Hard disk mirroring and backup-taking software

[Malt-Teaser 3,728]

Some time ago I reported a problem with my USB drive but didn't get chance to do anything with it until recently.

As it turns out, the drive is OK and the problem lies with the casing / USB connection.

A friend has connected it to his computer and proven that the drive's files are accessible and not currupted as I feared.

As storage is currently so cheap, I have bought a new USB drive (500gb Seagate for €119) and will have all files copied to this drive.

I was hoping to install my old drive into my PC as a second HDD, but the IDE cable in my PC only has the one connection which is used for the original HDD, so I will now buy a second external USB drive and have two permanently connected.

I intend to just use one as a direct copy of the other so that should I have any future problems, I always have a backup copy available. This is important as the files comprise many years of my photography.

My question is:

Do I really need to manually copy the files myself, or is there a (free or very cheap) piece of software which will automatically do the mirroring of the two external drives for me?

If there is, does it use much of my available system resources and slow the PC down during normal day to day running?

Thanks in advance,

MT

[MrNatural 1]

Try Acronis True Image. I have been using it for years and it has saved my bacon more than once. It retails for about USD50.00 and deals are available if you search online.

[RebellionLies 37]

Why not just buy new casing for the old drive instead of buying another external drive? You can pick that up pretty cheaply around these parts.

As far as drive mirroring goes, this website should help. They have a free 30 day trial of their software, and for one license it's about USD39.00.

[PureLoneWolf 34]

I was hoping to install my old drive into my PC as a second HDD, but the IDE cable in my PC only has the one connection which is used for the original HDD

If it is a single connection IDE cable, then buy a double connection cable to replace it. IDE allows 2 devices per channel (1 Master, 1 slave)

[Darkknight 2,305]

And the 2 port IDE cable is only 2-4 Eur, as opposed to a new USB case for 30-40. The transfer speeds will be faster too..

[RebellionLies 37]

At least until USB 3.0 comes out, mind.

[Darkknight 2,305]

USB 3 hits the market in 2009/2010, The spec is still in Draft.

[Genie 28]

Reading with interest here.

Does the Arconis product extend well to a network? We have a backed-up disk server in the institute, but what I'm looking for is a network client that sits on the computers of the users and can either implement a network policy for backing-up important stuff (My Documents/Data ) or will back-up the folders/files the user will tell it to.

I've been using Cobian for my own skin, just because it's free and easily available but you need to be able to configure it properly and it's not the simplest click-and-go thing. Requires some reading and the default policy isn't brilliant.

But that said, it might be a good solution for you, MT, I've been using it more or less as you said you need.

[RebellionLies 37]

This image made me chuckle a bit.

[Darkknight 2,305]

@Genie

Acronis TrueImage does work great with networks, but its a DISK/PARTITION based disk Imaging/backup program

and not made for normal Day to day File backup use. For that I suggest your company look into one

of the following products:

Arcserve

Tovoli backup

Novastor

Retrospect Server Backup

Veritas Backup Exec

[Genie 28]

Thanks DK, I'll look those up.

[kathik 461]

Looking to see if there is more recent advice for this thread. Can anyone suggest good backup software for my PC? I have discovered that although mine says the backup is complete, it really isn't all there...I currently have Memeo Backup which came with my drive (and it has caused me problems in the past)

 

Any (new) products out there that do as advertised and aren't a beast on my computer? I just want it to automatically backup files (pictures, videos, etc) as well as have the nuts and bolts there for the other programs in case of a catastrophic failure.

 

Thanks in advance!

[pappnase 2,572]

Two critical questions,

 

 

1. Is this for commercial or personal use? and
2. Which OS are you running?

If for it's commercial use (including the 'institute' scenario above) the list from DK is still pretty good, although it's possible not all of them can handle Linux and OS-X (I didn't check).

 

For personal use here are some more free backup ideas...

 

 

• For a Windows 7 machine you can easily get away with Windows backup to a big USB hard drive, a full image backup works in the case of catastrophic failure and the file backup covers most things you might accidentally delete.
• For older versions of windows I've also used DriveImage xml ( http://www.runtime.o...veimage-xml.htm) for backups and transfers in the past.
• For Apple machines time-machine/time-capsule seems to be the way to go.
• For linux boxes your choices are endless, personally for my linux machines I use rsync to an offsite server and that seems to cover what I need, but for a full blown free backup system take a look at amanda (If you go this route and are scaling out to the network then amanda can also backup your windows and osx machines.

 

 

 

Copies of email can be left on the mail server as a extra line of protection, and you can always mail yourself anything that you want to keep an extra copy of.

[kathik 461]

thanks for the post. It is for personal use and I am running Windows Vista.

 

Will the windows backup automatically backup new files (such as photos) as they are added or do I need to schedule it? I would like it to be as automatic as possible...

[pappnase 2,572]

Windows backup will need to be setup to backup on a schedule, it doesn't continually mirror. It is normally set to only backup things which have changed since the last backup, so once you've set it up it's pretty much done.

 

If you have the Ultimate, Business, or Enterprise edition of Windows Vista then you can also turn on 'Shadow Copy' to protect yourself against accidental deletion, but this still isn't quite what you describe above.

 

 

 

 

 

[adutchy 7]

Private backup needed?

 

If you have the time and want to learn something that works since DOS started then just Google

 

"batch file +backup" or

"batch file +mirror" or even better

"batch file +robocopy".

 

You might find out that it is fun to work with batch file's.

 

Why spend money on software for things you can do yourself?

 

xcopy C:\adutchy\greenies.gif D:\BonnBonn\greenies.gif

[kathik 461]

because I don't have the time or the willingness to learn new things for this when I can throw a small sum of €€ at it to take care of it!

[adutchy 7]

Fair enough.

 

I would not use Acronis, it sometimes does not recognize source and/or destination.

 

When the computer or server crashes and you have to place the backup source somewhere

else it could happen that Acronis does not work. Happened to me several times at work.

 

We were not able to restore the backup files in a short time and I had to copy all files manually.

Restore our database to another server went fast but all technical specifications and costumer drawings

took me almost a whole weekend. Since that wonderful event I heard several times that Acronis doesn't do

the job that it's supposed to do.

 

Now since this thread already exists, maybe someone likes to share their experience with their homemade

batch files and like to play around with DOS again?

 

Looking forward to read any homemade batch files :rolleyes:

[poppet 4,010]

 

Looking forward to read any homemade batch files

 

 

maybe this user can help?

 

But seriously our 5 Laptops/PCs are backed up using Nero Backitup4. For no other reason than it works fine and came free with the terrabyte backup drive.

[adutchy 7]

Look for PathSync if you want it to be done by software that works well.

 

@poppet cool, thanks :rolleyes: