need simple Back-up / sync software

Phil Gr · 20 Oct 2008 at 10:13

Hope someone can recommend a simple prog to back-up / sync my work 'My Documents' folder to a pen drive and back again

Im fed-up of coming home only to find the document i have been working on is at work on my laptop

Thanks in advance

Phil G

rpstewart · 20 Oct 2008 at 10:50

Robocopy if you're happy with a command line program, Synctoy if you aren't.

GeForce · 20 Oct 2008 at 10:55

Synctoy has always been fine for me :cool:

Phil Gr · 20 Oct 2008 at 10:57

Cheers guys,

just got a copy and will try it when i get to work later

Will let you know how i get on

Phil G

_Jimlad_ · 20 Oct 2008 at 11:11

i ahve an issue with synctoy. I only for example keep 40gig of my video folder on my main c drive. and then on my backup drive the 'my video' folder is 100gig so how do i get my changes on the local drive over when the folder is diffirent on the backup drive?

kidloco · 20 Oct 2008 at 12:00

Give FolderShare a try, I use it to sync work files with my main PC and my work laptop. Its fully automated and works great.

Dont know how long it will be free for, its still in Beta, you know what MS are like, they will no doubt start charging for it soon.

_Jimlad_ · 20 Oct 2008 at 12:14

i don't see any way of backing my music, vid and doc folder up if they are diffirent on backup drive in the first place, the problem is storage, i can't keep all my data on my main hard drive. so i just drag it over at the end of each week which can be confusing if i have had a busy week for downloading and ripping!

Greenlizard0 · 20 Oct 2008 at 12:17

I use Syncback for my backup needs. Does what I want it to do.

Mobius 1 · 20 Oct 2008 at 12:17

syncback is good. my dad uses it (after i set it up for him though)

_Jimlad_ · 20 Oct 2008 at 12:24

-Tauren- said:
syncback is good. my dad uses it (after i set it up for him though)

so it works over wiress and updates the doc's foldeR?

Mobius 1 · 20 Oct 2008 at 12:55

_Jimlad_ said:
so it works over wiress and updates the doc's foldeR?

it will back up to whatever drive it can see. ive not tried it with wireless HDD's. but if it can see it, it can back up to it. not sure about the docs folder? how do you mean?

rpstewart · 20 Oct 2008 at 13:04

_Jimlad_ said:
i ahve an issue with synctoy. I only for example keep 40gig of my video folder on my main c drive. and then on my backup drive the 'my video' folder is 100gig so how do i get my changes on the local drive over when the folder is diffirent on the backup drive?

Use robocopy, you have to tell it specifically to delete files on the target which don't exist on the source. Use it without the /MIR switch and it does precisely what you want.

randal · 20 Oct 2008 at 13:07

Foldermatch is another good one.

_Jimlad_ · 20 Oct 2008 at 13:07

rpstewart said:
Use robocopy, you have to tell it specifically to delete files on the target which don't exist on the source. Use it without the /MIR switch and it does precisely what you want.

i'm crap with code

bledd · 20 Oct 2008 at 13:36

jimlad..

robocopy /e "c:\source" "d:\destination"

that's exactly what you want mate

the '/e' makes it copy all files and folders from the source to the destination, if files exist at the destination that don't at the source, it just leaves them there and doesn't care about them..

bledd · 20 Oct 2008 at 13:38

copy what i wrote and paste it into notepad, then save it as backup.bat (not .bat.txt**)

double click the file and it'll run your backup for you.

if you type.

pause on a new line, ie..

"

robocopy /e "c:\source" "d:\destination"
pause

"
and save that (without the quotes) it'll require you to any-key after the run

make some test folders to try it out with, keep the quotes that are around c:\source, incase you have spaces in the folder names

_Jimlad_ · 20 Oct 2008 at 15:42

bledd. said:
copy what i wrote and paste it into notepad, then save it as backup.bat (not .bat.txt**)

double click the file and it'll run your backup for you.

if you type.

pause on a new line, ie..

"

robocopy /e "c:\source" "d:\destination"
pause

"
and save that (without the quotes) it'll require you to any-key after the run

make some test folders to try it out with, keep the quotes that are around c:\source, incase you have spaces in the folder names

ok i'm gonna give it a try tomorrow! and report back thanks mate!

bledd · 20 Oct 2008 at 15:45

btw, xp doesn't have robocopy, vista has it already

here's the xp one for anyone else

http://bleddyn.co.uk/help/1files/ROBOCOPY.EXE

drop it in the c:\windows\system32 folder

_Jimlad_ · 20 Oct 2008 at 15:48

think i might watch robocop tonight now

bledd · 20 Oct 2008 at 15:56

"see i got this problem, cops don't like me; so i don't like cops"