Which prog to daily create copy paste type mirrors of drives ?

Syncredible will do all of that if you want a version with a GUI.

I can state for certain that

1. It does the timed part - every ten minutes is the default if you opt for that.
2. It does the deletion of redundant files and also files that have moved to different folders
3. It does sub folders and their contents including empty folders but I suspect that can be overridden if required.
4. Certainly does the manual part - that's one way I use it. The other is at startup - it just syncs the folders that I have it set for.
5. It has a setting for "Semi-automatic synching" which apparently requires you to authorise whether it syncs or not - not used it personally.
6. Sure it does the verification as well as it has alerted me to issues in the past.

Available for free for personal use - just throws up a splash screen at startup (maybe all synchs) but is about £20 to buy from memory.

The full list of functions is here

There are several very serious problems with what you are wanting to do. First, having your backup drives installed in your computer is dangerous. The same dangers that can take out your data drives, such as malware, PSU failure that fries your drives, a voltage spike or current surge that blows through any protection you have, theft, natural disaster, house fire, etc. will also take out your backup drives. You would be much, much better off removing your backup drives from the computer and installing them in enclosures, essentially making external drives out of them.

Second, automatic backups require that the backup drive be connected to the computer at all times. This exposes the backup drive to infection from viruses and other malware, which you may not detect until after your data has been compromised or destroyed. Also, any user errors will also occur on the backup drive. Again, it is much safer for backup drives to be kept disconnected from the computer, except while a backup is being updated, and to manually update them as needed after running full security scans to make sure you aren't "backing up" any malware that may have "snuck" onto your computer.

Third, having only one backup is dangerous. For data to be reasonably safe, it must exist in at least three places, such as on the computer, on an onsite backup drive (not connected to the computer except while updating the backup), and an offsite backup drive. The offsite backup drives should be swapped out with the onsite backup drives as frequently as possible to keep them as up to date as possible. Possible locations for keeping offsite drives include a trusted friend's or relative's home, a locked desk drawer or locker at work or school, or a safe deposit box at a bank (I use my safe deposit box in the vault at my credit union).

A good substitute for offsite backup drives is to use a good, paid backup service such as Carbonite (my personal preference), CrashPlan (also popular) and Backblaze. Stay away from cloud data storage sites. Most are not secure and are more likely to be hacked. The free ones are the worst since they also are notorious for disappearing with inadequate or no warning, taking your data with them. A good backup service will automatically backup new or changed files and retain any old or deleted files for 30 days or more, depending on the plan (this is called versioning). The main downside to a cloud backup service is you do have to have a broadband internet connection with a high enough data cap to handle the increased traffic. While basic plans can be had for $60/year, they are usually limited in the size and type of files than will automatically be backed up (there are ways to work around much of this). More expensive plans have fewer limitations. Unlike cloud storage sites, a good cloud backup service is safer and avoids the problems of backup drives permanently connected to a computer due to far stringent anti-malware protections that you are likely to use and due to versioning, allowing you to revert to an earlier version should an infected file manage to somehow get through.

While cloning is a good way to backup the System files (OS and programs) on your SSD, it is very inefficient compared to imaging. Imaging is faster and requires less drive space than cloning, allowing you to keep several versions of your SSD. Images should be stored on external backup drives. Imaging works much like old film photography where a camera makes a photo negative (the equivalent of an image of your drive). The negative then is used to make the actual photographs. A computer image is used in the same way to restore a drive to the state the computer was in when the image was taken.

I personally recommend Macrium Reflect Free for imaging. I use the paid version but the free version is very popular with people on Seven Forums and is highly recommended.

While imaging is the best way to backup System files (imaging and cloning actually are the only ways to backup system files), it is inefficient when used to backup data files. For that, I recommend using a folder/file syncing program, such as FreeFileSync. After the initial backup, instead of copying everything over to a backup drive (essentially, cloning the drive) every time you update your backup, the program will compare your drive in your computer with the corresponding backup drive, then copy over any changed files from the source drive to the backup drive and delete the old files on the backup drive and also delete any files on the backup drive that were deleted on the source drive. FreeFileSync has a versioning feature that will send files deleted from the backup drive to a versioning folder or drive. That will protect you from accidental deletions and also allow you to recover earlier versions of files should you ever need them.

Both Macrium Reflect and FreeFileSync that I recommended can continued be used even if the company goes belly up. It's not necessary to update the programs if you don't want to.

Ransomeware can be added to the mix of dangerous things that can happen to connected internal and external hard-drives.

samuria said:

Unless you have masses of data why not just use google drive or one drive they can give yo 20gigs of backup and its safe on the cloud and all you do is save in a folder and its all backed up instantly

Don't use Google Drive. It's not secure and Google is notorious for snooping through people's data. Google is also notorious for discontinuing service with inadequate notice.

Answers in bold italics.

DBenz said:

Hi,
thanks for the advice.
Jeannie, I have spent a lot of money on internal Western Digital HDDs plumbed into motherboard, so if I remove these, I will need to have them in some kind of powered unit and how do I connect them to the motherboard ? I have all my USB slots in use, and the powered hub sees some performance issues, as hubs last only a while, so unlike a dependable SATA cable this could screw things up.

You can use one or more cables that connect to your SATA ports and run to PCI brackets with e-SATA sockets. Then put your HDDs into enclosures or a dock that have an e-SATA interface and use an e-SATA cable.

USB type HDDs can fail, I had one do so, the file tree software corrupted, data and drive hardware was fine, some glitch meant everything looked like egyptian text !

If those are external drives, then you know first hand that they are lower quality.

Sounds like I will have to remove them, mount them into some kind of powered caddy, but that will be usb connection I fear, have more power cables and transformers lying around, the unplugged leads disappear off down the back of my table and I have to use string to haul them back up again....and how do I get O drive to display as O drive when I plumb it in, with four partitions absent I dont want R drive displaying as O drive.

See this tutorial on locking in a drive letter on a drive.

I need to have backups done daily, so to have to plug in and unplug each in turn, when e.g. Cobian would run tasks and do them all one after the other, is a pain. I know I wont get time to do all this, and I want it to do it at end of day as I am having meal at midnight !

Again, if you want your backups be safe, you cannot have them connected to your computer at all times. You will have to find a way to do your backups manually. If you have enough e-SATA ports and your computer is powerful enough, you can run several instances of FreeFileSync at once.

I do a C drive image with Acronis once in a while when I am about to install something new that might mess up C drive.

If Acronis has been working for you, there is no reason to not keep on using it. Just make sure you keep your images on a drive other than your C: drive and you back that drive up.

Does FreeFileSync do drive to drive ? All thesebackups seem to be about dselecting some folders, I simply want to mirror D to O etc, if I delete a file on D I want to have it deleted on O. I cant have massive original video files being retained as the drive wont have space for new ones and those that have been edited and quickstreamfixed.

FreeFileSync (FFS) can do what you want. You simply use the mirror setting and it will essentially make a clone of your source drive on your backup drive except only files that have been added, changed, and/or deleted will be dealt with. speeding up the process considerably. If you don't want to keep deleted files, set FFS to just delete them, not to send them to the recycle bin or a versioning folder or file.

FFS handles drives the same way as folders. I do drive to drive backups on all my data drives in my computers. Also, you don't have to lock in the drive letter on the external backup drives. FFS has a provision for setting it to look for drive names. That is how I have my backup profiles set up.

Tranquil Hegemo,....Does Syncredible do drive to drive, and mirror ? I need to be able to just select D as source and O as destination.

DBenz

I have an idea; I do this at home with the home desktop and with the home laptop. Because they contain a 2nd internal HD, I will just before doing a backup: Control Panel --> Device Manager --> hightlight the 2nd HD, right-click on Enable. When the backup is finished...right-click on Disable. I highly recommend giving all hard-drives and all partitions unique names! This way, you will always know which HD and which partition you are "aiming" at. Of course, for the very first time, you have to Disable the 2nd HD to keep it offline when any backup is not in progress.
Does this idea guarantee safe backups? Nothing man-made is 100% guarantee-able, however, I believe any backup routine is much better than no backup routine.

And, those two computers also have two dedicated usb ext 1TB platter-driven HDs which receive the OS and Data partition backups bi-monthly or weekly.