Drive copying software that syncs like Dropbox?

[TheBigCheese]

Hi everybody! (Hi Dr Nick...)

I'm currently mulling over backup options with a view to protecting myself from the Cryptolocker virus and also for just good practice, it's a habit I need to get into.

I was wondering about cloud storage which has a local folder such as Dropbox but as some far more logical thinking members than me pointed out, should the virus strike, that would be encrypted as well. See this thread.

It's now occurred to me that rather than paying an ongoing fee for online storage (which would be substantial for the amount of data I have to backup) a better option would be backing up onto local HDDs.

Is there software available that works in the same way as Dropbox but for local drives?

My intention is to back up all the drives to external HDDs, then disconnect the external HDDs except for last thing at night where any changes made during the day to the source drives are automatically synced to the backup drive. That means adding data as well as deleting unwanted data I've removed from the source.

I have Piriform HDD manager 12 but that doesn't seem to have a sync option.

I've found free software called FreeFileSync but I'm not sure if that does exactly what I need or if I can get away with using free software for this job.


What do you think or this idea for backup and what software would you recommend?




Thanks!


(Sorry for spamming with two questions in short succession, hopefully this will be a good idea that'll provide a backup solution!

 

[TheBigCheese]

Thanks very much for all the suggestions, my apologies for the delayed reply, I've been busy the past couple of days.

Selekt0r - that's a really good point with the rollback feature but my Crashplan has now expired and I've decided I don't really want to keep forking out on a subscription. I'm also a little data protection concious as some data has names/addresses on it, possibly best not to upload that stuff, so I'm definitely looking at a local solution now.

linktoinsanity - Robocopy was sounding hopeful until you mentioned writing my own script...my one rule with technology is if it's possible to screw something up then I will...I always get an inexplicable error when building machines even though I've been doing it for years...makes the missus giggle anyway. :/

Dblaze and Hellsmk2, thanks for the Syncback recommendations, I've had a look at the website and that does look like what I need!

I have at least 2TB drives in my setup that I would like cloned and updated to backup drives in external enclosures. Would they still backup and sync if the external drives appear with different drive letters?

Also, do you know if it's possible to set the software to sync to just match the destination from the source drive? I don't want to delete stuff from the source drive only to have it reappear from the destination drive (I haven't really synced stuff before...not sure the setup of it!).


bledd. - wow that's a genius idea! I think I need to investigate how I can do that with my Synology NAS as that's a really good idea, the stuff I put on there (completed customer orders etc.) is just for achive so if I can protect them in that way it'll be brilliant!