I'm looking for a piece of software that I can configure to do regular backups of my c: drive and store the back up on an external USB drive. Anyone got any suggestions?
I think EaseUS® Todo Backup Free 4.0 should fit your needs quite nicely.
It offers either incremental backups or full backups and you can use the Scheduler to automate backups.
Eric, selecting the specific folders I want to mirror is extremely tedious. Am I doing something wrong? It lists my entire c: drive without any kind of formatting, no plus signs to collapse large folder trees.
Or should I be creating multiple profiles, each one with the root folder of what I want to back up?
Okay I created multiple profiles and that works great, the only problem is now my brand new external hard drive keeps randomly disconnecting, seems like a lot of people are having the same problem with the below drive so beware. I've plugged it into another usb port just in case, but if it disconnects again I'm returning it.
I just have it mirror a whole hard drive, plus a few folders from the root hard drive. SyncBack does have trouble copying temporary files like Firefox profiles, but it just skips over them, doesn't stop the whole process.
Everything seems to be working now, switching the usb hard drive to a different port and installing it's driver seemed to fix the issue? It has been connected now for over 24 hours. I've run the back up of my art folder manually, I'll see what happens sunday night when the auto process runs and backs up the rest of the folders and tries to do a diff against the art folder.
I like Eric's program, it just copies the folders I choose on to the usb drive. It looks for new files that have been added and time stamp changes on existing files. Quite good once you get it set up.
So, now that it seems like you found a good software to manage it all, what is your overall approach to art data backup ?
For instance : do you simply make it all sync to that one drive as a mirror of what is currently on your computer ? (therefore, backuping "all your art at once") ? Or do you save to multiple drives and/or folders ? Something like, 2010 backup, 2011 backup, and so on ?
I am personally manually dropping everything I have into a fresh folder every 6 months or so, on a drive that is not connected to my computer at all times, to avoid mechanical wear and tear. But now I am thinking I should have two drives : one just like yours for an everyday sync ("recovery drive"), and one or more plugged in every now and then to drop everything in it("archival drives").
And then there's the question of stuff not being on the main computer anymore ... For maximum safety I would think it needs to be backed up in 2 different locations, to avoid failures ... Meaning that the "archival backup" drives might need to be duplicated, maybe. It sure would seem like a waste most of the time but if stuff happens it could be a life saver ...
What about cloud storage for offsite backups. To guard against random natural disasters or burglaries? Does anyone use anything other than dropbox? If so how is it?
I'm also considering a small portable HD to store in a safe deposit box at the bank for those 6 month or so backups... maybe that's too hard core/inconvenient.
Yeah, online coud be a great solution. The problem that I have with Dropbox (as a backup, I mean) is that it has to be put into a fresh folder created on setup. I don't think one can just point to an existing folder like Malcolm did ... So yeah I'd be curious about other services too.
Somehow I am totally for online/cloud stuff for web bookmarks, Steam games, Music, and so on. But for large backups of important data Im not so sure. Maybe storing a drive somewhere else (bank or relative) could be best indeed, but it involves even more human factor ... Tricky stuff.
I mentioned it before somewhere but you can use symbolic links
mklink /d c:\unmadenewfolder d:\existingfolder
start the dos prompt as admin
/d tells it to link whole directories
c:unmadenewfolder is the fake folder you want to pretend exists
d:existingfolder is the real folder (you will have copied this over from c: to your hard drive with lots of space)
do it at first with test folders and then you can view them and make new files in windows explorer and see how it works.
rember to use quotes if your dir names have spaces in
All you need to do is run a windows scheduler to run a command line version of synctoy and it will check for any folder or file modifications and only update what is needed.
EDIT: It's also useful if you have multiple machines and you need to clone an asset directory from one location to another. You can have it sync both ways, or just have read only permissions. It was useful for taking some UDK stuff I did and copying it into my udk folder on my laptop.
Yeah, I know what you mean about cloud storage. It's hard to put your trust in it entirely when likely 90%+ of the company is virtual.
I see it more as a convenient 2nd backup. Also as a potential Indie developer I'd worry about security as well. It wouldn't bother me much if people broke into and downloaded my personal portfolio artwork, but if somehow someone stole all the source code, art and music assets for a game I was developing I'd be very upset. The way I see it, if it's plugged into the internet it can be hacked.
Hey guys, here is how I've set it up based on my personal preference/needs. SyncBack the program Eric suggested works great although there's a bit of a learning curve at first, there are plenty of settings to customize depending on how you want your back ups to work.
1. I have a bunch of folders on my hard drive that I want to back up, music, art, software, pictures, etc. They are all stored in different folders, some are sub folders.
2. I bought a 1 terabyte portable USB hard drive to back up the data to, check my post above you might want to try a different brand then I got, but everything is working fine now.
3. In SyncBack I have created 8 profiles one for each folder I want backed up. SyncBack is scheduled to check the contents of each root and all sub directories within these folders once a week and copy any changes or new files to the my usb drive.
4. The really great part is once the initial back up has happened it is only going to copy new files, delete files that don't exist any more or update files where the time stamp has changed. So last night's back up only had to copy a couple Maya files that were updated.
5. I'm not doing a true mirror because I don't want something to accidentally change on the usb drive and then get reflected back to the main computer thus changing my source data. I only do downstream back ups so my C: drive on my desktop has no chance of accidentally getting modified.
6. Basically I don't know why I didn't investigate this sooner, I never have to think about what files have changed and what files I need to back up now, everything is just magically updated on the usb drive and kept in sync with the main C: drive once a week, so if for some reason my computer dies I'll have everything I care about backed up for the new computer.
7. Logs for each of the folders are printed out each time the scheduled back up is run so if you're concerned you can take a look at those the next morning then decide what to do with any errors/warnings if you have any.
Yup, that sounds very safe already. I guess my main question is, what if you decide to delete some projects from your main PC ? Like, old stuff that you don't need, especially if it is taking too much space.
They would still be on the external drive, but then if there's a failure there, its lost for good ...
Maybe the best way would be to simply swap out the two drives at the same time ? Like, when reaching full art drive capacity, it just means it's time to buy two new drives (one internal and one external) and start fresh ?
I doubt I'll ever get to full capacity. By that time I'm sure 3 terabyte drives will be a hundred bucks and I can just invest in one of those. I have the program setup to delete anything from the external drive that is not on the main drive. I don't really archive since there is no need as I have plenty of space on the external drive. If I delete something from the main drive it's because I no longer need it.
Replies
It offers either incremental backups or full backups and you can use the Scheduler to automate backups.
Or should I be creating multiple profiles, each one with the root folder of what I want to back up?
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/western-digital-western-digital-my-passport-essential-se-1tb-2-5-external-hard-drive-wdbacx0010bbk-nesn-wdbacx0010bbk-nesn/10155745.aspx?path=ee58c1b566dd70f5ce7e47599ba2afd4en02
But if you want a true backup/mirroring u could use DropBox as well or Dropbox Automator
So, now that it seems like you found a good software to manage it all, what is your overall approach to art data backup ?
For instance : do you simply make it all sync to that one drive as a mirror of what is currently on your computer ? (therefore, backuping "all your art at once") ? Or do you save to multiple drives and/or folders ? Something like, 2010 backup, 2011 backup, and so on ?
I am personally manually dropping everything I have into a fresh folder every 6 months or so, on a drive that is not connected to my computer at all times, to avoid mechanical wear and tear. But now I am thinking I should have two drives : one just like yours for an everyday sync ("recovery drive"), and one or more plugged in every now and then to drop everything in it("archival drives").
And then there's the question of stuff not being on the main computer anymore ... For maximum safety I would think it needs to be backed up in 2 different locations, to avoid failures ... Meaning that the "archival backup" drives might need to be duplicated, maybe. It sure would seem like a waste most of the time but if stuff happens it could be a life saver ...
What about cloud storage for offsite backups. To guard against random natural disasters or burglaries? Does anyone use anything other than dropbox? If so how is it?
I'm also considering a small portable HD to store in a safe deposit box at the bank for those 6 month or so backups... maybe that's too hard core/inconvenient.
Somehow I am totally for online/cloud stuff for web bookmarks, Steam games, Music, and so on. But for large backups of important data Im not so sure. Maybe storing a drive somewhere else (bank or relative) could be best indeed, but it involves even more human factor ... Tricky stuff.
start the dos prompt as admin
/d tells it to link whole directories
c:unmadenewfolder is the fake folder you want to pretend exists
d:existingfolder is the real folder (you will have copied this over from c: to your hard drive with lots of space)
do it at first with test folders and then you can view them and make new files in windows explorer and see how it works.
rember to use quotes if your dir names have spaces in
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=15155
All you need to do is run a windows scheduler to run a command line version of synctoy and it will check for any folder or file modifications and only update what is needed.
EDIT: It's also useful if you have multiple machines and you need to clone an asset directory from one location to another. You can have it sync both ways, or just have read only permissions. It was useful for taking some UDK stuff I did and copying it into my udk folder on my laptop.
Yeah, I know what you mean about cloud storage. It's hard to put your trust in it entirely when likely 90%+ of the company is virtual.
I see it more as a convenient 2nd backup. Also as a potential Indie developer I'd worry about security as well. It wouldn't bother me much if people broke into and downloaded my personal portfolio artwork, but if somehow someone stole all the source code, art and music assets for a game I was developing I'd be very upset. The way I see it, if it's plugged into the internet it can be hacked.
1. I have a bunch of folders on my hard drive that I want to back up, music, art, software, pictures, etc. They are all stored in different folders, some are sub folders.
2. I bought a 1 terabyte portable USB hard drive to back up the data to, check my post above you might want to try a different brand then I got, but everything is working fine now.
3. In SyncBack I have created 8 profiles one for each folder I want backed up. SyncBack is scheduled to check the contents of each root and all sub directories within these folders once a week and copy any changes or new files to the my usb drive.
4. The really great part is once the initial back up has happened it is only going to copy new files, delete files that don't exist any more or update files where the time stamp has changed. So last night's back up only had to copy a couple Maya files that were updated.
5. I'm not doing a true mirror because I don't want something to accidentally change on the usb drive and then get reflected back to the main computer thus changing my source data. I only do downstream back ups so my C: drive on my desktop has no chance of accidentally getting modified.
6. Basically I don't know why I didn't investigate this sooner, I never have to think about what files have changed and what files I need to back up now, everything is just magically updated on the usb drive and kept in sync with the main C: drive once a week, so if for some reason my computer dies I'll have everything I care about backed up for the new computer.
7. Logs for each of the folders are printed out each time the scheduled back up is run so if you're concerned you can take a look at those the next morning then decide what to do with any errors/warnings if you have any.
They would still be on the external drive, but then if there's a failure there, its lost for good ...
Maybe the best way would be to simply swap out the two drives at the same time ? Like, when reaching full art drive capacity, it just means it's time to buy two new drives (one internal and one external) and start fresh ?