how to properly map a network drive

Ed, in my experience Acronis does not use any mapped drive letters directly but will ask you to identify the NAS in the Destination settings for your backup task, which can be either using the NAS network name or the IP address depending on whether the NAS shows in the listing offered.

You can use the notation //192.168.0.29/Backup or //MyNas/Backup in the top entry field (where for my own NAS my backups are stored in sub-folders off the NAS /Backup folder.

One of the issues with using mapped drives with Acronis is that the drives are mapped using a different user account than that used by Acronis when it runs.

I prefer to use the Device Name for the NAS as it is more flexible than IP address as the IP address of the NAS can sometimes change. I would not recommend using drive mapping as it can lead to breach in security. 

Thank you both for taking the time to reply.I tried changing from a mapped drive to browsing to the NAS name.  At first it looked like it saved the new name is the destination but within a couple minutes it changed right back. 

Ed, where exactly are you looking when you saw the above change of name?

Like Ian with his comment, I never use any mapped drives to my own Synology NAS (or WD MyBook network drive) because having such would be an open invitation for any malware / virus to spread if any got a foothold on my system.

I have regular Acronis backups scheduled to both these net drives and once I have set the access credentials then they just show up with the Destination having the net name.

Steve

For whatever reason I'm not able to attach a screenshot.  I'm just going to the backup tab and clicking on the name of the backup in the middle column.  from there I make sure that I'm on the backup tab where you can select the source and the destination.  When I change the destination to be a NAS the nation from its current IP drive letter within a few minutes it will change back.  If I could figure out how to attach an image I could show you this but for whatever reason it says the file cannot be uploaded. The file was a standard JPEG and it's under 1 MB so I don't know what the problem is.

Ed, does the backup to the NAS run successfully or not?

The forum File Upload option has been unreliable for a long time now!  You can use the IMCE File Manager option (icon inbetween the horse-shoe and YouTube icons) to embed images in with your post text as an alternative as I did above.

Ed wrote:

Steve

For whatever reason I'm not able to attach a screenshot.  I'm just going to the backup tab and clicking on the name of the backup in the middle column.  from there I make sure that I'm on the backup tab where you can select the source and the destination.  When I change the destination to be a NAS the nation from its current IP drive letter within a few minutes it will change back.  If I could figure out how to attach an image I could show you this but for whatever reason it says the file cannot be uploaded. The file was a standard JPEG and it's under 1 MB so I don't know what the problem is.

Hello Ed.

I have raised a ticket with our support ( 06184377 ) providing the details you mentioned here.

You can expect an email from our side as soon as possible.

Best regards. 

Hi Ed,

Your original .png attachment looks to be that of a Windows Map network drive screen when selected from File Explorer.  In my experience that choice is not going to work for you with Acronis.

In File Explorer choose instead Add a network location.  This will produce a wizard to help you establish/locate your NAS device.  Click through the first two screens until you see this one:

Now click on the View examples link as shown above in the wizard which will produce some examples that you can use to enter into the path field.  The first example is the one to use for a shared folder which is what you ultimately need to do here.  That example looks like this  (\\server\share).

Generally once you type the characters \\ the wizard will search the network and locate the path to the NAS device.  It will likely appear something like this - \\NASname\.  It is possible to set this location as the path but I advise against that as this allows access to the entire device.

It is therefore best that you first create a User Account on your NAS devices (which I am going to assume you have already done) and then nest folder(s) under that user for your purposes.  The network path then becomes this \\NASname\Username\foldername.  In this way your mapped network location is restricted to only this specific folder path on your NAS device(s) and not to an entire drive or device wide.  Following this will provide the most security of access. 

Here's what I was referring to when I said after I select the NAS drive as the destination it changes back to the IP address of the drive within a few minutes. 

Ed,

This likely due to the fact that you have a mapped drive letter to the NAS in question.  Remove the drive letter and try again.