Backup programme recommendations?

[Dagwood]

Hi there, can anyone recommend any of the many programmes you can see on the internet? I just need a simple programme to ensure I have copies of photo files on partitions and external drives. Are there any catches in some of them being Freeware ? Any recommendations gratefully received.
Dagwood

[Forseti]

SyncBack (freeware) is an application that I have been using for several years without any problems whatsoever and from what I read in various forums, so to do others. It can be had from here: http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware

One word of caution though, when setting it up (and it's very easy) ensure that you read through and understand the various options very very carefully - I can't stress this enough. For example, as the name of the application implies it can be set up to 'sync' one drive to another. In simple English then, following syncing two drives will be exact mirror copies of each other. However, it can also be set up to make backups i.e. a folder or folders on Drive C onto an external hard drive (EHD) - drive E say, and this is sometimes where difficulties can arise if not fully understood.

I have mine to backup data files on Drive D to an EHD with the option to delete data from the EHD that it no longer finds on the original drive D. This means that if I start out with X amounts of data on Drive D and decide to delete Y number of files I now end up with X minus Y number of files on Drive C. When running SyncBack, it will check the backup files on the EHD and if it finds files on there from a previous backup that are no longer on the original (Drive D) these will be deleted. There is also an option of having nothing deleted from the backup copy but of course the two drives are no longer mirrored.

The practise is a lot easier than the theory believe you me and I am attempting simply to make the point of double checking your set up of the application prior to running it so that you know exactly what is going to happen. The application helps in this direction by presenting you with red font if there is a risk of something not being quite right and asking you to recheck.

[Dagwood]

Forseti, Many thanks for taking the time to explain the cautionary note re Syncback. I downloaded easily as you said and tried a dummy run using manual and sync backups to both a a spare partition on my drive and one with some files on. As you pointed out it is easy to get screwed up and I am most grateful to you for taking the time and trouble to explain this. That said it looks as though it is everything I have been looking for . Thanks again and a very happy new year to you ( and all the Photoradar forum users!) from
A very cold Dagwood!

[basujanha2610]

Originally Posted by Forseti

SyncBack (freeware) is an application that I have been using for several years without any problems whatsoever and from what I read in various forums, so to do others. It can be had from here: http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware

One word of caution though, when setting it up (and it's very easy) ensure that you read through and understand the various options very very carefully - I can't stress this enough. For example, as the name of the application implies it can be set up to 'sync' one drive to another. In simple English then, following syncing two drives will be exact mirror copies of each other. However, it can also be set up to make backups i.e. a folder or folders on Drive C onto an external hard drive (EHD) - drive E say, and this is sometimes where difficulties can arise if not fully understood.

I have mine to backup data files on Drive D to an EHD with the option to delete data from the EHD that it no longer finds on the original drive D. This means that if I start out with X amounts of data on Drive D and decide to delete Y number of files I now end up with X minus Y number of files on Drive C. When running SyncBack, it will check the backup files on the EHD and if it finds files on there from a previous backup that are no longer on the original (Drive D) these will be deleted. There is also an option of having nothing deleted from the backup copy but of course the two drives are no longer mirrored.

The practise is a lot easier than the theory believe you me and I am attempting simply to make the point of double checking your set up of the application prior to running it so that you know exactly what is going to happen. The application helps in this direction by presenting you with red font if there is a risk of something not being quite right and asking you to recheck.

Really ur technique is working!

thnx 4 sharing!

keep it up man!

____________
supercharger

[xavier]

Hi Dagwood if its just photos your talking about I would sujest backup on discs

[Dagwood]

Originally Posted by xavier

Hi Dagwood if its just photos your talking about I would sujest backup on discs

No way Xavier! I tried that once and luckily had bought an EHD which I had copied some early files onto. The next time I tried to retrieve from a disc it was corrupt. I find the setup I have now, with a second drive on my PC and an EHD, might be belt and braces but using NoCLone and, now,Syncback I am pretty confident that I'm not going to lose a file....or two......or more. Thanks for the tip but I can't accept it's an efficient way of storing photos.
Each to their own though..
Cheers
Dagwood

[anglefire]

I too use Syncback - I've used it for years. You can also filter on file types, directory's and various other things.

I have mine set to run in the background once a day - I also use it at work on my laptop, when it runs every 30mins to backup my files to the server.

As for CD/DVD backup - I stopped doing that a long time ago - 800Gb of data takes a long time and a lot of disks!

I now have 2 NAS drives to backup my internal drives - the one 1Tb NAS backs itself up to an Esata EHD and the other one, I shall get another 1.5Tb drive at some point and set it to mirror.