Free Backup programs

[clark33]

Can anyone recommend a decent Backup program. It's for backing up my music. So im after something that will let me back up newly added mp3's after my first full back up takes place.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Here's 4; I use the second one. They all work in about the same way, but some are easier to understand and configure than others.


Allway Sync: Free File Synchronization, Backup, Data Replication, PC Sync Software, Freeware, File Sync, Data Synchronization Software

FreeFileSync | Free backup software to synchronize files and synchronize folders on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X

2BrightSparks | SyncBackFree, SyncBackSE, and SyncBackPro

Free backup software - FBackup

 

[clark33]

Thanks very much. Can you advise me what type of backup to use that meets my needs. Will probably backup once per month after ive added about 15 albums to my existing collection.? Cheers

 

[richc46]

Not familiar with the other back up software that was suggested. I use, it is very easy and never had a problem
Karen's Replicator
To be extra sure. I also use dropbox. Free automatic backup in the cloud.
https://www.dropbox.com/

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I also use FreeFileSync to backup all of my data and highly recommend it. I found it much easier to learn how to use than other, similar programs. It's in a class of programs called folder/file syncing programs. When set to Mirror mode, it compares folders you have selected on a source drive (an entire hard drive can be considered to be a folder if you wish) to the folders on the destination drive. It will then copy files and sub folders to the destination drive and delete others as necessary to make the destination drive contain essentially clones of the folders you had selected on the source drive. Since only files that have been added, changed and deleted since the previous backup are involved, backups can be extremely fast. I backup over 1TB of data everyday, which could take over three hours per drive (I make two identical backups since even backup drives can fail) if I had to transfer all my data every time, but, by using FreeFileSync, it takes me only five minutes per backup most of the time (exceptions being if I add large amounts of data, such as a 25GB OS image file, etc.; even then, a backup takes only 30 minutes, roughly once a week). Of course, the initial backup will take the longest.

Another feature FreeFileSync has that I like is the ability to send data deleted during a backup to a versioning folder of your choice. That way, if you accidentally delete a file, you can recover it later from the versioning folder.

Btw, I strongly recommend backing up more frequently than just once a month because anything you haven't backed up will be lost if drive it is on dies. FreeFileSync is fast enough, you can easily run a backup operation every time you add new data.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Thanks very much. Can you advise me what type of backup to use that meets my needs. Will probably backup once per month after ive added about 15 albums to my existing collection.? Cheers

"Type of backup"???

I'm not sure I follow you.

You want to simply make a copy, just as if you'd used the mouse. You don't want to use "imaging" or anything fancy.

I have 26,000 mp3s that I backup at least once a day, along with the rest of my data---over 90,000 files all told. The entire job typically takes about one minute.

Everything in D:\mp3 is copied to E:\mp3. A 100% exact replication.

If I delete a song from D:\mp3 and then run a new backup, that song is also deleted from E:\mp3. Backup programs can usually be set up to NOT make that deletion from E:\mp3 if you prefer. It's purely a matter of choice.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

To clarify ignatzsonic's response a bit, there are several kinds of backups. Imaging works like film photography. A backup image is like a photo negative. One makes an image of the drive or partition to be backed up. One must then use the image to create a replicate of the drive or partition that is a duplicate of state the drive or partition was at when the image was made same as a photo image is used to make a print. Imaging is the only way (other than cloning; more on that in a minute) to backup a drive or partition that contains an operating system (such as Win 7) or programs and have them be functional when restored. The downside to imaging is that one has to image the entire drive or partition, which takes longer and takes up a lot of media space. There are a couple of variations of imaging one can use—incremental and differential- that one can use to reduce the time and storage space required for images but most people here, including me, don't recommend them since they aren't as safe as full images. I use images to backup the C: drive in my desktop machine and the C: partition in my notebooks.

Cloning is more like a copy machine in that it makes a working copy of a drive onto another drive, same as a copy machine makes an exact copy of the original document. While cloning has its uses (I use cloning every now and then), it's not practical for making backups (other than, perhaps, an initial backup) since the entire drive has to be cloned and one can only have one clone per drive. Also, cloning takes a long time since everything on the drive has to be duplicated.

For backing up data, imaging and cloning are impractical because of the time and space required. Folder/file syncing programs are far more practical. For reasons I already explained in my previous post, folder/file syncing is faster and requires less room. You can backup just a singe folder or you can backup an entire drive; it's your choice. The only downside to folder/file syncing is you can't use it to backup operating systems and programs. That's why I use imaging to backup my C: drive/partitions and FreeFileSync to backup my data drives/partitions.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Lady Fitzgerald:

Thought I'd ask here about a minor issue with FFS that I've noticed. I'm wondering if you've seen it and if I'm missing something in configuration.

I use it in a "mirror" fashion. No versioning, etc. Just a pure replica, D drive to E drive, which are literally separate hard drives.

Imagine this folder:

D:\downloads\stuff

Let's say stuff contains files A, B, and C.

You run FFS and the folder and files are all replicated to the E drive.

Over a period of time, you eventually delete A, B, C and the stuff folder from the D drive and continue to run FFS normally, probably at least daily. You rarely look at the E drive.

Months later, you discover that the E drive backup contains an empty stuff folder. A, B, and C are gone, but the folder remains. A, B, C, and the stuff folder were deleted from D weeks or months previously. So, drive E is not a replica of drive D.

Oddly, this appears to be an occasional thing. Most folders that were deleted from D are in fact deleted from E when FFS is run, but a few seem to still exist and are empty. Because it doesn't always occur, I doubt this is a config issue. It's never FILES that remain on E, it's just occasional empty FOLDERS.

I'm reasonably sure I've seen this same issue with other file backup programs.

It's not a big deal as the empty folders take up little space and I would never notice them if I didn't open the E drive and look from time to time. It's just a curiosity.

I'm wondering if has to do with the sequence in which I do the deletions from D? All at once (folder and the 3 files simultaneously) or item by item (2 files maybe on Monday, another on Wednesday, the then empty folder on Friday). Maybe the first case would not lead to empty folders on E, but the second case would? I have not experimented.

Comments?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Curious! I've never noticed that (and I used to laboriously check for that until I became confident enough with FFS). I do know that you do not get an exact copy of the source drive when using Mirror because certain unneeded system files are excluded:

\System Volume Information\
\$Recycle.Bin\
\RECYCLER\
\RECYCLED\
*\desktop.ini
*\thumbs.db

The difference is tiny but drove me nuts trying to find out what was missing until I learned what it was.

I use date/time stamped versioning so I'm not worried about losing anything. I have all my deleted files sent to another HDD reserved for that purpose only so I have plenty of room for discarded files (although I do delete old boot drive images from the versioning drive since they are so large and there is no way I will ever use them)

 

[Michedou]

Search for synchronize in place of backup like "bittorent sync" (free so far but...) or "syncthing". You can sync over a lan or over the internet to another place like a backup should (must) be.
I've been using syncbackSE for more than 10 years and bought it with a supposed life time upgrade... till a couple of years ago!
For 2brightspark life is so short!
Michel