Data backup method, can this be done easily?

[n64man120]

I've got a 300GB DM10 drive in my system primarily, and I'm concerned about losing my music and dvd rips, along with my extensive collection of photos. Raid isn't really an option since I don't want to spend that much money on a backup solution. The following came to mind...

I have a 80GB drive lying around un-used. I could put it in as a secondary drive, and only use it for data backup purposes. Seems easy enough to me. Any suggestions on software I could use, which would totally automate this for me? I'm thinking of something un-intrusive, that will backup any changes in the audio/video/photo folders, to the 80gb drive, overnight on a daily or weekly schedule. Something so I don't really have to worry about it, and while I'm sleeping, it's keeping my most treasured data backed up.

Suggestions?

 

[mikeblas]

And you have 80 gigs of content to back up, or less?

I use a Acronis TrueImage. It is inexpensive, schedulable, and does both full image backups and incremental image backups. They can be compressed or not. You can create an emergency recovery CD.

I back up images of each drive on my machines to a RAID 1 store on one of my servers, and I can boot to the CD, connect to the network, and re-image the machine.

If you're doing this for one machine to another and care only about those files, it shouldn't take you long to do something simpler: make an AT job that does XCOPY or ROBOCOPY over the content you want to the other drive.

 

[n64man120]

All data I want to save will be under 80GB total. I want to back it up to another drive on the system, I'm going to college so my network stays at home

So just all in 1 system, backing up certain folders from HDD1 to HDD2, overnight.

 

[mikeblas]

Then you can probably get away with AT and batch file that does ROBOCOPY for you.

 

[tdg]

One thing to keep in mind is that by having the backup solution located in the same machine, is a power supply could pop/surge/etc and take out both drives, either killing them or corrupting data. An external USB/firewire enclosure for backup is a safer solution, so you can unplug it when not backing up.

 

[mcravenufo]

One thing to keep in mind is that by having the backup solution located in the same machine, is a power supply could pop/surge/etc and take out both drives, either killing them or corrupting data. An external USB/firewire enclosure for backup is a safer solution, so you can unplug it when not backing up.

I was going to suggest this as well.

Also, to the original poster, are you looking for a free solution or would you be willing spend a few bucks?

 

[mikeblas]

One thing to keep in mind is that by having the backup solution located in the same machine, is a power supply could pop/surge/etc and take out both drives, either killing them or corrupting data. An external USB/firewire enclosure for backup is a safer solution, so you can unplug it when not backing up.

And having the drive in the same house means that a fire could wipe out everything.

 

[n64man120]

All very true thoughts, depends on level of safety your looking for. With my PCP&C PSU, I'll take my chances on that toasting them both. I'll probably have some semi-recent DVD backups of my photos atleast, as well. I'm willing to look into any software method there is, as long as its not like $500.

"Then you can probably get away with AT and batch file that does ROBOCOPY for you." - Please explain?

 

[mikeblas]

"Then you can probably get away with AT and batch file that does ROBOCOPY for you." - Please explain?

I'm assuming you're using Windows.

AT is a command that lets you schedule any other command or program to run at a particular time, or particular frequency.

C:\>at /?
The AT command schedules commands and programs to run on a computer at
a specified time and date. The Schedule service must be running to use
the AT command.

AT [\\computername] [ [id] [/DELETE] | /DELETE [/YES]]
AT [\\computername] time [/INTERACTIVE]
    [ /EVERY:date[,...] | /NEXT:date[,...]] "command"

\\computername     Specifies a remote computer. Commands are scheduled on the
                   local computer if this parameter is omitted.
id                 Is an identification number assigned to a scheduled
                   command.
/delete            Cancels a scheduled command. If id is omitted, all the
                   scheduled commands on the computer are canceled.
/yes               Used with cancel all jobs command when no further
                   confirmation is desired.
time               Specifies the time when command is to run.
/interactive       Allows the job to interact with the desktop of the user
                   who is logged on at the time the job runs.
/every:date[,...]  Runs the command on each specified day(s) of the week or
                   month. If date is omitted, the current day of the month
                   is assumed.
/next:date[,...]   Runs the specified command on the next occurrence of the
                   day (for example, next Thursday).  If date is omitted, the
                   current day of the month is assumed.
"command"          Is the Windows NT command, or batch program to be run.

ROBOCOPY is a robust copy program (ROBustCOPy). It will configurably retry and time-out. It can log its work, and handles subdirectories. It will correctly handle security info, if you've ACLed your files. It is just like XCOPY, but better.

You can get it in the Windows Resource Kit, and probably in a couple of other ways. If you don't want to fool with ROBOCOPY, you can probably work up something using XCOPY.

Here, I create a job that does an XCOPY from C:\FOO to D:\BACKUP every Monday at 6am:

C:\>AT 06:00 /EVERY:Monday "XCOPY C:\FOO D:\BACKUP"
Added a new job with job ID = 1

I used AT with no parameters to list the jobs on my computer:

C:\>AT
Status ID   Day                     Time          Command Line
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        1   Each M                  06:00         "XCOPY C:\FOO D:\BACKUP"

Upon review, I realized I forgot to give XCOPY the options that I wanted. So I delete the AT job I had just created:

C:\>AT 1 /DELETE

And create a new one that runs every Monday at 6am, just like the old one -- but this time it includes the options I want:

C:\>AT 06:00 /EVERY:Monday "XCOPY C:\FOO D:\BACKUP /DICKHERY"
Added a new job with job ID = 1

C:\>AT
Status ID   Day                     Time          Command Line
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        1   Each M                  06:00         "XCOPY C:\FOO D:\BACKUP /DICKHERY"

 

[n64man120]

Wow that's incredible it's built into windows... the things you never now...

So you just type in the commands in a cmd prompt, and then they are saved permently in the scheduler to always run?

Say I XCOPY C:\Pictures to D:\Backup , then I delete a photo from C:\Pictures and XCOPY again, will I remove it from the backup, or only do additions and changes?

Also, it seems XCOPY does sub-directories, so I'm probably getting lost in the lingo somewhere, how exactly does it fail over ROBOCOPY? I don't know what ACL'ing files is.

 

[mikeblas]

So you just type in the commands in a cmd prompt, and then they are saved permently in the scheduler to always run?

Yes. They're stored in the registry. You can read more about it in online help:

1) Click START
2) Click Help and Support
3) Search for "Scheduled Jobs"
4) The first result "Full Text Search matches" is probably "At".

Say I XCOPY C:\Pictures to D:\Backup , then I delete a photo from C:\Pictures and XCOPY again, will I remove it from the backup, or only do additions and changes?

XCOPY, as I showed in the example, will only do additions and changes. If you want to synchronize, you can get a directory synchornization tool. ROBOCOPY can do synchronization.

You might also investigate using the BACKUP utility built into Windows; it can do simple disk-to-disk backups.

Also, it seems XCOPY does sub-directories, so I'm probably getting lost in the lingo somewhere, how exactly does it fail over ROBOCOPY?

I don't understand this question. I will take an optomistic, random stab at an answer: XCOPY copies files and directories; ROBOCOPY copies files and directories, but offers far better control over the copying process, plus a few extra features (like logging).

Is "compare to" what you mean by "fail over"?

I don't know what ACL'ing files is.

ACL is an Access Control List. It implements security in Windows. If I want to kick the user n64man120 out of a file, I will make an access control list that says to deny access to n64man120. Then, I will attach that list to the file in question. Windows checks the list before granting access to the file.

If you don't know what an ACL is, I guess you don't need to worry about copying them correctly.

 

[n64man120]

Yea sorry for the poor wording, confusing looking at it myself now. I meant what makes ROBOCOPY stand out over XCOPY in subdirectory work. Sounds like ROBOCOPY should do the job, since syncronization would be nice if I'm changing folder names and heirarchies around and such. Yea sorry for butchering spelling there

 

[feigned]

Then you can probably get away with AT and batch file that does ROBOCOPY for you.

Why is this any better than ntbackup? Other than the fact that they're stored as .bkf files, which can be read by...ntbackup.

Remember we're in 2005, not 1996. It's not without merit though, I love the simplicity gained by using xcopy in a batch file. Or he could use the Scheduled Tasks if he's logged on 24/7.

Run ntbackup in the "Run" box. Click through it and schedule a job; it's not hard.

 

[mikeblas]

Why is this any better than ntbackup?

If you read the thread, feigned, you'll notice that this was also suggested. The original poster wasn't interested, for whatever reason.