I have an ASUS with USB3 and just got a WD mybook essentials usb3 2TB drive. Primarily for backup but also storage.
Drive seems fine, updated firmware and software…with a bit of a do…
but then…i have my doubts about this software. Reporting on the condition and performance of the drive sounds good…but I suspect it would be better to partition it in two for backup and storage.
The first thing I notice is that the WD software seems to need you to specify whcih drive to monitor and backup. My computer has 2x 500GB physical drives and 2 partitions each…so 4 drive designations. C is primarily operating system, D is other programs and files. I am concerned that the WD software will need a lot of attending to compared to the win 7 64 bit backup management that I have previously used.
I’m also not sure I want the drive to be backing up continuously and without warning affecting the performance of the computer.
So…any suggestions of what might be best. WIll partitioning the drive with windows and loosing the drive’s softwware be an appropriate strategy. Would doing so effect things like the USB3 drivers or storage? Any other options or suggestions? Are the any warranty issues for not using the WD software?
Not a super computer savvy person, but know a little.
Hope to have some opinion ASAP as I don’t want to start using the device or cluttering teh computer further or commiting myself to something that won’t really best suit my needs.
I’m not a fan of Smartware it uses it’s own method for backup. As far as storage make sure you have more than one copy of important data. These forums are full of posts by people who moved everything on to an external drive and then had a problem. It doesn’t matter who makes the drive have at least 2 copies.
Could you expand on this…“I’m not a fan of Smartware it uses it’s own method for backup”
Having run smatware, is there an easy way to take it off?
My plan is to have a backup of the computer, the computer itself has two physical drives…plus I have a smaller hard drive (500GB) that I was backing up to that I was intending to use to store my own files and other data in addition to the backup drive. I had also been thinking of partitioning the WD in half, one for backup, the other for working file, again that could be backed up perhaps on the other external drive and possibly the computer drives as well. This makes a total of 4 potential physical drives and betteen them likely a few duplicates. I may also extend my use of online storage solutions. Saving photos for instance to photobucket can be a good way to make sure that such things are reasonably secure in case of catestrophic cercumstances (such as a house fire taking out the computer and all external storage) and there are an increasing number of such sites as dropbox that I hear could add yet another layer of security and an increased ability to share data.
So…is the opinion then to use the windows OS (my case win 7 64 bit home premium). Partiction the drive as required (thinking two halves) and back up with the OS as a prefered method?
Smartware only backsup certtain file types like pic,video and audio. I tried it almost a year ago and it was a real reasource hog then. If you set a password remove it then just install the Smartware. I have my HD partitioned with system on one and data on other. I use 3 externals 2 I sync to and the third I make images with Actonis TI a system restore takes less than 15 min.
That pretty much answers that question, I do audio and it is not going to recognise those files as anything other than ‘other’ and I certainly ca’t have resources pulled away during recordings for the drive or only back p some files like that.
Will leave this open till I am successful getting the smartware off, partionaing and backing up all drives with the windows OS as before.
That pretty much answers that question, I do audio and it is not going to recognise those files as anything other than ‘other’ and I certainly ca’t have resources pulled away during recordings for the drive or only back p some files like that.
Will leave this open till I am successful getting the smartware off, partionaing and backing up all drives with the windows OS as before.
Appreciate the help so far, cheers
You should be able to simply uninstall it from Programs in the Control Panel.
Also, and without taking anything away from Joe’s position, I would continue to check back concerning SmartWare. Though it does use a fair amount of resources when it’s running, it has been going through a lot of changes and will continue to improve as we go along.
Smartware will have the ability to backup specifc files/folders etc. in the next version. It would do exactly what you are asking it to do. In the time being, I would advise that you use the built in Windows Backup.
