Gadgetory

in a time where everyone seems to be getting by with their smartphones and their laptops and their tablets the age of the home desktop computer seems to be coming to an end that's it I know it can be hard to let these things go I mean I probably have all my important files on this thing backed up to a cloud somewhere my photos are on flickr my documents are on google and my music is stored on at least three different music services somewhere but there's something comforting about having my files nearby even on an old clunker like this so how about we compromise I'm gonna show you one of the best methods I found so far for backing up all your documents and files on your old desktop computer and clearing out some space in your home decluttering your desk and putting this thing out of his misery all right now before we get started let me be really clear about what I'm doing here I'm not making a backup of a vital computer that I use every day that's a whole other project what I'm talking about is a computer you haven't used in years maybe even decades you're tempted to just get rid of it but there might be some files on there that you want to reference later on but you don't have the time to go sort through it all and figure it out so here's what i recommend we're going to migrate the data over from this computer onto a network attached storage drive in this case we're using the WD My cloud a two terabyte drive here that I'm working with for 150 bucks there are other competitors out there like the Seagate central but the WD My cloud came more highly recommended by seen it and once you set this up it's going to pull over all the data all the files from your home computer and move them onto the drive and it's going to organize them automatically and when you're done instead of the files being on some portable hard drive that you're going to misplace the files are going to live on your home Wi-Fi network where you can access them at any time from any computer even a phone or tablet and from anywhere in the world first step is you're going to find your home's Wi-Fi router and make sure that the my cloud is plugged in nearby because this thing actually plugs into your router and not directly to your computer you're going to take the included ethernet cable plug it into the my cloud and plug the other end into your router on a free Ethernet port and you're good to go next you're going to head over to the computer that you're backing up and pull up WD calm / set up / w my cloud from here you're going to download the setup software run it and then watch it find the my cloud storage drive on your home network using the software you can be prompted to plug in your name and email address in order to personalize this and then when you get to the end you're going to be prompted to download an additional desktop application and the WD SmartWare application which is pc only the desktop app lets you transfer files manually just like a standard hard drive the smart wear app though is the secret sauce that automatically organizes all your content before transferring it over to the my cloud it's pc only though so mac users are going to have to either embrace the chaos or organize manually since this is a pc i'm going to use the Smart where application to create a one-time backup of my computer it's going to graph out all the different kinds of media is going to move over and it's a lot of stuff you do just as well to let this thing run overnight all right now once everything's transferred over it's time to jump on to your preferred laptop computer tablet or smartphone and check to make sure that everything's transferred over that's important to you you can download the my cloud application for Mac or PC or iOS or Android open it up noodle around and make sure everything important is there finally before getting rid of your old computer you're going to want to make sure to clear all your personal information off of it before handing it off now to do that you can dig up your old installation this for your computer if you still have them and do a full format and reinstallation of the software or you can dig up a copy of derek's boot and nuke online and burn it to a CD are that's another way to go if you feel an extra geeky or you can find a recycling center that will destroy your hard disk as part of the recycling process so there you go that's how to give your old desktop PC new life on a network attached storage drive giving you some extra peace of mind and look at this some extra room on your desk you