1TB WD hard drive thinks it's full yet folder properties total only 300GB ?

[blackju]

This is a similar problem to one reported elsewhere here though mine has not been solved by the solution to that (they found a folder containing millions of files)......

I have a 1TB WD hard drive that backs up the documents and photos on my laptop (I don't copy them across, I let the WD Smartware software handle that). The total storage of these items on my laptop is approx 300GB, yet the WD hard drive is showing about 873GB used ! I have checked the Properties of the individual folders showing on the WD hard drive and the sizes total approx 300GB which is what I expect. So why does the hard drive show it's got 873GB of data ?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the community, blackju!

It's possible that you have set your WD SmartWare to continuous backups which would explain why the external HDD is filling up. The Continuous backup instantly makes a second copy whenever you add or change a file. Scheduled backups, on the other hand, run on the days and times you select.

I'd suggest you reinstall the WD SmartWare Software on your computer and reformat the WD external from Disk Management. Afterwards, you'd be able to begin the backup procedure again. Here's a link to the available WD Software where you would be able to find the SmartWare setup file.

If you have any data from the external that is not backed up, I'd strongly recommend you to copy it to a safe location on your computer or another storage device before reformatting the HDD.

Hope this helps. Keep me posted!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[blackju]

Welcome to the community, blackju!

It's possible that you have set your WD SmartWare to continuous backups which would explain why the external HDD is filling up. The Continuous backup instantly makes a second copy whenever you add or change a file. Scheduled backups, on the other hand, run on the days and times you select.

I'd suggest you reinstall the WD SmartWare Software on your computer and reformat the WD external from Disk Management. Afterwards, you'd be able to begin the backup procedure again. Here's a link to the available WD Software where you would be able to find the SmartWare setup file.

If you have any data from the external that is not backed up, I'd strongly recommend you to copy it to a safe location on your computer or another storage device before reformatting the HDD.

Hope this helps. Keep me posted!
SuperSoph_WD

Hi Sophie - thanks for this - do you know where I set whether the Backup is continuous or on a schedule ? I don't just want to reinstall and find that the same thing is happening.....Also, I assume the re-installation will delete all the files/folders that are on the hard drive, hence the need to ensure I'm backed up somewhere else first ?

Thx

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there again, blackju!

Indeed, you definitely need to do a backup of the files from the external somewhere else, if there is anything that is missing from your computer currently.
Reformatting the external using the tutorial from my previous post will erase all the files and folders.
Make sure you uninstall the SmartWare Software from the Control Panel in Windows ( http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uninstall-change-program#uninstall-change-program=windows-7 ) and then re-install the from the setup file on our website (there's a link in my upper comment to that one as well).
As for doing backups with the WD SmartWare utilities, I'd recommend you to check the tutorials from our knowledge base here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=cH5CaY
More specifically, follow How to create a Scheduled Backup with WD SmartWare: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=pY2xPv
Once you go to Set Backup Frequency in the utility, you'd see the two options Continuous Backup and Scheduled Backup

Let me know if you need further assistance with it!
SuperSoph_WD