I need some recommendations on auto backup software. I just need something that will automatically copy my files to another harddrive. I don't want some weird backup file that has to be converted over. I don't know if I even need actually software to do this or if there is an easy and CHEAP way to do it. I have been doing the copying manually but am afraid I will forget and miss something.
Thanks in advance!
Posted by Mel Ladewig on March 27, 2006 at 1:33 AM
Look at SyncBackSE. I am using it for anumber of tasks and like it very much. $25 for 5 computers.
I use mine to backup from my desktop to my NAS at a scheduled time each night. I also backup from my laptop to my FTP server while I'm on the road. It does what you alooking to do and then some.
Posted by Rod Barbee on March 27, 2006 at 12:21 PM
Also take a look at Genie Backup Pro. You can set up and schedule any number of backup operations as well as different backup types (mirror, incremental, differential, etc). You can set it to backup with or without compression as well.
For my digital images, I have it set to mirror one hard drive to another without compression. So I have two hard drives with the exact same thing on each.
I also use it to back up my articles, business records, teaching programs, music files, pretty much everything.
What I really like about it is that all I had to do was set up the backup jobs, schedule them and then forget it. Everything is backed up automatically now, which removes a lot of worry about losing important data.
No matter which program you choose, I highly recommend to anybody reading this to get a backup utilitye and set it up with scheduled backups. It's cheap insurance
Posted by Scott Buckel on March 27, 2006 at 2:22 PM
Mel -
Does SyncBackSE mirror the data? I looked briefly at it and it looks interesting. Being rather simple minded I like just mirroring the data and not have to create archive/compressed files. At $25 for 5 computers sounds great - it just happens that between my wife and I we have 5 computers and the more I think about the more scared I get aout our data. CD's and DVD's take much to much discipline to create a safe archive of data.
Thanks,
Posted by Mel Ladewig on March 27, 2006 at 2:51 PM
Yes, SyncBackSE just mirrors(copies) the files as the primary method.
You can also set it up to zip files if you want.
It is definitely a set it and forget it program. I've set mine up to send me email alerts if there is an error in the copy job. The copy jobs run nightly at 3AM.
For a backup/disaster recovery program for your system, I recommend Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost. These are programs for system disaster recovery, not backing up files. These programs roll up the system into one file, which must be applied as a patch.
Posted by Richard Wong on March 28, 2006 at 1:31 AM
With my Seagate External HD it comes with this BounceBack Express software. It's supposed to back up your harddrive automatically but I disabled it because the autoboot thing locks up my computer.
OK first a qualifier- I'm a systems admin for a large company during the day. I do geek stuff all day every day and get paid to do it. I have a real issue when stuff doesn't get backed up, including here at Ramblin Lamb Photography - my night job so to speak. One feeds the mortgage the other feeds my soul...
I use a tool that comes with the resource kit for Windows servers called robocopy to create backups of our files here at home/Ramblin Lamb. Think of it as xcopy on steroids.
What's cool about robocopy is it can make mirror copies of the source to the destination. Delete a file on the source and it gets deleted from the destination when robocopy gets run as a scheduled task each night. If mirroring isn't your pleasure then simply don't use that switch with robocopy. Mirroring can be a double edged sword so think long and hard before driving down that road. Once you mentally adjust to that and make archive copies of your work to CD/DVD mirroring can really be a good friend. I actually feel the most comfortable when I have data in at least 3 places. Not just two. So think along those lines. Such as keeping copies of those archive CD/DVD's in a safety deposit box...
All our relevant files on our personal machines here at home get copied (or as I say get robocopied) to the server each night. No funky backup file in a format that might or might not be around some time in the future. simply a true copy of our files copied up to the server each night.
Robocopy is a command line tool so if command line syntax isn't your thing then maybe this isn't your tool of preference. But once setup it really is a leave it alone tool with no fuss n muss going forward. It simply works.
The best part about robocopy is it's free. Yeah free as in free beer folks!!
Once you install this tool kit look for both robocopy.exe and the companion help file robocopy.doc. Read the help doc carefully! It can be quite helpful initially. No real rocket science just basic stuff really.
After creating your command line string and saved it in a batch file create a scheduled task on your PC to run this batch file each night.
So this is a really "geeky" way to solve your problem but it does cover all you pre-requisites.
Oh one caveat - I don't expect this to work on anything other than a Windows based PC. Although I've never tried it on anything else so I could be wrong.
xcopy - another command line tool included on all Windows based PC operating systems these days could also meet your needs but it lacks the mirroring capabilities of robocopy along with a lot of other stuff robocopy can do...
Here is a sample command line I use for my robocopy backups:
Dig into the Help Doc to find out what all this does for us here at Ramblin Lamb et al.
So I'm a geek and this is how I solved basically the same issue your are now pondering.
Enjoy!
Posted by Martin Ziese on April 10, 2006 at 2:04 PM
I built my own home photo editing/storage system, and for backing up this is what I did.
1st my primary boot drive is an 80 gig run of the mill IDE seagate, on it's own controller. I only put programs on the 1st. My 2nd drive is the same size on it's own controller. There I have created a separate 10 gig logical partition for my "PhotoShop Scratch Disk", which allows plenty of space for large files I am editing at the moment. The remainder of that drive is for uploading recent shots I took and is used only for temporary not pemanent storage. It’s just a holding tank. I then set up two 300 gig mirrored SATA (RAID 1) for permanent storage. I also have two 300 gig external Firewire Seagates that mirror the two internal SATA. I also burn my originals photos to DVD for archiving. Anal you may say! …. Yes. But having been a network engineer for over 15 years I have learned never to trust a computer to behave. As for backup software, there are dozens out there. However with my method I don’t need a backup program. The RAID 1 mirrored drives take care of that. And Basically all I need to do to copy to my external drives is a simple click-highlight-drag and drop to my external drives. You can do this before going to bed at night. And if your system and controllers are fast, by the time you awake the task is done.
Now not knowing what type system you have, you can purchase an SATA controller and the drives to go with it. But if your system is older and smaller and you can’t fit any more cards or drive in your box. Get the Seagate external drives (two) and use the backup software that comes bundled with them. But also burn to CD or DVD too.
Oh, and don’t COMPRESS you image files. I don’t trust compression programs.
Discussion
7 repliesThanks in advance!
I use mine to backup from my desktop to my NAS at a scheduled time each night. I also backup from my laptop to my FTP server while I'm on the road. It does what you alooking to do and then some.
For my digital images, I have it set to mirror one hard drive to another without compression. So I have two hard drives with the exact same thing on each.
I also use it to back up my articles, business records, teaching programs, music files, pretty much everything.
What I really like about it is that all I had to do was set up the backup jobs, schedule them and then forget it. Everything is backed up automatically now, which removes a lot of worry about losing important data.
No matter which program you choose, I highly recommend to anybody reading this to get a backup utilitye and set it up with scheduled backups. It's cheap insurance
Does SyncBackSE mirror the data? I looked briefly at it and it looks interesting. Being rather simple minded I like just mirroring the data and not have to create archive/compressed files. At $25 for 5 computers sounds great - it just happens that between my wife and I we have 5 computers and the more I think about the more scared I get aout our data. CD's and DVD's take much to much discipline to create a safe archive of data.
Thanks,
You can also set it up to zip files if you want.
It is definitely a set it and forget it program. I've set mine up to send me email alerts if there is an error in the copy job. The copy jobs run nightly at 3AM.
For a backup/disaster recovery program for your system, I recommend Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost. These are programs for system disaster recovery, not backing up files. These programs roll up the system into one file, which must be applied as a patch.
I use a tool that comes with the resource kit for Windows servers called robocopy to create backups of our files here at home/Ramblin Lamb. Think of it as xcopy on steroids.
What's cool about robocopy is it can make mirror copies of the source to the destination. Delete a file on the source and it gets deleted from the destination when robocopy gets run as a scheduled task each night. If mirroring isn't your pleasure then simply don't use that switch with robocopy. Mirroring can be a double edged sword so think long and hard before driving down that road. Once you mentally adjust to that and make archive copies of your work to CD/DVD mirroring can really be a good friend. I actually feel the most comfortable when I have data in at least 3 places. Not just two. So think along those lines. Such as keeping copies of those archive CD/DVD's in a safety deposit box...
All our relevant files on our personal machines here at home get copied (or as I say get robocopied) to the server each night. No funky backup file in a format that might or might not be around some time in the future. simply a true copy of our files copied up to the server each night.
Robocopy is a command line tool so if command line syntax isn't your thing then maybe this isn't your tool of preference. But once setup it really is a leave it alone tool with no fuss n muss going forward. It simply works.
The best part about robocopy is it's free. Yeah free as in free beer folks!!
You can download it here:
Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools
Once you install this tool kit look for both robocopy.exe and the companion help file robocopy.doc. Read the help doc carefully! It can be quite helpful initially. No real rocket science just basic stuff really.
After creating your command line string and saved it in a batch file create a scheduled task on your PC to run this batch file each night.
So this is a really "geeky" way to solve your problem but it does cover all you pre-requisites.
Oh one caveat - I don't expect this to work on anything other than a Windows based PC. Although I've never tried it on anything else so I could be wrong.
xcopy - another command line tool included on all Windows based PC operating systems these days could also meet your needs but it lacks the mirroring capabilities of robocopy along with a lot of other stuff robocopy can do...
Here is a sample command line I use for my robocopy backups:
c:\batch\robocopy "F:\My Docs" "\\ServerName\backups\Rick\MyDocs" /V /MIR /R:3 /W:30 /LOG+:C:\Batch\LogFiles\myDocsBackups.log
Dig into the Help Doc to find out what all this does for us here at Ramblin Lamb et al.
So I'm a geek and this is how I solved basically the same issue your are now pondering.
Enjoy!
1st my primary boot drive is an 80 gig run of the mill IDE seagate, on it's own controller. I only put programs on the 1st. My 2nd drive is the same size on it's own controller. There I have created a separate 10 gig logical partition for my "PhotoShop Scratch Disk", which allows plenty of space for large files I am editing at the moment. The remainder of that drive is for uploading recent shots I took and is used only for temporary not pemanent storage. It’s just a holding tank. I then set up two 300 gig mirrored SATA (RAID 1) for permanent storage. I also have two 300 gig external Firewire Seagates that mirror the two internal SATA. I also burn my originals photos to DVD for archiving. Anal you may say! …. Yes. But having been a network engineer for over 15 years I have learned never to trust a computer to behave. As for backup software, there are dozens out there. However with my method I don’t need a backup program. The RAID 1 mirrored drives take care of that. And Basically all I need to do to copy to my external drives is a simple click-highlight-drag and drop to my external drives. You can do this before going to bed at night. And if your system and controllers are fast, by the time you awake the task is done.
Now not knowing what type system you have, you can purchase an SATA controller and the drives to go with it. But if your system is older and smaller and you can’t fit any more cards or drive in your box. Get the Seagate external drives (two) and use the backup software that comes bundled with them. But also burn to CD or DVD too.
Oh, and don’t COMPRESS you image files. I don’t trust compression programs.
Good Luck:
Martin