Personal Backup software

[dogoftheunderworld]

I'm looking for a decent backup solution to backup digital photos from my harddrive to a usb drive. Right now, I'm just copying folders across; but I would like something easier and that does incremental backup/file syncing. Free is preferable of course

Right now I have Microsoft Sync Toy, Freebyte Backup, and Goodsync on my list of freebies to try.

Any reviews or suggestions?

Thanks,

Brian
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[Redrobes]

RSync is the daddy of mirroring software see :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsync

Its a bit tricky on Windows tho. There are some more alternatives such as BeyondCompare has a good mirroring client.

You want my opinion ? I just use xcopy from a DOS box. Put this into a bat file...

xcopy C:\*.* D:\ /K /O /X /E /Y /D /C /R /F /H
pause

and run that by just clicking on it. You will have to change the C: \ and D: \ to the drive letters that you have for your HD and flash drive to backup all C: \ to D: \. If you want a sub dir then tack it on.

It will only copy what has changed (by date) so it wont trash your 10,000 limit file access on your flash drive.

Heres some help for it...
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/xcopy.mspx?mfr=true

Id double check the command before you use it just to check that its going to do what you need. You dont want to try and copy the whole HD to it...

 

[Mycanid]

There are a few nice freebiew out there ... how tech savvy you are is always a factor of course. Some people are especially fond of a freebie called "Cobian Backup".

For simple data backup I use a freebie that came with an Iomega product I purchased. It is called "Iomega Automatic Backup". It does incremental backup and file syncing. But I think it is no longer "officially" supported by Iomega. Ah well.

 

[Drawmack]

Use the backup software built into windows, then you can feed it into scheduler and make the entire backup process automatic.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

You want my opinion ? I just use xcopy from a DOS box. Put this into a bat file...

xcopy C:\*.* D:\ /K /O /X /E /Y /D /C /R /F /H
pause

....

Duh. Oh, how I miss the wonders of DOS I think that's all I really need.

Thanks everybody!

 

[ssampier]

If xcopy doesn't do what you want, give xxcopy a try. I use it with the /clone option and it works well.

http://www.xxcopy.com

 

[ssampier]

xcopy C:\*.* D:\ /K /O /X /E /Y /D /C /R /F /H
pause

Why are you backing up the entire hard drive? It'd be better for his uses if he copies his My Pictures folder.

xcopy C: \Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Pictures\*.* x:

should do it.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

Why are you backing up the entire hard drive? It'd be better for his uses if he copies his My Pictures folder.

xcopy C: \Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Pictures\*.* x:

should do it.

Yeah, I knew where he was going. I have my "My Documents" folder pointing to a separate partition, but yes, I only copied my digital pictures directory. Seems xcopy doesn't like long folder names, so I had to do a bit of ~ conversion, but other than that, all is well.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[Redrobes]

You *dont* want to try and copy the whole HD to it...

I think this is first time I have had to quote myself !

 

[ssampier]

Yeah, I knew where he was going. I have my "My Documents" folder pointing to a separate partition, but yes, I only copied my digital pictures directory. Seems xcopy doesn't like long folder names, so I had to do a bit of ~ conversion, but other than that, all is well.

Thanks again everyone!

Hmm, I semi-recall that if you enclose it quotes it should preserve the full filenames

xcopy "c : \*.*" "X:"

or something to that effect.