simple backup solution required, advice welcome!

clocka · 16 Oct 2009 at 19:39

Hi,

I have just built a new PC for my girlfriend and I have set up two separate storage hard drives that ive called Master (D:\) and Backup (E:\)

There are 2 directories on the Master hdd called Music and Pictures. I want these to me mirrored to the Backup drive.

D:\Pictures >> E:\Pictures
D:\Music >> E:\Music.

I want to be able to add new photos and albums to the Master D:\ and then for those files to be automatically replicated to the Backup E:\

I dont mind if it occurs at the time the files are first written to the master hdd or whether it happens on shutting down the PC. I want it to be seemless though so she doesnt have to bother with it and all her stuff is safely backed up.

its only these two folders that need mirroring and dont want to go down the RAID route as they are completely different size drives.

I read all the time that people have scripts to backup to their NAS etc, can anyone suggest some software of script that will allow me to do this?

any help is appreciated,
Clocka

Paul11 · 16 Oct 2009 at 19:57

synctoy or syncback will do this

but , copying to another drive in the same pc is not, imo, a safe enough back up procedure. If the PC gets stolen, you lose all your data.

as well as copying to another drive is to use an external HD and move it to a different location from the pc.

clocka · 16 Oct 2009 at 20:00

thanks for the suggestions ill check them out. we have an external USB backup drive that we plug in every month or so and both do copies on to that, but I also want the data on 2 drives to allow for daily additions to survive a hdd crash.

thanks

Paul11 · 16 Oct 2009 at 20:08

thats cool then

there are other options too, names just escape me atm

wonder_lander · 17 Oct 2009 at 01:02

I use http://www6.crashplan.com/consumer/index.html to backup my windows home server to another machine every night.

clocka · 18 Oct 2009 at 18:44

just in case anyone comes across this thread in the future, I thought I would add some notes. I ended up using robocopy (comes with Windows). It does an exact mirror copy, whatever is added to the master directory gets created to the backup, it also deletes from the backup whatever files get deleted from the master. It also includes all subfolders. If no file additions/deletions have occured then the script runs in about 5 seconds. If there are changes it maxes out the hdds copying the files and finishes in no time.

The script runs robocopy but also logs the backup occurance in a file called log.txt. it includes the date, start time and finish time. (I mainly used this for test purposes, but i think ill keep it)

The script runs on logoff/shutdown, it runs by altering group policy. Group policy points to my script (batch file).......below:

e:
echo ******************************* >> e:\log.txt

echo.Date %date% >> e:\log.txt

set str=%time%
set str=%str:~0,8%
set str2= Starting Backup.....
echo %str% %str2% >> e:\log.txt

robocopy F:\Master E:\Backup /MIR /E

set str=%time%
set str=%str:~0,8%
set str3= Backup Comleted.....
echo %str% %str3% >> e:\log.txt