How to know if your backup is what it should be?

B0bbyEwing

I'm sure there's terminology in there somewhere but as I'm not 'down with the lingo' you'll have to bear with me.

So if you have a picture or an audio or video file or document or whatever (singular) & you want to back it up - no problem to check if everything is as it should be. Just open the duplicated file, does it look like it should, does it open at all, yes/no? Job done.

When you're backing up a number of GB, 100s of GBs or even TBs though, that isn't practical & at the same time I can't help thinking assuming it all worked out isn't good either.

So you back up your files & then way later you need to call on that backup & everything seemingly went as it should, yet now your most valued folder is actually garbage (I know you should have more than 1 backup but for the sake of what I'm trying to ask, let's say that is equally garbage).

As with the thread I made earlier today on digitising your music library. You run through 100 CDs. You can't really listen to every single track copied to make sure it is as it should be. 


Was just a thought I had that's all & I was just wondering what there is to make sure what's backed up or copied is as it should be without fail?

facade

You checksum them. There must be something to compare checksums for directories. SFVninja does it at file level, you write an sfv file from the source, then check the checksums of the copy match those in the sfv file, but it takes ages to do thousands.

Or for a quick & dirty solution, use a duplicate finder and set it to check contents, then you should have as many duplicates as you have files.

PHK

Doing a backup is more than just copying  files across. Part of the process is verifying that what has been copied is accurate.  This is why you should either use a reputable backup program or if one is built into your device.

Note that Windows 10 onwards automatically checks that a copy is identical to the original except for some particular types.

What's equally important is to have more than one backup and to refresh and check them regularly. You'll avoid any problems with the backup media/device/cloud having technical or physical problems.

km1500

if you just want to copy files from one place to another and then verify they are the same then use the free utility Teracopy to perform.the copy rather than Windows drag and drop