I want to copy a 15GB folder of photos to an external drive for backup. The folder has about a dozen sub-folders titled by year with a few hundred pictures in each. Can I copy and paste the big main folder or is it safer to do the sub-folders individually?
As has already been answered by others, there are any number of simple and free and safe ways to do this, some simpler than others.
So in passing it might be worth your while to consider a few non-free (but very modestly priced) products that also can do what you want to do. Pretty much any Explorer-like approach can duplicate the effect drag/drop or copy/paste, be it using a GUI-based (i.e. mouse-driven) or old fashioned text-based using two-pane Explorer tree presentaions, check boxes, etc., to designate source/destination, move/copy, synchronize/mirror, etc.
(1)
Beyond Compare by Scooter Software. Free trial available, $30 for Standard, $60 for Pro. Single-user license allows your use on any number of computers.
Designed around two-pane Explorer Tree View folder/file comparisons and then selective copy/move/delete/rename under your control, from either pane to the other side. Also provides line-by-line file content comparisons (e.g. text files) and selective copy/move/delete of lines from the member in either pane to the other side.
Here is a feature list showing the difference in versions. I could not live without this product in my every day life, comparing folder contents (e.g. on the primary drive and backup drive, or between two folders on two different PC's, etc.) and synchronizing or just copying selectively as needed.
(2)
Free Commander XE by Marek Jasinski. Substitute for Windows Explorer in a crystal clear easy to read "old fashioned" text-based pane-based user interface. Free public 32-bit version 740 available (1/1/2017), usable on 64-bit Windows with usual limitations. Alternatively there is a free public beta 32-bit version 760 (9/22/2017). Alternatively there is a donor-based ($5) beta 64-bit version 767 (12/21/2017).
Multi-pane Explorer Tree View offering over/under or left/right split views, thus either two panes or two rows/columns of two panes each. Extremely
powerful and customizable presentation, functionality, toolbar, context menu, favorites, etc., in a completely intuitive and simple user interface. Drag/drop, PF-key and context-menu operations from one pane to another.
This is my own MOST FREQUENTLY USED 3rd-party product.
(3)
NovaBACKUP PC by Novastor. Free trial available, $49.95 first year, $12.49 annual maintenance renewal.
Simple and complete local PC or cloud-base storage folder/file (as well as "system image" of volumes) backups. Supports either "backup" (like ZIP, producing single output backup file of one or more input drives/folders/files) or "copy" (like COPY, duplicating selected input folder/file structure via checkboxes to target output location). Automatic VERIFY AFTER or not, to guarantee results and contents are correct and readable.
Schedule "backup jobs" to run automatically, to perform FULL/INCREMENTAL etc. backups, either to secondary internal drive (e.g. on laptop with two drives) or to external USB 3.0 backup drive, etc.
I have been using this evolved product ever since 1997 and its version 6 (it is currently at version 19), in all versions of Windows that have existed so far. I run FULL backups of all folders on all drives on the 1st of every month, and I run INCREMENTAL backups every night (to backup anything I've worked on and created/changed/renamed in the past 24 hours). I retain 3+current months worth of prior generation FULL/INCREMENTAL "backup sets", thus allowing me to selectively restore/recover any folder/file that has existed on any day over the past 3-4 months.
If you have ANY DATA OF VALUE (that you would cry if you lost forever), you need a reliable backup scheme for your "data". NovaBACKUP is a fantastic and easy to use such tool.
(4) NOTE: I also use
Macrium Reflect Home for my regularly scheduled and automatic twice-weekly "system image" backups of my Windows C-partition and automatic retention/pruning of older versions. Free trial, $69.95, also includes functionality for folder/file "data" backup although I prefer to use NovaBACKUP for this. Also comes in
Macrium Reflect Free with somewhat reduced capability (such as no folder/file "data" functionality) but which is still perfectly suitable for scheduled automatic "system image" backups.
If you want to guarantee that you will always have a usable Windows with integrity even if unexpected hardware or software demons attack you, then you must take regular "system image" backups of your operational Windows partition to some external media (e.g. a folder on an USB 3.0 backup drive). These are like single-file ZIP backups of your entire C-partition (as well as other partitions, if you want to back them up to "snapshots" as well), with the files retained in a target folder, just like any other data.
In the event your hard drive crashes, or you want to upgrade to a larger drive, or you get infected with a virus and want to restore to a previous non-infected version of C, etc., you must have a recent "system image" backup and some easy standalone bootable method of RESTORE, to avoid requiring you to start all over and reinstall Windows and all of your 3rd-party products and customizations from scratch. Or, if you want to "clone" your Windows system from HDD spinner to an SSD, Macrium can do it with a click.
Macrium Reflect is simply the best, easiest to use and most intuitive GUI such product for all of these needs.
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