Best way to backup my imporant files...(automation)

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Canon

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Well up to now i've been simply copying my 3 folders to 3 backup folders on my extenal hard dive, which I name by date so I know when the backup was done...

I've tried messing around with the Windows Backup utility but i'm not too confident about putting all my files into one file. Does anyone have any experience with using the Windows Backup software? Should I just go ahead and use that?

It's extremely important that I backup my data as I'm going to College and take all my notes on my laptop, do all my assignments on it etc. I can't afford to ever loose the data so I back up daily. I find it a pain to copy and paste all the time.
 
Most backup software creates a single file. And honestly, most backup software is 80% the same. I use Windows Backup and it works just fine, best of all I didn't have to pay extra for it.

If you really don't like the idea of a one file backup, you can create a .bat file that will copy files from one place to another and use scheduler to run it. It's pretty easy to do:

xcopy c:\random\folder *.* E:\random\backup /d /y
etc
etc

/d only overwrites the files if the date has changed
/y suppresses the confirm file overwrite

I used to do it that way, but decided to do the more efficient thing. Plus with the backup software you can have it verify that your backup worked, which is a nice if your data is really important.
 
Ok, i'll just do that then. I got the Windows Backup Utility to almost do what I want it to do I just wasn't positive if it's a dependable solution.

If others are using it and it works then I guess there's not a problem and i'll just do that. I can just create go through the motions and create the task and just run it when I need to backup.

I experimented with the Bat files but it wasn't doing what I wanted it to do. I experimented with some a program that could create dated folders but it wasn't doing what I needed it to do.

I guess the Windows Backup Utility will have to do the trick.
 
I've been using Heatsoft Automatic Syncronizer for a while. I have set it up so that every morning at 6:00 am it syncs up all my important files to my server. I needed a sync because I also have a streaming media server on the same box that has all my MP3s. Can't have those in a single file. It works pretty well.
 
If your using XP, look at doing synchronization.

Chagne your my documents folder to a network drive and synch. it locally at login/logoff. When you off the network you have a full copy of everything in that folder.
 
Phoenix86 said:
If your using XP, look at doing synchronization.

Chagne your my documents folder to a network drive and synch. it locally at login/logoff. When you off the network you have a full copy of everything in that folder.
Click to expand...
It depends on how much data you have to sync. This is a bad idea if you have 18gb of MP3s that need to be the same on more than one machine. It doesn't work very well beyond around a gig or two.
 
Nothing is going to help the bandwidth except for a changed-bit style copy program. No matter how you slice it, you still have to back-up all that data (1MB, 1GB, or 20GB doesn't matter), and his current method is to keep a duplicate copy on another drive.

You can also schedule the synch. or do it on idle as well as login/logoff.
 
Cool... I've got the windows backup working great now. I just have to click one button and all my important data is backed up into one file. Glad I took the time to figure it out. I mostly wanted to find out if anyone else was using it first. So much better (I don't even have to shutdown outlook to back it's file up using the backup utility).
 
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