UKBouldering.com
technical => computers, technology and the internet => Topic started by: cofe on August 21, 2009, 11:53:29 pm
-
word. anyone got any recommendations for good (free), simple backup software? to be used for backing up/copying files from internal HD to another.
Ta.
-
What OS are you on?
If its a Mac then its based on *NIX and will likely have a command called rsync which is a very clever way of synchronising data from one location to another, be it one directory on your HD to another on an external HD or two computers of the net.
Fire up a terminal and see if the command rsync is installed by typing it and hitting return if so you should get all the options printed out. Let us know if you want some examples but something like...
rsync -avz /home/cofe/* /mnt/usb/.
...would copy all the files in the directory /home/cofe/ to /mnt/usb/
The smart thing about rsync is when you come to do this again. It checks to see when files were last modified and will only copy over from /home/cofe/* to /mnt/usb/ those files which have changed, and the really clever part is that it uses an algorithm (termed delta-transfer) to only copy the bits of the file that have changed (e.g. if you've edited only a section of a picture then only part of the file that relates to that will have changed, so only that will be copied over/updated).
If you're on windows you can get this feature by installing a UNIX-like shell called Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com) which I (naturally!) find very handy when I have to use Windows computers, just make you select the rsync package for installation if you're going to try this out.
-
thanks word. win7. that still sounds complicated. any other options?
-
RAID? Or are you looking for something simpler?
-
if i'm involved, simple is always better. ;)
was turned off raid after a fairly big discussion on here a bit back bout it. just a little software program is all i'm after.
god it's hard to type on this little netbook.
-
thanks word. win7. that still sounds complicated. any other options?
If you're after something just to scan and back up files that have changed since you last backed up and pop them over to the hard drive - have a google, theres quite alot of freeware out there... plenty of options here http://free-backup.info/backup-software.htm (http://free-backup.info/backup-software.htm)
Not sure if any of these are any good, but I'd go for the simplest option... T
(thought about online back-up? I use mozy as I'm shite/lazy/incompetent at remembering to back up and mozy just sits in the background and backs up to some big server somewhere or other every few hours...?)
-
This (http://www.which.co.uk/reviews/backup-software) may give you some clues, although not sure about free stuff.
I gave up on RAID in the end and just copy selected files to another drive, I don't even bother with software.
-
Google Syncback word. Free, does exactly what you're after. have used in the past though yet to check it works on Win 7.
-
Microsoft SyncToy - bit slow but easy to setup and use
-
synctoy. piss and free. works.
-
Just realised you can use SyncToy and run it as a scheduled task to automatically update. I may have a go at that, save a bit of work.
-
I was just going to try Synctoy but then I read:
Important NAS and SyncToy 2.0 Information
Please note that there are known issues when using SyncToy 2.0 with a Home NAS. When using a NAS, there is a chance of file corruption. This issue will be fixed in an upcoming release. Unfortunately there are no known workarounds for this issue with SyncToy 2.0.
Damn.