back to article WD glams up SmartWare with Dropbox

WD has glammed up its SmartWare consumer backup software with a Pro version embracing Dropbox. Smartware presents you with a file-folder view of your, er, files, through its control centre. You can tell it to continuously backups of your files and folders, or scheduled snapshots - hourly, daily, monthly - using the specified …

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  1. jake Silver badge

    Whatever.

    In the last 40+ years, I haven't lost anything digital that I have generated. It ain't the computer or network, it's the operator. It's a poor mechanic who blames his/her tools.

    1. Professor Clifton Shallot

      Re: Whatever.

      There certainly are some tremendous tools around.

  2. Roger Lipscombe
    Facepalm

    Previous versions

    Dropbox does keep previous versions -- right click on the filename in the web browser.

  3. The BigYin

    Umm

    So if I have (say) 60GB in DropBox and my HDD dies....how long does it take me to download my back-ups? How do I store my configuration settings and related data? How do I ensure sensitive information is encrypted prior to upload*? How do I manage the keys for the encryption?

    Or, in other words, the "cloud" is not a back-up you pillocks!

    *If you are putting any data in Dropbox unencrypted and it is in any was sensitive, private or confidential; you are a class-A idiot.

    1. Tom Chiverton 1
      Stop

      Re: Umm

      "how long does it take me to download my back-ups?"

      Doesn't matter. Dropbox is your 'my house burnt down with my computers in it' insurance. You will have plenty to do while it spends a day or two re-downloading.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Previous version is simple isn't it?

    The previous version piece is already available a lot of Dropbox competitors. My company uses Probox which is similar to Dropbox but with a few more features aimed at business users. Unless I'm mistaken we get access to near unlimited previous versions of our files along with a load of other stuff that makes our IT guys very excited. All I care about is making my life easy, and it does.....

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Way too complicated for me

    I'm inclined to agree with jake that (at least for the consumer) it's over the top and it's down to your own approach. I have backups all over the place cos I never like to destroy information, but in truth I don't know what I really have.

    Which leads me to an important point : sometimes you want to wipe something out and start again, or get rid of all copies of something that you really wish you hadn't created (embarrassing/compromising etc.). Does this thing come with a "flush all copies of this file away throughout the system" button?

    [I recently came across the Windows 'Restore Previous Versions' facility and was surprised to find that you can resurrect files from previous restore points. 'Cool', I thought. Then 'What a security hole!']

  6. petur
    WTF?

    In what way is this new?

    I've been running DropBox (and other cloud file systems) on my QNAP NAS for more than a year.

    Some folders are attached to certain services, so if I drop files there, they sync to the cloud. And those folders can be anywhere, even somewhere inside the folder tree of my backup. So I backup to my NAS and part of this syncs to the cloud.

    Or my NAS holds a backup of the dropbox.

    That said, my backups are 100% under my own control, including encrypted offsite disks - dropbox is just for sharing with the friends who insist on using it :)

  7. Efros
    Thumb Down

    SmartWare

    Definitely isn't smart. Biggest heap of crap any of the HD manufacturers have dumped on their customers, and HD manufacturers seem to excel at writing crap software.

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