Backup Help

[f0rk_b0mb]

Hey guys,

 

I currently have a 2TB external drive that has a full backup of my 1TB data (with aprox. 700gb of data) drive which consists of music, pictures, movies, game installers/backups, and other goodies. It's been about a month since I have transfered anything to that drive. My question is: What is the best way to transfer new files to the drive in and place them in their respective folders? Do I select exerything in the root of the drive, drag it over and tell it to skip files that already exist? Is there an easier way? How do you keep track of your backups?

 

Any comments are welcome. :)

 

Thank you!

[The Evil Overlord]

I don't use external backups as I haven't accumulated more than about 1tb of saved data over 3 internal drives

but my layouts are under documents

 

I'll try to explain using these following symbols <> for the parent directory, and () for folders inside those directories

for example D:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\                  

Would look like

<D:\Documents and Settings\Administrator> would have my documents as (Documents) and so on

 

<Pictures> (folder)

<adult folder>

Females... Males... Couples...

 

<regular folders>

Named folders

 

 

 

<Videos> (folder)

<adult folders><title names>(horror)<title names>

<childrens viewing folder><title names> (these are mostly cartoons, and animated movies)

<family safe> (almost all my regular and family safe movies)

 

 

<Music> (Folder)

<adult>(explicit language music)

<pop>(title names)

<rock>(title names)

etc...

 

 

 

<Programs and installations>(folder)

Obviously all title folders for various installation and setup files

[Kosh]

Take a look at Robocopy.

Its included in Win7 and Win8.

You have to download it from www.microsoft.com/downloads if you are on XP.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy

 

I think especially this command should help you:

Robocopy C:\MyFolder D:\MyBackupfolder /MIR /Z

[f0rk_b0mb]

I don't use external backups as I haven't accumulated more than about 1tb of saved data over 3 internal drives

but my layouts are under documents

 

I'll try to explain using these following symbols <> for the parent directory, and () for folders inside those directories

for example D:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\                  

Would look like

<D:\Documents and Settings\Administrator> would have my documents as (Documents) and so on

 

<Pictures> (folder)

<adult folder>

Females... Males... Couples...

 

<regular folders>

Named folders

 

 

 

<Videos> (folder)

<adult folders><title names>(horror)<title names>

<childrens viewing folder><title names> (these are mostly cartoons, and animated movies)

<family safe> (almost all my regular and family safe movies)

 

 

<Music> (Folder)

<adult>(explicit language music)

<pop>(title names)

<rock>(title names)

etc...

 

 

 

<Programs and installations>(folder)

Obviously all title folders for various installation and setup files

 

Awesome! That's what I'm curently doing on my data drive.

 

 

However, I'm trying to merge new data with an existing backup. I keep an external backup just incase my drive crashes, or I accidentally delete something important. Any ideas for that?

[f0rk_b0mb]

 

Take a look at Robocopy.

Its included in Win7 and Win8.

You have to download it from www.microsoft.com/downloads if you are on XP.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy

 

I think especially this command should help you:

Robocopy C:\MyFolder D:\MyBackupfolder /MIR /Z

 

Interesting! I'm going to have to read up on that. Thank You!

[The Evil Overlord]

Awesome! That's what I'm curently doing on my data drive.

 

 

However, I'm trying to merge new data with an existing backup. I keep an external backup just incase my drive crashes, or I accidentally delete something important. Any ideas for that?

I usually rely solely on filenames in that case, merging (I use win7) for me doesn't overwrite anything for me

with pictures I get a thumbnail if there's a clashing name, if it's not the same pic, I usually just let windows rename the file with another number, if it is the same I use overwrite or skip before deleting the source file/folder

It should be the same or very similar using the external if it mirrors your internal drives

I guess you could try making a new folder on the external, copying any folder from it to the new folder, then try merging the internal folder with the newly created one, if that works, then you need only to repeat the steps to the original folder on the external and delete the new folder.

 

Having said that, I just noticed +BudMan,and  +Mephistopheles are viewing this topic right now, they're both much better at explaining than I, so I'll defer to their expertise.

[sc302 Veteran]

Kosh hit it pretty well with a cli command.

Microsoft synctoy and richcopy work decently for gui based utils

There is also syncbackfree that you can try.

I would personally use robocopy.

Hope this helps.