We use WD My Cloud with a 3 person office and we take thousands of photos per day for a car dealership. The issue we are having is files we move and or delete are kept and folders are added and or moved once the photos are moved or deleted. It even adds original photos which have been edited back to their original state.
Settings were set to back up files once a day at 11:00pm but it seems to be backing up every 10 minutes or so.
I need to get this fixed asap.
What are you using to take the photos?
How are you uploading the photos to the MyCloud?
What computer systems are you using to access, move, delete & edit the photos you have taken?
What backup tool are you using?
Are you using any sync tools?
Note that this is a user forum, not an official corporate WD Support portal. Any help you get from fellow users will be provided when they have time to reply to you.
Using a Sony Cybershot.
The photos are automatically loading via the network in our office.
Using Windows 10 and their photo programs.
Using no other tools to move or update any files.
Not sure if that answers your questions correctly.
Then I suspect it might be a problem with the Cybershot automatic upload function.
The MyCloud will not randomly duplicate or move files, or create folders, unless instructed by some external software. That software may be in the camera, or it may be some backup or synchronisation software you are running on the MyCloud, or on your PC network.
‘Settings’ on what? MyCloud? Cybershot?
Cybershot never comes in to contact with the computer.
It’s strictly memory card.
Settings in MyCloud. Set to back up once a day at 11pm but it seems to be running 24/7
Ah; I thought it might be one of these new WiFi-connected cameras…
Settings of what, exactly?
- the internal Backup/Safepoint function (to what device?)
- WD Sync?
- WD SmartWare?
- WD Desktop App?
- WD Mobile App?
- WD remote access portal?
Sorry…WD Sync.
WD Sync isn’t a backup tool. It is a file sync tool. A subtle, but significant difference.
It will attempt to maintain file synchronisation between folder structures held on one or more computers (including a file server); make changes to either end, and the other end will be changed.
If there are reasons why the file sync cannot happen (e.g. because two people are editing the same file), it will have trouble. One way in which it gets out of this trouble is to effectively throw its hands in the air, and drop a copy of the file that it is confused about, with some added filename suffix, in a new folder, leaving you to sort out the mess.
If you delete a file at one end of the synchronisation, it will delete at the other. You may not want this to happen. Or, depending on the master/slave direction of the sync, it may reconstruct the deleted file…
If it is constantly synchronising files, it may be set to ‘real-time’ sync, where any changes to the files are immediately replicated at the synced end.
Do you want file synchronisation, or do you just want a backup? If you want a backup, what sort of backup do you want? Simple file copy? Simple folder mirror? Version management?
I don’t use WD Sync; too many people have found it too unreliable.
We want just a backup. Once a day for our photo uploads of that day to be backed up and stored in a safe locations. If you can help me get to that I will be forever grateful!!
WD Sync is NOT a backup program it is a sync program. Backup and Sync are not the same thing. Each performs a different function. Backup typically copies the contents of a desired folder/drive to another location. Syncing typically tries to keep the files/folders between two locations identical. This means if one deletes or changes a file in one location the sync program will try to update it in the other location (and vise versa).
If you are attempting to use WD Sync to sync multiple computers to a single sync location on the My Cloud in an effort to have all computes syncing the same files you’ll find that you may have problems since WD Sync isn’t really designed to perform that type of sync function (syncing multiple computers to a single repository). Users have had trouble with WD Sync performing erratically when syncing multiple computers to a single location/repository.
More than a few users here have dumped WD Sync and moved to using third party sync programs like Free File Sync (https://www.freefilesync.org/). The downside to third party sync programs is the inability to sync remotely to the My Cloud (from a remote location).
Then you don’t want WD Sync; that is not a backup program.
Try the free WD SmartWare, which is a backup program.
I don’t use that, either, preferring FreeFileSync, which does both Mirror backup (changes to a master are copied to a slave), and file sync (changes at either end are replicated at the other). Depending on the type of files I am storing, I use either Mirror (e.g. for my media library), or sync (for files I might modify either on my PC, or using a client device accessing my file server).
You will have to decide what is the master file, and what is the slave.
If you load files onto a disk on the PC, and want that disk to be the data master, you would back up to the MyCloud.
You could also load files onto the MyCloud itself (mapping a MyCloud share as a Windows network drive, and copying from the memory card to the network drive). You could then manipulate files stored on the network drive. No files would be stored on the PCs themselves. The MyCloud would then be the data master, so you would need a slave disk for backup; this could be an HDD connected to the MyCloud, using the built-in Backup or Safepoint facility on the MyCloud itself. Sadly, in the later version of the basic MyCloud, the Backup facility cannot be scheduled.
It sounds like you need to go and have a think about exactly how you want to store, process & backup your files. This is a worthwhile exercise, if the files are important to you. Think about whether you need protection against fire, theft, flood, etc, and if this means you need an offsite backup copy (and how you would manage this), and whether you could cope with the loss of a few days’ images.
Think about file naming, and folder structure, too; DCIM only has a 4-digit image counter in the 8.3 name format, and, if you’re taking thousands of photos a day, you will soon wrap around, and potentially overwrite older files if you use a flat directory. You will also hit a files/folder limit pretty quickly, so I’m guessing you have a year/month/day folder hierarchy of some kind.
By george I think you’ve fixed it! It was the sync that was messing everything up. I switched to backup every hour and I haven’t seen the folders duplicate that have been moved. Thank you so much.
You may still need to have that serious think about your approach to backup.
And, if you are still using WD Sync, whether a genuine backup program (rather than a sync program) wouldn’t be a better solution.
