Backup to USB drive scheduled

[Jacob]

I have a specific backup question. I have an old computer that I use
as a server. I installed a 250GB internal hard drive so I could keep
all my music, picture and video files on it and access them from
anywhere on my network. I want to backup everything on this drive to a
500GB external hard drive (western digital mybook to be exact). I have
NTI backup now deluxe suite, which I have used successfully to clone an
entire bootable drive. It worked very well for that. However, I am
interested in copying this data onto the external hard drive in such a
way so that I will be able to take the hard drive with me and be able
to access the filed directly from the drive. I realize I could just
copy the files over by drag and drop, but I want a program to schedule
backups weekly and check to see if anything has been changed, moved,
added or deleted and update the external drive appropriately. It
would be nice if this could be done without rewriting all the data but
instead fixing only the data that changed. So my question: is there a
program or way to do this? Thanks.

 

[Malke]

I have a specific backup question. I have an old computer that I use
as a server. I installed a 250GB internal hard drive so I could keep
all my music, picture and video files on it and access them from
anywhere on my network. I want to backup everything on this drive to a
500GB external hard drive (western digital mybook to be exact). I have
NTI backup now deluxe suite, which I have used successfully to clone an
entire bootable drive. It worked very well for that. However, I am
interested in copying this data onto the external hard drive in such a
way so that I will be able to take the hard drive with me and be able
to access the filed directly from the drive. I realize I could just
copy the files over by drag and drop, but I want a program to schedule
backups weekly and check to see if anything has been changed, moved,
added or deleted and update the external drive appropriately. It
would be nice if this could be done without rewriting all the data but
instead fixing only the data that changed. So my question: is there a
program or way to do this? Thanks.

Second Copy from www.centered.com will do this very nicely and
inexpensively.

Malke

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have a specific backup question. I have an old computer that I use
as a server. I installed a 250GB internal hard drive so I could keep
all my music, picture and video files on it and access them from
anywhere on my network. I want to backup everything on this drive to a
500GB external hard drive (western digital mybook to be exact). I have
NTI backup now deluxe suite, which I have used successfully to clone an
entire bootable drive. It worked very well for that. However, I am
interested in copying this data onto the external hard drive in such a
way so that I will be able to take the hard drive with me and be able
to access the filed directly from the drive. I realize I could just
copy the files over by drag and drop, but I want a program to schedule
backups weekly and check to see if anything has been changed, moved,
added or deleted and update the external drive appropriately. It
would be nice if this could be done without rewriting all the data but
instead fixing only the data that changed. So my question: is there a
program or way to do this? Thanks.

A humble one-line batch file could do this for you:

@echo off
xcopy /s /d /y /c "d:\My Music" "F:\My Music\" 1>c:\copy.log 2>&1

Start a Command Prompt and type xcopy /? to see
what the various switches mean.

When the batch file is just right, use the Task Scheduler
to invoke it automatically once a week. Don't forget to
check the log file c:\copy.log at regular intervals!

 

[Jacob]

I have a couple of questions regarding the batch file method.
1. is there a way to make it delete files that are no longer in the
source drive. say I had an album folder, and I changed the name of
that folder. I would not want the destination drive to have the old
folder and the new folder. does that make sense?

2. Is there a way to maintain the same drive letter for an external
drive? If the drive letter changes after removing the drive and
plugging it back in (with other drives, mp3 player, etc.). the batch
file will either not work or send the files to the wrong drive.

other than that, it seems to be a good solution. I may break down and
try the software though. That seems to do what I need.

Thanks,
Jacob

 

[Guest]

Jacob:

2. Is there a way to maintain the same drive letter for an external

drive?

Check this out:

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

See below.

I have a couple of questions regarding the batch file method.
1. is there a way to make it delete files that are no longer in the
source drive. say I had an album folder, and I changed the name of
that folder. I would not want the destination drive to have the old
folder and the new folder. does that make sense?

Use xxcopy.exe (downloadable from many sites) instead of xcopy.exe.
The /Z deletes extra files or subdirectories in destination.

2. Is there a way to maintain the same drive letter for an external
drive? If the drive letter changes after removing the drive and
plugging it back in (with other drives, mp3 player, etc.). the batch
file will either not work or send the files to the wrong drive.

Click Start / Run / diskmgmt.msc, then assign a higher drive letter
for your USB disk, e.g. Q:. From now on, this particular disk will
always get drive letter Q:.

other than that, it seems to be a good solution. I may break down and
try the software though. That seems to do what I need.

What do you mean "I may break down"? Have a nervous breakdown?

 

[Jacob]

Thanks, I will try this out and see how it works. by "break down" I
meant I might give up with this and let the program do it for me. I
might however, have a nervous breakdown in the meantime.

I have a new concern though. If I have this scheduled to backup
regularly and I use the /Z command, if I accidentally lose/delete data
and it backs up, I will lose that backup data as well. This is more
difficult than I thought. I suppose I could somehow keep a backup of
the deleted files for a few weeks or something. But I am afraid if I
change the name of a large directory, I will not have enough space to
do that, plus in that case I really wouldn't need to back save the
deleted files because it was just a directory being renamed. That is
difficult to explain. I hope it made sense. anyway, thanks for your
help. I am learning and making progress.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Your concern about deleting files from the backup volume
is well justified. In view of the low cost of hard disks, I
usually resolve it like this: Every day the backup process -
- copies all new/modified files to a folder that I call "Bucket".
- deletes the oldest of my x backup folders.
- copies all new/modified files to a new backup folder.

I usually set x=7 which means that I have one backup folder
for every day of the week. To prevent the current backup
folder from being deleted (in case the job runs twice on the
same day), I use this code:

@echo off
set DOS=%date:~0,3%
set D=%date:~4,10%
dir Q:\Backups\%DOW% | find "%D%" || rd /s /q Q:\Backups\%DOW%

The code is based on this format for the inbuilt %date%
variable: Tue 25/07/2006.

This approach requires more disk space than your solution
but who cares?

 

[Jacob]

Here is the scenario that concerns me. If I rename the folder that
contains all my complete albums (~120GB), when it backs it up, it will
copy the entire 120GB with the new directory title, copy the old 120GB
to the archive/backup drive even though I don't need it to. That will
add up quickly. I wish there was a program that was smart enough to
detect when files don't actually need to be deleted, but rather just
moved into other directories. I am thinking there is a way to use my
music organizing software to synchronize my source and destination
drives automatically. I use mediamonkey. If it works how I think it
does, that would solve that issue.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Both xcopy.exe and xxcopy.exe will do this with ease:
Instead of using the /d switch, you use the /m switch.
/d will cause all missing and all more recent files to be
copied.
/m will cause all files to be copied that have the archive
flag set. It will then reset that flag.

I think you need to spend some time in really thinking this
whole thing through. At the moment things appear to be
in a state of flux - it's usually referred to as "scope creep".

 

[Jacob]

You've got that right. Everything I do ends up evolving into something
much more elaborate. I think this is for the better though. I have
some thinking to do. thanks for your help. I may need some more
assistance as I progress.