Backup software to create mirrored files on disk

JWatson_2

Hi

I've bought a portable USB disk and want to backup all the files from certain folders on my PC. The free software that comes with the disk and most cheap backup software seems to copy all the files to a file with a proprietary format. However I want to create a mirrored copy of the chosen folders and files to be backed up (not every folder - just those I need backed up). After the initial backup I only want changed files to be copied.

My thinking is that if I plug the disk into another PC I don't want to install the software just to copy the files.

I've looked at Microsoft SyncToy, which almost does the job, but doesn't have scheduling.

Any recommendations ?

Thanks

John_Gray

Do you want to spend any money or not? Can you handle batch files and Task Scheduler?

I use both AllWay Sync and SyncBackSE - there is a free version of the latter, but I'm not sure it's schedulable...
If the latter applies, I use RoboCopy in a scheduled BATch job.

Dave_C_2

If you can handle batch files then this should work as you require in XP (a copy of the one I use)

@echo off
echo Copying files to Backup
echo *** MY Documents ****
xcopy "C:\Documents and Settings\user1\My Documents"\*.* d:\Backups\user1 /s /m /d /y
echo *** User2 Documents ****
xcopy "C:\Documents and Settings\user2\My Documents"\*.* d:\Backups\user2 /s /m /d /y
echo *** Downloads ****
xcopy C:\Downloads\*.* \Downloads /s /m /d /y
Echo *** All users***
xcopy "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents"\*.* d:\Backups\Shared /s /m /d /y
pause

Notes
a) d: is the backup drive, you may have to change this to suit your USB drive.
b) User1 and User2 are me and the missus, change to suit yourself
c) The switches in xcopy are as follows
... /s copies the folder and all sub-folders omit if you don't want to copy sub-folders
... /m only copies files that have changed since the last backup
... /d copies files that are newer than those in the backup
... /y disables the prompt to overwrite existing backup files

Dave

debitcardmayhem

JWatson wrote: »

Hi

I've bought a portable USB disk and want to backup all the files from certain folders on my PC. The free software that comes with the disk and most cheap backup software seems to copy all the files to a file with a proprietary format. However I want to create a mirrored copy of the chosen folders and files to be backed up (not every folder - just those I need backed up). After the initial backup I only want changed files to be copied.

My thinking is that if I plug the disk into another PC I don't want to install the software just to copy the files.

I've looked at Microsoft SyncToy, which almost does the job, but doesn't have scheduling.

Any recommendations ?

Thanks

Sync toy doesn't have scheduling but Windows does

I will look for the article using google please wait.....

debitcardmayhem

Aaah the power of google http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=synctoy+scheduled+task&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

spud17

Me and others on here have found Synctoy to be slow and unreliable. Also it's not that simple to set up under a Windows Scheduled Task.

However, as John Gray posts Syncback (the free one) is great, and can be easily scheduled. I've found it to be totally reliable, in fact it's just backed up my 'My Documents'.

debitcardmayhem

spud17 wrote: »

Me and others on here have found Synctoy to be slow and unreliable. Also it's not that simple to set up under a Windows Scheduled Task.

However, as John Gray posts Syncback (the free one) is great, and can be easily scheduled. I've found it to be totally reliable, in fact it's just backed up my 'My Documents'.

Sorry spud, I leave my scheduled tasks to my nurse , sadly he is out having a :beer: on me tonight:D

NiVZ

If you are confident writing small batch files and using Task scheduler, then Robocopy from Microsoft is another good way to do this. It's also free.

It supports mirroring so it will only copy files which have changed since the last time it was run.

NiVZ

Dave_C_2

You live and you learn!
I've been using variants of my batch file (above) for so long that I simply wasn't aware of "ready made" programs. Mind you batch files are reliable - once you get them working properly.
Thanks for the suggestions folks:beer:
Dave