Still unreliable backing up

I’ve finally made the decision I should have made a long time ago and junked WD Smartware and uninstalled it from my Laptop. I will obviously keep the Quickview software as I need that to use MBL in it most basic form as a NAS.

I have been experimenting for a few of days with Acronis2013. It works. For the last 3 days, everyday, at midday, it simply and quietly performs a differential backup of my PC. It isn’t free of course, but having spent the last couple of weeks on MBL I feel I have gotten my life back - and that alone is worth the modest cost.

How could I ever recommend this product to anyone.

You do not need to have any software for MBL and/or from WD. Unless you want mobile access and even then there are ways around it.

I admin/copy/move/backup/etc, without a single WD app.

I tend to do things in a way that if I need to upgrade or buy a different hardware, I’m not dependent on proprietary software. Plenty of pay/free/DIY options out there.

For the price, this is one of the best NAS I ever had.

Can you recommend any free software in particular?

All I require of a NAS is the ability to interrogate it via W7 explorer, create/delete folders, move stuff between folders. I don’t really need private shares etc.

If you are able to recommend something all I would kindly ask you to bear in mind is that I am not network literate, now I am retired all I want is minimum intellectual effort.

I want to spend my time in my vegetable plot, not poking around the internet trying to do this, that and the other!

cman, I’m not familiar with networking at all. I’ve heard changing the MBL to static IP makes a huge difference. I attempted setting this upmyself with my Linksys E2500 router and MBL, and ended up locking myself out of both, having to restart both. That said, I’m nervous to switch from DHCP again. Can I just assign a static IP on my router but leave it as DHCP and then assign that static IP to my MBL? How does the process work?

Thank you!

Yellowtriumph, you said “All I require of a NAS is the ability to interrogate it via W7 explorer, create/delete folders, move stuff between folders. I don’t really need private shares etc.”

If that is the case, you can do it via the Computer explorer/Computer. You can either map the MBL and/or get to it by just typing in the address bar on top:

\

or

\

Do a quick google for “map network drive windows 7”.

Here is one response:

http://windows.microsoft.com/is-IS/windows7/Create-a-shortcut-to-map-a-network-drive

Thank you Shabuboy for your response and help.

In the meantime I have now received a reply from WD Tech Support. They have suggested that I:

Update Flash player to the latest version.

Update Java to the latest version

Update Windows.net Frame 4 to the latest version.

Re-install the latest version of WDSmartware (1.6.4).

Restart PC and see how it goes.

So, I will give this a go and report back here. They have also asked me to return reply to their email address with the outcome, but as that email address is no-reply@salesforce.com I don’t really think any reply would actually go anywhere. Ho hum let’s see how I get on.

Update: Did all that, and the answer as we say here in the UK is ‘a lemon’. Still asking me for a password for the Smartware folder. A copper bottomed, gold plated ocean going disaster.

I will delete the Smartware software, and go with Acronis. I’ll also investigate Shabuboy’s very helpful feedback. 

If you are using windowsthen use windows automatic back up. It would be the easiest way for you.

Thank you for your suggestion.

I am now in contact with WD technical support, who seem genuinely anxious to sort out my problem.

I must say however, the second support engineer said that he was taking over my problem from the first support engineer who initially came to my assistance, gave a few suggestions which didn’t solve my problem. He was then superceded by another support engineer who seems to be at a higher level, he gave a couple of things to try - to no avail I’m afraid.

He was then superceded by another support engineer, who gave me a few … well you know the story by now.

So now I have been passed on to yet another support engineer who will contact me in due course.

I do wonder how many layers of customer technical support WD have?

So, no solution yet, but I must emphasise WD still seem very keen to get me sorted and are most polite and helpful in our email exchanges.

In the meantime Acronis still keeps reliably backing everything up at midday, everyday with no fuss at all to a common share on the MBL.

Thats good news for you. Hope they fix the issue.

Complete ‘radio silience’ from WD support. Nothing.

Sorry to hear that,well you can always email them for updates regarding your issue.

Well I’m afraid despite escalation of my problem within WD support I never got this resolved. I gave up trying as it was just taking far too long. Best intentions on the part of WD’s support staff, but I simply have to get on with my life.

  

So, I am now performing my backups with Acronis 2013. Backs up reliably everyday at around midday. Thought I’d better try the recovery facility before too long so I fitted a new blank drive to my laptop last night. I ran the Acronis recovery CD I had made, easily located my backups on MBL and restored complete partitions to the new drive. Took about 4/5 hours for about 120GB of data. No problems encountered at all. So this is the way for me to go - no fuss, no bother.

Edit: Perhaps rather obviously I had to connect the laptop to the router with a cable as wifi was not enabled at Acronis  CD recovery stage. I have an Acer 5830TG laptop.