External Hard Drive - advice please

googler

castle96 wrote: »

Q - I copy folder now. Then I add to it later. Will HD just 'take up' the 'new' photos, or all, again ?

No. Again, think of it as a filing cabinet. You've just put your first batch of folders, from your desk, into the filing cabinet.

Will any subsequent folders on your desk be moved there if you don't pick them up and move them yourself? No ....

If you employ someone to execute the process of putting them away, then you can switch off from the process of doing this yourself manually.

The equivalent of this in computer terms is running backup software to do this periodically for new or changed files. But if you're just copying away a few photos and stuff, it's hardly worth it.

esuhl

agrinnall wrote: »

There are ways of doing incremental backups (incremental refers to things that have changed since the last backup) but I think you'll need software to do it. Unless you have vast amounts of data I find it simpler just to copy everything each time...

You might like FreeFileSync. It allows you to keep a pair of folders in sync. So you could have a "My Documents" folder on an external drive, click "synchronise" and have the "My Documents" folder on your internal drive mirrored with the one on the external one.

It does the same as dragging and dropping, but it won't copy files that haven't changed (so it's quick to run -- like an incremental backup).

I vaguely remember that the installer wanted to bundle some toolbar crapware, so make sure you untick any relevant boxes if you do give it a go.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/freefilesync/
http://www.freefilesync.org/

dipsomaniac

synctoy is good https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=15155

esuhl

dipsomaniac wrote: »

synctoy is good https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=15155

I used to use that before FreeFileSync, but found it quite unreliable at copying large directories. There would often be files that it failed to copy without warning. Maybe they've fixed the bugs by now.

DigForVictory

I've a Samsung 2TB portable hard disk, presently in my workbag as that keeps it away from the main boxes. I copy over photos, music, films, books, TV programs that I want to keep. I've had it for 6 months & it's nowhere near Full yet.
It's up to me to decide what I copy onto it, but since the bigbox has a reasonably clear data setup, I can shuffle stuff over easily & I also tell it to shift Everything in that directory & when it asks duplicate are you sure you want to merge/replace? I say yes & let it make sure I have All the files.
I'm not trying to keep software programs etc on it - it's not a "rescue" device, just a backup of stuff I want to hang onto.
Money spent on a nice solid case that holds the disk, cable & possibly other memory sticks is probably a sensible investment, too.