Seagate Backup Plus Desktop User manual

Seagate Dashboard User Guide

logo, and FreeAgent are trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC, or one of

its affiliates. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective

owners. When referring to hard drive capacity, one gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes and one

terabyte, or TB, equals one thousand billion bytes when referring to hard drive capacity. In addition,

some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions, and thus will not be available

for data storage. Quantitative usage examples for various applications are for illustrative purposes.

Actual quantities will vary based on various factors including file size, file format, features, and

application software. Seagate reserves the right to change, without notice, product offerings or

specifications.

Seagate Technology LLC

10200 S. De Anza Boulevard

Cupertino, CA 95014 U.S.A

Seagate Dashboard User Guide 3

Contents

1. Introducing Seagate Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Seagate Dashboard Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Protecting Your Data (Windows Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Sharing Your Pictures and Videos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Downloading and Saving Your Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Controlling Settings for Your Seagate Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Getting Started With Seagate Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

About the Seagate Dashboard Icon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

System Requirements for Seagate Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Windows Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Mac Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Cloud Storage Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2. Protecting Your Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Activating the Default Backup Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Creating a Customized Backup Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Restoring Files from Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3. Sharing Your Pictures and Videos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

How Picture and Video Sharing Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Example: Uploading Pictures to Facebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

4. Saving Your Online Pictures with Seagate Dashboard . . . . . . . . . 21

How Picture Saving Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Example: Downloading Pictures from Facebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

5. Using Cloud Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

About Cloud Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Setting up a Cloud Storage Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Signing Into Your Cloud Storage Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Managing Your Cloud Storage Account from Seagate Dashboard . . . . . . . 25

Using the Cloud Storage Web Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

6. Managing Your Seagate Drives with Seagate Dashboard . . . . . . . 29

Seagate Dashboard User Guide 4

Viewing Information About Your Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Adjusting Drive Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Getting Technical Support for Your Seagate Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

7. Managing the Seagate Dashboard Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Configuring Seagate Dashboard Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Setting Up Your Seagate Drives for Seagate Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Configuring Seagate Dashboard Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Viewing the Seagate Dashboard Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Updating the Seagate Dashboard Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Introducing Seagate Dashboard Seagate Dashboard Features

Seagate Dashboard User Guide 5

1. Introducing Seagate Dashboard

Seagate Dashboard is a powerful, yet easy-to-use utility for backing up your data and sharing

and saving media on your social media networks.

This chapter describes the features of Seagate Dashboard, how to get started using the

program, and the system requirements for the Windows and Mac versions of the program.

Seagate Dashboard Features

Seagate Dashboard includes the following features:

•Data protection (Windows only): Back up your data continuously or on a schedule,

either to a Dashboard-enhanced Seagate drive or to an online Cloud Storage account.

•Picture and video sharing: Use Seagate Dashboard to upload your pictures and videos

to popular social networking services such as Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube.

•Picture saving: Set up Seagate Dashboard to download and save pictures posted on

your social media accounts to your Seagate drive.

•Seagate drive management: Control settings for your Seagate drive, including the

power-save feature and LED settings.

Protecting Your Data (Windows Only)

With Seagate Dashboard’s Protect feature, you can start backing up your system with a

single click, or you can customize the feature to back up your data according to a set

schedule.

You can specify which files or directories get backed up and where the backed-up files are

saved, either to a Dashboard-enhanced Seagate drive, or to the online Seagate Cloud

Storage Service Powered by Nero. If you need to restore a file from a backup drive, you can

select from multiple historical versions of the file.

See “Protecting Your Data” on page 9 for information on how to use the Protect feature.

Seagate Cloud Storage Service Powered by Nero

Included with your Backup Plus drive is a free subscription to the Seagate Cloud Storage

Service Powered by Nero. Cloud Storage is a secure, reliable place to store your backed-up

data online. The free subscription includes one year of service and four gigabytes of secure

online storage. You can optionally upgrade your online storage capacity to as much as 100

gigabytes.

See “Using Cloud Storage” on page 23 for more information.

Introducing Seagate Dashboard Getting Started With Seagate Dashboard

Seagate Dashboard User Guide 6

Note: The Protect feature and Cloud Storage service are only available on the Windows version of

Seagate Dashboard. For Mac systems, Seagate recommends that you back up your system

using Apple Time Machine.

Sharing Your Pictures and Videos

Seagate Dashboard provides a convenient way to upload your pictures and videos to popular

social networking services such as Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube.

You simply choose the social networking service where want to upload the pictures and

videos, log in, select the files to upload, and enter album details. Seagate Dashboard

automatically uploads the files and creates the album.

See “Sharing Your Pictures and Videos” on page 17 for information on how to use the Share

feature.

Downloading and Saving Your Pictures

Seagate Dashboard’s Save feature can check your Facebook or Flickr accounts for new

pictures you’ve uploaded and automatically download them to your computer at home. This is

a convenient way to preserve the pictures you’ve posted online, so they don’t get deleted

accidentally.

See “Saving Your Online Pictures with Seagate Dashboard” on page 21 for information on

how to use the Save feature.

Controlling Settings for Your Seagate Drive

Using Seagate Dashboard, you can easily adjust settings and features on your Seagate

drives. You can control the power save feature on your drive, turn the LEDs on the drive on or

off, perform a diagnostic test, and link directly to the Seagate technical support page for your

drive.

See “Managing Your Seagate Drives with Seagate Dashboard” on page 29 for more

information.

Getting Started With Seagate Dashboard

After you install the Seagate Dashboard software, you can launch the Seagate Dashboard

user interface to set up and use the program’s features.

On Windows systems, do one of the following:

Introducing Seagate Dashboard Getting Started With Seagate Dashboard

Seagate Dashboard User Guide 7

•Double-click the Seagate Dashboard icon on your desktop.

•Right-click the Seagate Dashboard icon in the system tray, and select Open Seagate

Dashboard from the menu.

•From the list of programs on the Start menu, select Seagate Dashboard > Seagate

Dashboard.

On Mac systems, launch Seagate Dashboard from the Applications folder. For easy access,

you can add the Seagate Dashboard icon to the Dock. You can configure settings for

Seagate Dashboard by clicking the System Preferences icon.

About the Seagate Dashboard Icon

The Seagate Dashboard icon (shown in Figure 2 above), located in the taskbar notification

area on your computer desktop, indicates that the Seagate Dashboard agent is running in the

background and protecting your data.

The Seagate Dashboard icon can be one of the following colors:

By default, the Seagate Dashboard agent starts running when you start your computer. To

disable the Seagate Dashboard agent, right-click the Seagate Dashboard icon and select

Quit from the menu. If you do not want the Seagate Dashboard agent to start running when

your computer starts, right-click the Seagate Dashboard icon and remove the checkmark

next to Launch on Startup.

Note that if you disable the Seagate Dashboard agent, any scheduled backups or automatic

file downloads that you’ve configured in Seagate Dashboard will not take place.

Figure 1: Seagate Dashboard Desktop Icon

Figure 2: Seagate Dashboard Icon in the Windows System Tray

Green The Seagate Dashboard agent and Seagate drive are operating normally.

Yellow There is a minor issue with the Seagate Dashboard software, such as a

backup failing to complete. Check the Seagate Dashboard log for details.

See “Viewing the Seagate Dashboard Log” on page 36.

Red There may be a mechanical issue with the Seagate drive. Check to see if

the drive is working properly. If it isn’t, contact Seagate Technical Support.

See “Getting Technical Support for Your Seagate Drive” on page 31

Seagate Dashboard Icon

Introducing Seagate Dashboard System Requirements for Seagate Dashboard

Seagate Dashboard User Guide 8

System Requirements for Seagate Dashboard

Seagate Dashboard runs on Windows and Mac computers. Make sure your system meets

the requirements listed in this section.

Note: The Protect, Share, and Save features of Seagate Dashboard only work with Dashboard-

enhanced Seagate drives, such as the Backup Plus family of drives. These features do not

work on non-Dashboard-enhanced Seagate drives, or drives from other vendors.

Windows Requirements

To use Seagate Dashboard on a Windows computer, you need the following:

•2 GHz or higher AMD®or Intel®processor

•Windows®XP, Windows Vista®, or Windows 7 operating system

•512 MB RAM (1 GB RAM for Windows Vista or Windows 7)

•Internet Explorer®6 or later, Firefox®2.x or later, or Chrome 4.x or later Web browser

Mac Requirements

To use Seagate Dashboard on a Mac computer, you need the following:

•Mac OS®X 10.6.8 or later operating system

•Safari®3.1 or later Web browser

Cloud Storage Requirements

To set up and use a Cloud Storage account, you need the following:

•Internet connection. For best results, the connection speed should be broadband DSL or

faster.

•Dashboard-enhanced Seagate drive, such as one of the Backup Plus family. The Cloud

Storage service is not compatible with non-Dashboard-enhanced drives.

•Windows computer. The Cloud Storage service does not work with Mac computers, even

when connected to a Dashboard-enhanced Seagate drive.

Protecting Your Data Activating the Default Backup Plan

Seagate Dashboard User Guide 9

2. Protecting Your Data

Seagate Dashboard includes a robust and flexible data backup feature. You can start

backing up your system with a single click, or you can customize the feature to back up your

data according to a set schedule and save it to a Dashboard-enhanced Seagate backup drive

or to Cloud Storage.

If you need to restore a file from a backup drive, you can select from multiple historical

versions of the file. (Only a single version of the file is saved to Cloud Storage.)

Note: The Protect feature is only available on the Windows version of Seagate Dashboard. For Mac

computers, Seagate recommends that you back up your system using Apple Time Machine.

Activating the Default Backup Plan

The Default Backup plan is the simplest way to start backing up your data. When you activate

the default backup plan, Seagate Dashboard automatically backs up your files to your

Seagate drive, then keeps running in the background, continuously backing up new and

changed files. No additional configuration is required for the default backup plan beyond

activating it.

To activate the default backup plan, do the following:

1. On the Seagate Dashboard Home screen, click Protect.

2. On the Protect screen, click the Protect Now button.

Figure 3: Seagate Dashboard Protect Screen

Protecting Your Data Creating a Customized Backup Plan

Seagate Dashboard User Guide 10

Seagate Dashboard starts backing up your data to your Seagate drive. If you have more than

one Seagate drive connected to your computer, your data is backed up to the drive

designated as the default backup drive. See “Setting Up Your Seagate Drives for Seagate

Dashboard” on page 33 for information on how to set the default backup drive.

Note that Seagate Dashboard does not back up certain files, including:

•The contents of the Windows directory

•The contents of the Program Files directory

•System files

•Hidden files

•Files on detachable USB drives

Creating a Customized Backup Plan

If you would like to have more control over how your data is backed up, you can customize a

backup plan. You can specify which files or directories get backed up, when the backup plan

runs, and where the backed-up files should be saved, either to a Dashboard-enhanced

Seagate drive or to Cloud Storage.

The following is an example of how to create a customized backup plan. In this example, a

directory called Coins is backed up every day at 10:00pm.

1. On the Seagate Dashboard Home screen, click Protect.

2. On the Protect screen, click the New Backup Plan button to display the Custom Backup

screen.

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