Backup NAS to external drive connected to RT-AC66U

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Amit Ahuja

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Jun 19, 2015
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So this is my typical setup: I have a RT-AC66U router connecting my home network. On the home network, I also have a NAS (WD MyBook Live 2 TB).

Now on this NAS, I have my most important pictures, etc. and I would like to back it up to a external USB Drive which I want to connect to the RT-AC66U's USB port.

Can I do a backup/sync seamlessly without human intervention? I mean without mounting the NAS onto a computer a mapped netowrk drive, etc. Also, I have all mac laptops and dont want the laptops to be tied down with a mapped network drive of NAS.

Is there an application which will do this automatically.

I do not want cloud backup - just a local backup of my NAS onto another USB external hard drive.

Any help is really appreciated
 
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TyrOd

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Aug 16, 2013
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No, you won't be able to do this because the WD NAS itself cannot see the drive attached to the reuter(effectively a network drive) as a target.

You can only do backup from the WD NAS through a full client PC and that is assuming that your reuter has the functionality to create a Network drive over it's usb interface(instead of just being an update/printer interface like most are).

There are some single drive NAS devices that have USB ports and can do automated backup through the NAS portal to a direct attached drive, but this isn't one of them.
 
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Amit Ahuja

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Jun 19, 2015
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Ok . So is there a way that i buy a new WD external drive or seagate external drive and plug it in to my ASUS RT AC66U router and it automatically backups from the NAS?

The problem is that both WD and seagate have a backup softwares and these are built for windows, not mac. Now I have mac computers, but I dont want to back them up. I want to back up the NAS. But if the backup software is for windows, how can i run it off from a mac?

Basically i need any method that would schedule an automated backup from my NAS to an external hard drive through the router (without the use of a computer). I am ready to change the NAS or/and the router.

Please suggest the best solution for this.




 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Hey there, Amit Ahuja!

You should be able to use the Time Machine Backup utility from your Mac OS computers with the WD My Book Live NAS. The built-in software tool a.k.a. WD SmartWare is for use with Windows operating systems, indeed. However, there is nothing stopping you to use the WD NAS with your Mac's Time Machine for automatic backups of your systems. I'd recommend you to check out this KB article from our website that explains how exactly to set this up: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=MEd9Lf
Here's the step-by-step tutorial for WD My Book Live: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=Vj0gGR

Hope this helps. Keep me posted if you have further questions! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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greenmachine33

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Jul 23, 2015
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>>Can I do a backup/sync seamlessly without human intervention? I mean without mounting the NAS onto a computer a mapped netowrk drive, etc. Also, I have all mac laptops and dont want the laptops to be tied down with a mapped network drive of NAS.

So it is unclear to me if you want your laptops to be on and running during the backup or you want it to run in background with all laptops off. I actually desire the latter but so far have never been able to totally get that to go.

Disclaimer: I currently only do Windows 8 no MAC but that might change. There are some iOS floating around the house but that's not a major factor at the moment. For Windows, I had a similar concern about mapping (mounting) the drives since it tries to reconnect every time or so I believe. In my sync software I just reference the ip address \\192.168.1.x\Foldername\ and set the NAS to static IP. I've used that system for 5 years and it's been fine. I recommend static IP anyway for NAS even if you don't care about this.

If all this doesn't work for you, you can get a NAS with a USB port. I have used Seagate and Buffalo for a few years. My current Buffalo didn't have USB but the new Linksation 210 I just installed does have a USB2 host port. I have yet to activate it. However I know from previous Buffalo experience you can set up background jobs that will run with no laptops on. I saw the menu in the new one, so I think there is high likelihood that if and when I plug in a USB2 drive I'll be able to set up a daily or weekly job or whatever I want to do a differential backup of the NAS to the USB2. That doesn't solve all my problems, but does help a little.

If anyone knows of a slick NAS that comes with an always-on solution, like Connected Standby or Smart Connect, where the NAS does backup and sync whenever your laptop is in range even if its off, that would be very 20th century...
 
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