Better way to back up...

[joenewbie]

There has to be a better way to do backups than how I'm doing them presently.  

Let me lay out my setup first and then tell you what I do to back up my system.  

I have 2 drives in my main PC, 1 3TB HDD and 1 256 GB SSD.  

The SSD is my boot/gaming drive.  The HDD holds My Documents and other Windows frequently written to/from items to save wear and tear on the SSD.   For backup I use a 4 TB Seagate 3.0 external drive.  

I only use about 50% of the HDD or 1.44 TB.  I have a lot of media files I'm still sorting through and editing, movies, music etc which I keep on the internal HDD.  But I have a copy in a folder called Data, same as the drive name in Windows, for my Data drive.  

When I do a backup I copy and paste the whole folder from the internal drive to the external.  And use the Seagate software to do a System backup on the SSD.  

There has to be software that doesn't make me either continuously backup the drive but will also let me only copy the things that have changed without having to replace one with the other. 

I hope I'm clear here I know it's confusing, but any advice would be appreciated. 

[joenewbie]

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[IdeaStormer]

SyncToy, its from Microsoft so not a spyware infested free software like some of them and it works as you have stated:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155

 

Here's a review : http://www.pcworld.com/article/248927/free_and_easy_backup_with_synctoy.html

 

You can schedule it with Windows built in Task Scheduler to run when you see fit.

[joenewbie]

SyncToy, its from Microsoft so not a spyware infested free software like some of them and it works as you have stated:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155

 

Here's a review : http://www.pcworld.com/article/248927/free_and_easy_backup_with_synctoy.html

 

You can schedule it with Windows built in Task Scheduler to run when you see fit.

Ok this looks like exactly what I've needed, thank you.  I am editing a lot of file names and other tag information to fit a standard I like.  As it stands I usually just keep backing up and then backing up the whole thing again, and deleting the old backup after the new one is saved.  Takes a lot of time.  If this can sync the files I'm altering that's perfect.  

[joenewbie]

I have to dump from one folder to an empty one rather than the one I already have setup with previous backups.  Only because when I ran it with a left to right merge, extra files or files that I'd moved didn't move to the same folders on the right.   Part of my organizing is putting certain files into more organized and renamed folders.  *shrug* Time will tell.   I have it set to "echo" left to right, but I thought that meant it would delete any files on the right which don't appear on the left, or at least not in the same place and to rearrange them into the folders as they are on the left.   It skipped a bunch of files I had in a main directory on the right, which I had since put into sub-directories on the left.   I'm gonna keep toying with it because if I can get it to do those couple things it's a perfect tool to only back up that part I need backed up.  The changes any files being moved to different/new folders and any deletions copied to the right from the left.  It's not quite doing that though.   I'll keep playing with it. 

[swifty7]

I'm currently backing up more than 2tb worth data by using an excellent freeware called Teracopy.

[joenewbie]

Part of my problem is I don't just need backup, I'm backing up occasionally as I reorganize/rename with new folders and so forth.  I just need a way for the backup to delete old files, and move the new ones into the new structure.  Even if it has to delete the old file and re-backup the new one because of the name/folder changes that's fine, but as I've been doing it I've been backing up the whole 1.5 TB of data over and over again.  Lot of stress on the backup drive.  

EDIT: I would just back it up again after I fully organize all the files, but the fear with that is, if I have a hard drive failure after dumping 20 hours of work sorting things out and lose all my sort.  So every time I have a nice 10 hour sort session, or thereabouts, I want to back it up so I can keep my work saved.  Blah.  I just wish I could turn it all over to an automated system, but I can't because more often than not it screws up or doesn't let me tailor it the way I want it.   Yes, I have OCD and am very precise.  *grin* 

[IdeaStormer]

Part of my problem is I don't just need backup, I'm backing up occasionally as I reorganize/rename with new folders and so forth.  I just need a way for the backup to delete old files, and move the new ones into the new structure.  Even if it has to delete the old file and re-backup the new one because of the name/folder changes that's fine, but as I've been doing it I've been backing up the whole 1.5 TB of data over and over again.  Lot of stress on the backup drive.  

EDIT: I would just back it up again after I fully organize all the files, but the fear with that is, if I have a hard drive failure after dumping 20 hours of work sorting things out and lose all my sort.  So every time I have a nice 10 hour sort session, or thereabouts, I want to back it up so I can keep my work saved.  Blah.  I just wish I could turn it all over to an automated system, but I can't because more often than not it screws up or doesn't let me tailor it the way I want it.   Yes, I have OCD and am very precise.  *grin* 

 

Looking for a job as a backup admin

[joenewbie]

I did get SyncToy but for some reason it wasn't deleting old files, or so it seemed.  I had a previous backup that had a number of files in the main directory which I have since put into subdirectories.  SyncToy did the backup, but the files I'd moved remained in the main directory.  My only assumption is that because I didn't do it from scratch and rather made it sync a main directory that already existed it lost something in translation.  

So what I'm going to do tonight, because it takes hours to run the backup.  I'm going to change the Right Folder to a new empty folder and let it essentially clone the left one.  Then delete the old backup.  Then, make changes on the left and run it again to see if it applies those to the right.  Something small though just to test it.   I'll let ya know how it goes sometime in the next day or so.  But if it doesn't go well I'll be back to hunting for something that can do that.  Freeware preferably. 

[IdeaStormer]

I did get SyncToy but for some reason it wasn't deleting old files, or so it seemed.  I had a previous backup that had a number of files in the main directory which I have since put into subdirectories.  SyncToy did the backup, but the files I'd moved remained in the main directory.  My only assumption is that because I didn't do it from scratch and rather made it sync a main directory that already existed it lost something in translation.  

So what I'm going to do tonight, because it takes hours to run the backup.  I'm going to change the Right Folder to a new empty folder and let it essentially clone the left one.  Then delete the old backup.  Then, make changes on the left and run it again to see if it applies those to the right.  Something small though just to test it.   I'll let ya know how it goes sometime in the next day or so.  But if it doesn't go well I'll be back to hunting for something that can do that.  Freeware preferably. 

 

Yes, you need to start from a scratch backup (empty destination) for it to know what to remove. Double check the options for the backup.

 

In all reality there exists a Linux/Unix command named rsync that does exactly what you want, and it can even generate a report, it has a slew of options, but its on Linux. SyncToy is close but lacks a few options rsync has but looks like you're doing the right thing (testing).

[joenewbie]

Ok, I'm reviving this in the hopes someone can explain how I can fix this with SyncToy. 

I'm attempting to do a backup, one I've already done, an echo, folder left into folder right, but now when I put my backup drive in the USB, it assigns the drive a different drive letter than when it first ran, there is nothing in the E:\ drive, but it assigns the backup drive F:\ unlike how it did when I first did the backup, so now it won't run the Sync because it tells me E:\ doesn't exist.  

Is there a way to reassign the external drive to E again?  Or am I completely screwed and have to do this FULL backup ALL OVER AGAIN.  I'm really getting sick of this.  It seems nobody can make a simple software that does backups without all these idiotic complications.

EDIT: problem solved but I don't see why I have to reassign drive letters at all.  E was unassigned so why won't Win8.1 use that one first before jumping to F, to me that's strange.  But also why does backup software not consider the idea that it's an external drive for backup and the drive letter may change as a result, considering both the software and Win8.1 behavior is coming from Microsoft corp.  

*rant complete*