BACKUP SOFTWARE: What is best software for backing up files to an external drive in Windows 10? Thread poster: Colin Bowles
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Just wondering if somebody could advise what the best software for backing up files to an external drive in Windows 10 is? I used to use Sync Toy (Microsoft), which was very simple and did the job fine but is not longer available.
Appreciate suggestions.
Colin Bowles
| | | | Jorge Payan 
Colombia
Local time: 15:16
Member (2002)
German to Spanish
+ ...
| Colin Bowles
Brazil
Local time: 17:16
Portuguese to English
TOPIC STARTER | Limitations on free version? | Oct 16, 2021 |
Thanks for the reply! Just wondering if there are any limitations on the free version. For example, the maximum number of files you can backup or something like that?
GoodSyncFree, for example, seems to have a limit of 100 files maximum in a backup!
| | | | | File History | Oct 16, 2021 |
Windows includes a backup tool called "File History". Simply enable it and select your external drive to store your data.
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Colin Bowles
Brazil
Local time: 17:16
Portuguese to English
TOPIC STARTER | File history | Oct 16, 2021 |
Tks Rodolfo, but the File history option in Windows seems a bit limited, particularly as I want to backup only certain folders, each to different external devices.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 22:16
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| | A bulletproof solution for the IT-savvy | Oct 17, 2021 |
There are plenty of backup solutions, but most of them have a major shortcoming: they use proprietary storage formats, so if you are unable to run your favourite product for whatever reason, you are simply out of luck about restoring your files. Thus, the best solution is simply to copy the files to the external drive with the same folder structure. This way, you can always access or restore them manually. The copying process can be automated in a number of ways. I use a very low-level method th... See more There are plenty of backup solutions, but most of them have a major shortcoming: they use proprietary storage formats, so if you are unable to run your favourite product for whatever reason, you are simply out of luck about restoring your files. Thus, the best solution is simply to copy the files to the external drive with the same folder structure. This way, you can always access or restore them manually. The copying process can be automated in a number of ways. I use a very low-level method that requires some IT skills (working from the Windows command prompt and writing batch scripts) but is extremely reliable: there is a multiple file copy utility directly from Microsoft called ROBOCOPY. It is highly robust and can continue copying even if it encounters input/output errors on the way, and has plenty of options (e.g. copy such and such folders but exclude such and such subfolders and files with such and such extensions). But be prepared to issue commands such as
robocopy c:\Users\Anton\Documents f:\Users\Anton\Documents /MIR /FFT /DST /COPY:DATS /DCOPY:T /XO /XJ /R:0 /W:0 /XD "Virtual machines" /XF *.bak
It would copy the files from c:\Users\Anton\Documents to f:\Users\Anton\Documents
/MIR means create a mirror of the folder tree (i.e. replicate the folder structure and delete files that are no longer present in the source - you may or may not want to do that)
/FFT means calculate file modification times with a 2-second precision supported by the FAT filesystem, as opposed to much finer precision supported by NTFS
/DST means account for daylight savings time in calculating file modification times
/COPY:DATS means copy Data, file Attributes, Timestamps and Security information in NTFS when copying individual files
/DCOPY:T means copy Timestamps when copying folders
/XO means exclude Older files (i.e. do not replace newer backup copies with older source copies)
/XJ means exclude Junction points (it's a NTFS feature to "graft" one folder within another)
/R:0 means do not retry in case of file read error (by default, it would retry up to 1 million times)
/W:0 means do not wait between retries, if any (by default, wait 30 seconds)
/XD "Virtual machines" means exclude all folders called "Virtual machines"
/XF *.bak means exclude all files with .bak extension
(there are plenty more options)
One can put this command (or several such commands) into a batch script and then schedule it for a periodic automatic execution using Task Scheduler (a built-in Windows feature).
[Edited at 2021-10-17 17:37 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:16
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| This may be helpful | Oct 17, 2021 |
As a Mac user I clone my HD very day using Carbon Copy Cloner, which creates an exact copy of your hard drive to an external hard drive, from which you can boot your computer, in an emergency.
There's nothing similar for PC, but I've come across this, which seems to be an alternative worth looking into: https://www.ubackup.com/professional.html
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Colin Bowles
Brazil
Local time: 17:16
Portuguese to English
TOPIC STARTER | | Create Synchronicity | Oct 18, 2021 |
Just to add my solution to the mix. I've been using this for years and it's free. Very lightweight and gives you settings and scheduling options:
http://synchronicity.sourceforge.net/
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