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Incremental backup software that keeps the drive accessible?

T

tdx

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 3, 2005
Messages
154
Hi everyone,

I'm looking to buy a solid disk backup software to backup my internal hard drive to an external one. I specifically need the following function: an incremental backup system that, instead of creating a self-contained image file, creates a carbon copy of the drive and then just updates the bits and pieces that have changed.

Now, all the solutions I've looked at do offer incremental backups, but they create this proprietary image file that is very complicated to access if you only need a file or two.

So, is there a software that will make an exact copy of my drive, with all its directories, etc intact, and still allow me to incrementally backup to that drive?

Thanks in advance for the help.
 
Just about every backup software I've ever seen has very simple methods of recovering a single file from the backup archive if needed. Veritas BackUpExec is what i use at work, and I often have to recover one file at a time, due to users deleting files.
 
Thanks for these answers, however maybe I wasn't clear about what I'm looking for. What I'm after is an incremental backup software that doesn't create an archive or image, but rather an exact copy of the disk, one that would be ready to be taken out of the enclosure and used to replace a defective hard drive. To the PC it wouldn't look like an image backup that has to be "unpacked" by the backup software, but rather like a perfect replica of the original hard drive.
 
I use Genie Backup Manager Home 8. It sits in the taskbar and I can just click on the icon and it syncs 2 of my hard drives to 1 backup hard drive. its great and was fairly cheap. I doesn't archive in one file (although it can) and it creates a self-executable recovery file on the backup hard drive to run a simple restore program if your hd crashes and you loose your Genie installation.
 
My solution is a little old school... an old-fashioned DOS batch file. :)

When you run it, it only copies the new or changed files.

So, on my internal drive I have:

d:\download
d:\music
d:\pictures
d:\websites
d:\z - stuff

and the batch file copies it to:

p:\download
p:\music
p:\pictures
p:\websites
p:\z - stuff

The external drive has exactly the same files as the internal. So, it's basically a mirror.

It will take a while to copy all the files the first time. But the batch file then only copies new or changed files, so it's much quicker each time you run it.

Notice I have 2 internal drives... one for OS and one for data. So, this solution works perfectly for mirroring my data drive. I've never tried to copy an OS drive... not sure if moving all the specific Windows registry files and hidden files would work. XCOPY is pretty thorough though. My external drive is a copy of my internal drive, so I can browse it and get any file I want.

Here is the batch file:

set drive=p:\
set backupcmd=xcopy /s /c /d /e /h /i /r /k /y

%backupcmd% "d:\download" "%drive%\download"​

Just change P to the letter of your external drive. I've never tried it with an OS drive... but it might work.

I've thought about using backup software... but it's just easier to have copies of my files on another drive... and not stuck inside some image file... and not requiring any backup software. Plus, I can grab that external drive and carry it anywhere and access my files!

There are some backup programs that will create a complete drive backup so you can replace the drive if your internal drive crashes. But, I don't mind re-installing Windows. It usually need re-installing anyway! After re-installing Windows, my data drive is exactly like I left it!
 
Hey guys, thanks again for all these suggestions. I'll be checking into those programs.

Mscrip. your dos batch file seems exactly like what I'm after, I too have a drive for Windows and another one for data. Only thing is, I would like to be able to schedule my backups to run at specific intervals (say, during the night). Maybe there is a commercial software that offers the exact same function but also scheduled backups?
 
tdx said:
Hey guys, thanks again for all these suggestions. I'll be checking into those programs.

Mscrip. your dos batch file seems exactly like what I'm after, I too have a drive for Windows and another one for data. Only thing is, I would like to be able to schedule my backups to run at specific intervals (say, during the night). Maybe there is a commercial software that offers the exact same function but also scheduled backups?
Click to expand...

Go into the Control Panel, then Scheduled Tasks, and add it?
 
Yeah, Task Scheduler should be able to do that. But, I only plug in my external drives or turn them on when I need them. I don't leave external hard drives running 24/7.
 
Karen's Replicator - free from Karenware.com or via majorGeeks.com - she's been doing a lot of patching to it lately... Another has a name something like Cobian backup - also available via MajorGeeks.com - lots of backup software downloadable via the geeks. Browse the Karenware free software list - lots of neat goodies. Most or all are Visual BASIC proggies, so you have to install the latest VBRun v.6 which is also available at her site.

.bh.
 
General Crespin said:
Dantz Retrospect has the Duplicate function also.
Click to expand...

tdx said:
Thanks for these answers, however maybe I wasn't clear about what I'm looking for. What I'm after is an incremental backup software that doesn't create an archive or image, but rather an exact copy of the disk, one that would be ready to be taken out of the enclosure and used to replace a defective hard drive. To the PC it wouldn't look like an image backup that has to be "unpacked" by the backup software, but rather like a perfect replica of the original hard drive.
Click to expand...

That's what the Duplicate function is.
 
If you decide on Dantz, they have another version called Retrospect Express HD - the main diff, is that it only uses another HD for the backup medium. A lot cheaper than the full pack that supports all sorts of media like tape drives, etc.

But give Karen's Replicator a try before laying out any money.

.bh.
 
SyncToy is another good free program from Microsoft. I don't think you can set it to run automatically, but it does work well.
 
Joe Average said:
TrueImage ftw... and seconded...
Click to expand...

I looked at trueimage, but unless I missed something, whatever incremental backup it does is a compressed mage and not an exact copy of the directories and files of my main drive.

Did I miss something? I'm curious cause otherwise I love trueimage and if it did have that function (incremental duplicate), then I'd be all over it.
 
I use Cobian Backup but I'm not 100% sure whether it offers exactly what you want.

Rsync under Cygwin would work. Maybe you can find a native Windows version as well.
 
I've had the same situation as the OP except that I wanted a mirror image rather than an increment (the difference being that in a mirror deleted files from the source also get deleted from the backup). This is via an eSATA drive for 400+ GBs of data to an encrypted and compressed partition. This is updated every week, but most data is static.

I used Cobian Backup, which should do what you want and is is reasonably quick. It didn't do mirroring, so it didn't suit my needs unless I deleted my old backup first and ran a full backup. I'd give it a try though since it'll do increments.

I've used Genie Backup; however, it's not free and is slower than Cobian. Decent interface though.

Synctoy is decent. But it's slow.

Robocopy and/or xcopy is fast and might work well for you. It has for me at any rate. You'll probably have to write a simple batch script though since it's not a GUI. You might find a GUI for robocopy, but I've never tried it. Simple but speedy; just the way I like it!
 
True Image can do most anything related to backups nowadays. Full partition images (preferred), real-time when the OS is running (it works great, actually), or just specific directories as chosen in the backup options.

It's not just for drive imaging anymore, it's gone way beyond those capabilities. One trip over to www.acronis.com and reading through the True Image manual (download the PDF) will give you a much better idea of what's possible. Well worth the trip and the read.

For the record: I use True Image on my XP x64 box, making full system partition images every 6 hours to another drive in the same machine. It happens in real-time as my machine is running, and aside from my DVD playback getting a bit jumpy for a few moments, I never even notice and I'm always ready to start over again in a few minutes with a complete bit-for-bit backup of the entire partition, not just some of the files.

And it I need to recover some files, by chance, they're easily extracted from image archives since True Image allows me to mount images as though they were drives with drive letters assigned.

Take that, Apple and your silly Time Machine... you're like 3 years late to this technology. :)
 
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