Using 5TB MyPassport for USB Backup of 4TB WDMyCloud

My Cloud OS 5 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud
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I just bought a Western Digital 5TB MyPassport USB external drive for USB backup directly from my 4TB Western Digital MyCloud NAS and have a couple questions so I can get started on the right track:

My WDMyCloud NAS stores backup archives from various Windows and Linux computers on my home network, as well as a photo and media file library from a Plex server. Is there anything special I need to do in terms of disk formatting, network shares, or linux mount points before starting to use the MyPassport for making periodic backups of the MyCloud NAS? Any video guides /wrt/ best practices?

For the photo and music folders, I was thinking that rsync would be more efficient than full file or image backup in terms of not copying files that have not changed. Is this possible and are there guides or references for using rsync as a basis for the menu-driven admin USB backup?

Thanks!

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@BriGood
Have you checked the sub-forum for My Passport?
Latest WD External Drives topics - WD Community

Have you checked the Knowledge Base?

Online User Guide and Solutions for My Cloud OS 5 (wd.com)

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Thanks for the two references. I’ll do some research there.

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Make sure the external USB drive is formatted in a format supported by OS5.

My Cloud: External USB Drive Supported File Systems
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/19225

The exFat format is not supported by some My Cloud models.

Use the forum search feature, magnifying glass icon upper right, to search for the many other discussions on using rsync with the My Cloud. There are plenty of examples of the rsync commands to copy files from/to My Cloud devices and USB hard drives or to other locations and storage devices.

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Thank you again for the references, but the first thing I realized is that the ‘Backup’ menu option that I had been accustomed to seeing from myCloud’s v3 firmware dashboard is no longer there under v5 firmware. The only related function is ‘GoodSync’ on the ‘App Store’ page.

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You may have to install the the relevant “backup” app manually. See the following links for more information:

List of Compatible 3rd Party Apps for WD My Cloud OS 5
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/29498

My Cloud OS 5: Download and Install 3rd Party Apps Manually
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/29960

My Cloud OS 5: Internal Backups
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/29511

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Actually, upgrading WDMyCloud firmware from an early version of OS5 to 5.26.119 resulted in ‘USB Backup’ and other Apps to re-appear in the ‘Apps’ page of the dashboard.

My new 5TB MyPassport is not currently connected to the MyCloud USB port, but I have determined from connecting it to my Windows PC that it is factory formatted for NTFS and I could begin to create a folder structure to receive backups from the MyCloud NAS. When I connect the MyPassport to the MyCloud USB I’ll see how the USB Backup App works.

Thanks for the guidance.