Trying save a WindowsImageBackup to a WD My Cloud Home Duo

PowerShell Help
22

Hello, Matt. I wrote to WD Customer Support and passed on your comments. They told me that the Gen2 was an old machine and recommended My Cloud Ex2 Ultra as 2-bay NAS solution instead.

However, since then I’ve started using Acronis again and I’ve begun to see just how awkward Bitlocker is when it comes to backing up to pretty welll anywhere.

For the last couple of weeks while I had the MCHD before I took it back to the store I had taken off Bitlocker. But backing up on a routine basis (to My Cloud Ex2 Ultra or one of the Synology products or to some cloud service on the internet) is going to involve taking off Bitlocker to back up files, and then putting it back on again for security. But once all my files have been copied across to my new computer, the Bitlocker off and on op takes a long time.

Unless someone can recommend a different procedure?

(Many thanks, btw, to all those who commented in this thread.)

23

Sure, it’s getting on a bit but I wasn’t recommending it to you, just illustrating that an Windows image back up to a WD MyCloud device, over the network, works fine.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at with the Bitlocker problem. I’m reading it that you’ve encrypted the NAS with Bitlocker, but that can’t be right. Can you clarify?

24

According to Acronis, there are three states of Bitlocker: not there, there but unlocked, and locked. When a drive is locked, Acronis can’t “see” what’s there, so there’s nothing it can usefully do. However, if the state is unlocked, it can. I remember when I first started try to upload my Drive C: to the MCHD I got a warning about the encryption. Not that it mattered because I never succeeded in uploading a Windows Image Backup, even after removing BitLocker. As I said, I would dearly have loved to try your command, but towards the end I had a series of fictitious drives on my computer - X:, Y:, Z: - which couldn’t be disconnected, so I was worried about some kind of “back contamination” and, though frustrated as hell by three weeks of failures, I didn’t dare continue. So I returned my computer to its factory state, wiped the MCHD, and took it back to Currys.

When a computer is running, if the OS is on Drive C:, then BitLocker is in the unlocked state on that drive. So I’m unclear about how this makes it safer. Doesn’t that mean that, if you try to copy it, you’ll be copying an unlocked version, therefore readable to a hacker? So what’s the point of it?

But if you have the OS on one drive and put your data on a different drive, which you lock, then Acronis can’t see it, so, if you want to upload it somewhere, you have to remove BitLocker. Putting it on and taking it off takes a long time if you’ve got a lot of files.

My original goal was to be able to upload a complete copy of my HD somewhere, frequently updatable, which, in the event of a computer crash or hijack, I could overlay onto the unusable HD. It’s turning out to be extraordinarily difficult.

Anyway, for the time being I’m exploring the following:

  1. Different encryption methods.

  2. Different upload destinations.

  3. Just exactly what happens when uploading an unlocked drive.

I’m rather disappointed about NAS drives, not least because the so-called technicians working for the big suppliers (My Cloud, Synology) don’t seem to be very familiar with what their products can actually do. The people in this discussion group are a lot more knowledgeable.

25

Bitlocker only protects offline partitions. EFS protects data while in use. They both serve different functions

26

I must be missing the point. What Matt provided will do as you ask, it will provide you with a recovery image in case of a complete disk failure. Where does Acronis come into play? I have not used it for many years and I am only familiar with the version where you boot into Acronis from external media, then image a physical disk. This of course wont work on a Bitlocker drive. There are products that will work on Bitlockered drives like Casper (google it), but they will cost you.

27

This looks very interesting. But prudence requires me to inquire if you have any connection with this product?

28

I do not. The only connection I have is that I have used it in the past. A few years ago.

29

I’ve just plugged in some guestimates in Amazon EFS and find that I’d be paying $0.02 per month. Something’s off somewhere. This is a very unfamiliar idea.

30

Not very familiar with Acronis but I’ve had a quick look at their docs.

A full PC back up is possible but all disks must be unlocked or not encrypted. If one disk is locked, even if all the other disks are unlocked or not encrypted, the backup will fail. Important to note that Acronis use the term disk, to refer to a volume.

The disks need to be unlocked for data to be copied. Acronis, like most modern backup software, gives you the option to encrypt the backup or you could encrypt the backup storage. If you do encrypt the storage, you would need to ensure that Acronis can see the backup otherwise you wouldn’t be able to restore it.

31

Thank you. I meant no offence. I’m very glad to be able to count on your disinterested advice.

My very best wishes.

32

I don’t think I was very clear in my post, my apologies. I was referring to Encrypting File System Encrypting File System - Wikipedia

Which is just windows

33

Thanks for the clarification.

I have Home versions of Windows 10 and 11 on my two machines (which don’t support EFS). I see that I can upgrade to Pro versions (paying a price). Before I go ahead, what are the cons?

34

Sounds like you favour different software from Acronis. Which do you favour?

35

I’ve looked at different products for home a few times but never in enough depth to find a solution that meets all my needs. It really goes back to what @krzydoug said earlier in this thread about testing a few solutions and finding one that’s easy to use and reliable.

The main limitation I’ve found for home use is that a lot of solutions don’t support backing up a NAS, and that’s where I store most of my data because I want access to it regardless of which device I’m using.

I don’t use any back up software, but this works for me:

I back up the NAS to a folder on the PC in case the NAS fails.
I back up the few bits that I keep on the PC to the NAS in case the PC fails.
I create encrypted ZIP files of the important stuff and copy them to cloud drives in case I lose the PC and NAS.

I use Directory Opus to do the sync/backup and create the ZIP files and it’s a manual process. However, I don’t do it that often because the data I care about doesn’t really change that much.

36

[matt-bloomfield] matt-bloomfield
https://forums.powershell.org/u/matt-bloomfield
December 9

I’ve looked at different products for home a few times but never in
enough depth to find a solution that meets all my needs. It really
goes back to what @krzydoug https://forums.powershell.org/u/krzydoug
said earlier in this thread about testing a few solutions and finding
one that’s easy to use and reliable.

The main limitation I’ve found for home use is that a lot of solutions
don’t support backing up a NAS, and that’s where I store most of my
data because I want access to it regardless of which device I’m using.

I don’t use any back up software, but this works for me:

I back up the NAS to a folder on the PC in case the NAS fails.

Don’t the duo systems guard against this?

37

This is of course a topic of many opinions. From what I see, you are basically creating 3 copies of your data in case one of two systems (your PC and NAS) fails. In my opinion, it is overkill as the odds of both failing at the same time are unlikely. But lets just say your house burns down and all is lost. Your only solution there is the cloud. Most modern NAS devices include cloud backup. Why would you not do that? It may cost you, but the cost is usually minimal. You can also hang a disk off the NAS, usually USB or eSATA, and backup your NAS to that and automate from the NAS. That might be simpler than what you are doing now and it will be cheap. Large USB drives are very cheap these days.

Just my $.02

38

Do you mean because the drives are mirrored? RAID is not a backup solution. With mirrored drives, you can lose one drive and still be OK but it’s not unheard of for more than one drive to fail at the same time or for the entire device to fail for some other reason. RAID also doesn’t protect against ransomware, user error, theft, fire, flood, or any other of the reasons you should be backing up your stuff.

39

Well, it’s basically the 3-2-1 method for the PC and the NAS:
Primary copy + 1 local backup copy + 1 off-site copy

My NAS does offer Elephant Drive and S3 client for Amazon, but you have to pay for both of those. That seems wasteful when I already have lots of cloud storage available from other providers that’s mostly unused.

40

Matt … I thought he was going from PC1 → NAS → PC1 … did not get the “off site” part. My bad.

FWIW, I backup PC → NAS. And since I pay for office and get 1TB of cloud, I backup there as well for my OffSite. Be careful with OneDrive … if you assign it to “Backup” your Documents or Pictures, it REMOVES them from your local system. Not what I call a backup. Use Junctions instead. That works great for me.

41

If you want to be independend from the vendor of the storage you could take a look at

It works with a lot of backends