Good backup policy?

[Opam]

I bought an USB-disk to make backups from my home computer. I´m going to take the disk off-site, it is to my office. Now I need to find out how to do good backups.

I tried SyncToy from Microsoft. Something went totally wrong. After sync I had more than 3000 items in Recycle Bin. I could restore them back, but I don´t trust SyncToy anymore. It did´t even take all files, though I started it with Admin rights.

What do you use for such purpose? I have also Acronis True Image WD Edition, because I have Western Digital HDD:s. I create weekly an image from my system disk to other disk inside my computer, but I´m not sure how wise it would be to do another image to USB-disk. I have to have Acronis first installed after possible crash.

 

[CommonTater]

I bought an USB-disk to make backups from my home computer. I´m going to take the disk off-site, it is to my office. Now I need to find out how to do good backups.

I tried SyncToy from Microsoft. Something went totally wrong. After sync I had more than 3000 items in Recycle Bin. I could restore them back, but I don´t trust SyncToy anymore. It did´t even take all files, though I started it with Admin rights.

What do you use for such purpose? I have also Acronis True Image WD Edition, because I have Western Digital HDD:s. I create weekly an image from my system disk to other disk inside my computer, but I´m not sure how wise it would be to do another image to USB-disk. I have to have Acronis first installed after possible crash.

I do my backups on two hard disks in sleeves. I don't use any special software I just drag and drop the files I want second copies of onto the usb drive... Real easy.

If I ever need to restore them, I'll just drop them back in place on my main disk.

 

[pparks1]

I simply use robocopy...which is a command line tool which comes with Windows.

I keep my data pretty well organized, so I create a simple batch file which looks like this.

robocopy C:\data\music E:\backup\music /mir
robocopy C:\data\docs E:\backup\music /mir
robocopy C:\data\pics E:\backup\pics /mir

The /mir Mirrors the source and the destination, so when I delete files on my C drive, it will also delete them from my external drive.

Robocopy also just grabs files which have changed, so the first run takes a while and the rest are extremely fast.

 

[CommonTater]

I simply use robocopy...which is a command line tool which comes with Windows.

I keep my data pretty well organized, so I create a simple batch file which looks like this.

robocopy C:\data\music E:\backup\music /mir
robocopy C:\data\docs E:\backup\music /mir
robocopy C:\data\pics E:\backup\pics /mir

The /mir Mirrors the source and the destination, so when I delete files on my C drive, it will also delete them from my external drive.

Robocopy also just grabs files which have changed, so the first run takes a while and the rest are extremely fast.

THANK YOU for this. Right under my nose the whole time, too.

Back in the Win98 days, I used XCopy for this...
but it never deleted orphans from the backup...

 

[Desslok]

Robocopy works great. Also, you can give RichCopy a spin, it's like Robocopy on steroids, and has a nice GUI to it.

 

[CommonTater]

Robocopy works great. Also, you can give RichCopy a spin, it's like Robocopy on steroids, and has a nice GUI to it.

I've got a 3 terabyte backup to do over the weekend... I'll let you know.

I don't think I want RichCopy, with it being multithreaded it's likely to cause some serious fragmentation... I'll give RoboCopy a try first.



To Opam... I am sorry, I seem to have hijacked your thread. That was not my intention....

 

[manhunter2826]

Some brilliant suggestions here, esp. from parks, I might have to look into that myself. And good to see the OP implementing a backup policy. Backup and then backup

 

[CommonTater]

Some brilliant suggestions here, esp. from parks, I might have to look into that myself. And good to see the OP implementing a backup policy. Backup and then backup

Absolutely... There's nothing I do that is harder than telling some young couple they've just lost all their wedding photos... (or in one case, photos of a deceased child.)

I'm trying the Robocopy backup right now, on my movie collection... so far so good. But the command line's a doozie to work out...

 

[Desslok]

Some brilliant suggestions here, esp. from parks, I might have to look into that myself. And good to see the OP implementing a backup policy. Backup and then backup

I'm trying the Robocopy backup right now, on my movie collection... so far so good. But the command line's a doozie to work out...

You can download the GUI for that as well, it's old but you can still find it here, Under November downloads. Not sure why you would think copying 3 files at a time would fragment your disk, but you can use this.:
2006 Code Downloads

 

[manhunter2826]

Some brilliant suggestions here, esp. from parks, I might have to look into that myself. And good to see the OP implementing a backup policy. Backup and then backup

I'm trying the Robocopy backup right now, on my movie collection... so far so good. But the command line's a doozie to work out...

You can download the GUI for that as well, it's old but you can still find it here, Under November downloads. Not sure why you would think copying 3 files at a time would fragment your disk, but you can use this.:
2006 Code Downloads

Thanks for the useful link, very kind

 

[manhunter2826]

Some brilliant suggestions here, esp. from parks, I might have to look into that myself. And good to see the OP implementing a backup policy. Backup and then backup

Absolutely... There's nothing I do that is harder than telling some young couple they've just lost all their wedding photos... (or in one case, photos of a deceased child.)

I'm trying the Robocopy backup right now, on my movie collection... so far so good. But the command line's a doozie to work out...

Agreed Sir, as I keep saying: be wise before the event.

 

[MadMaxData]

Glad to see everyone found a good solution that fits their taste. If anyone hasn't tried it yet, I'm using the new Acronis 10. I'm extremely impressed with it so far. So if you consider buying it, it get's a thumbs up from Max.

 

[whs]

Here is just another thought because I do this a little differently. I put all my user files into a seperate data partition (that is recommended for a variety of reasons). Then I image that partition each time after I made a certain amount of changes. I happen to use free Macrium for that because it is easy to use and super fast. But Acronis that you seem to have would do the same job - you even get differentials (which I happen not to like).

 

[Kari]

Moi Opam.

Mä teen viikoittain systeemistä varmuuskopion ihan Windowsin omalla Varmuuskopioi ja Palauta toiminnolla luomalla järjestelmän näköistiedoston. Se on mun mielestä paras tapa suojautua koko järjestelmän kaatumiseen, yhdessä palautuslevyn kanssa koko systeemi on vartissa taas pystyssä jos käy huonosti. Mä tallennan kuvan aina ulkoiselle levylle. Päivittäiseen omien tiedostojen varmistukseen mä käytän Pparksin lailla Robocopya, se tekee jutut niin hiton helpoksi kopioiden muutamassa minuutissa käyttäjä- ja datakansiot.



Hi Opam.

I make my weekly complete backup with Windows' own Backup and Restore, creating a system image which I store on an extenal hard drive. For my daily personal file backup I use the same method as Pparks, Robocopy which copies user and data folders to another external drive.

Kari

 

[whs]

Kari, this is cool. Multilingual answers.We should do that more often for our friends from countries where we speak the language. I like these long words in Finnish, beats even German.
PS: the only word Google could not translate is: vartissa

 

[CommonTater]

Some brilliant suggestions here, esp. from parks, I might have to look into that myself. And good to see the OP implementing a backup policy. Backup and then backup

I'm trying the Robocopy backup right now, on my movie collection... so far so good. But the command line's a doozie to work out...

You can download the GUI for that as well, it's old but you can still find it here, Under November downloads. Not sure why you would think copying 3 files at a time would fragment your disk, but you can use this.:
2006 Code Downloads

In my case I'd rather do it with batch files. I can put them right on the backup disk so no matter what machine it's connected to I can backup the entire network. The Gui looks good... but it's not quite what I need.

 

[CommonTater]

Here is just another thought because I do this a little differently. I put all my user files into a seperate data partition (that is recommended for a variety of reasons). Then I image that partition each time after I made a certain amount of changes. I happen to use free Macrium for that because it is easy to use and super fast. But Acronis that you seem to have would do the same job - you even get differentials (which I happen not to like).

Absolutely... I always partition drives... about 15gigs for Windows and the rest for data... My current setup is System on C, Projects on D and Archive on E. It makes for a clean system and an easy backup. (The Archive doesn't change much).

Of course the big reason for partitioning like this is that if you do have to reload the OS you don't end up losing all your data.

 

[Kari]

Kari, this is cool. Multilingual answers.We should do that more often for our friends from countries where we speak the language. I like these long words in Finnish, beats even German.

In my day to day life, it's really rare to have an opportunity to speak / use Finnish, so I use every opportunity I get. Because of forum rules and common sense, I'll also try to translate the essence of my reply.

Kari

(10) If you are going to post non-English on these forums, please also post an English Translation of your post.

 

[whs]

That's fair. One should always use English in addition. But Google Translate does a pretty decent job too. I just thought the multilingual might give some "color" to the forum - smell of the wide world, LOL.

about 15gigs for Windows

CommonTater, 15 gigs may be a little shy. I would recommend 25 to 30 gigs.

 

[pparks1]

I too run Acronis True Image 2010...however I use that for very simply system images. I don't actually like using it to backup data, as the file is then in a proprietary file format and I have to use software to restore it. I much rather just have the files in their native format on an external drive, this way I can easily retrieve them using any other windows machine, a linux host or a mac.