camera, those go straight to a folder that is not backed up, since I know I’m going to delete more than half of them.  Once I’m done working on the files and deleting the bad ones, I move them to a destination folder that IS backed up.

I tried to convince my wife not to backup her desktop.  But since she’s a computer user that likes to just save stuff to the desktop and leave it there, everything that’s on the desktop for even a few minutes is backed up.