Backing UP Hard Drive

godtabh

I have a external hard drive.

Is there any programe out there that you can select a drive and say split it 4.5Gb sections so that I can burn it to DVD.

Something like winzip or winrar that compresses folders and slpits them but with out the the compression.

I just want to click the drive and then all I have to do after that is put in a blank DVDs when requested.

Or any other suggestions on backing up my files.

TempestSabre

Might sound like overkill but I use three drives. One in the machine, then a USB drive which syncs with the internal drive. With 200GB drives it takes about 10mins to sync them. I also use the external drive a lot with my laptop, having the external for that is handy. I also have a 3rd USB drive for longer term backup which I only sync every month or so. Really important stuff I also put on DVDRW. If I used DVD to backup all of the 200GB drive it would take 40-50 disks. Thats too much hassle and would take hours. I simply don't have the time for that. Hard disks are so cheap these days. If the backup is easy then you'll actually do it more often. A neater setup would be mirrored drives in the PC and then one external. I'd avoid proprietary RAID on motherboards. If the controller goes its a pain.

The software I use to synch my USB drives came with my USB enclosure. Its just ok. I'm looking for something better, specially something that syncs file deletions, which mine doesn't do. Obviously something free or not too expensive. I found an app I was thinking off, but I can't find the link at the moment. If I find it I'll post it here.

Found these though...
http://www.handybackup.net/backup_terms/span_backup_to_dvd.shtml
http://www.allwaysync.com/index.html

Hagar

What software do you use?

angelofdeath

nero backitup will do that, not free though, you can use it with or without compression and it will record straight to the dvds without using up space on the HD

it came with nero suite which i got with my dvdrw

TempestSabre

Hagar wrote:

What software do you use?

http://syncquick.com/

Its quite basic. But because its so fast I actually use it. Once I connect a drive it pops up, so I run it. I also use another app for encrypting the USB hard drives drives. So if they get nicked, the essential data is protected. Its Paragon Encrypted disk. Came on a cover CD.

godtabh

Maybe I'm asking the wrong questions.

I want to bakc up my hd every 6 months or so. The last time I did it I had 25Gb to back up so while it took a while i got it back up.

This has now grown to approx 80Gb.

Is there any way off backing up the new stuff with out backing up what was backed up in the 25GB?

jor el

Norton Ghost will let you do incremental backups, so you do one big backup first, then any subsequent backup only save stuff that has been modified or added since the last.

There's probably more but I don't know of any off hand. Google for incremental backups perhaps?

godtabh

jor el wrote:

Norton Ghost will let you do incremental backups, so you do one big backup first, then any subsequent backup only save stuff that has been modified or added since the last.

There's probably more but I don't know of any off hand. Google for incremental backups perhaps?

Never heard of incremental backups.

Is Norton Ghost any good? Is it expesnive? Must look it up

Tom Dunne

kearnsr wrote:

Never heard of incremental backups.

Is Norton Ghost any good? Is it expesnive? Must look it up

Incremental backups are backups of only data that has changed. Say you have a folder with 200 files, you take a backup. Then say 10 files are updated and another file is added. So only 11 files are backed up in the next run (10 changed + 1 new). And so on. Basically it only backs up what has changed since last backup.

Norton Ghost is damn good. Don't know how much it costs, but a lot of corporate IT departments use it.

TempestSabre

That Allway Sync's not bad for a free app. Its does incremental and deletions aswell. (if you delete on one drive it deletes it on the other)

Adviser

Norton ghost. It's not free though. Limewire is your friend here.....

pdogs

BootIt-NG should be able to burn directly to DVD for you.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

Fully functional trialware.

PS
With the large amounts of data involved would you not consider backing up onto an external HDD or Tape Drive. Programs like SyncBack and DataKeeper (if it can still be obtained) and even MS Backup should all be able to do incremental backups - if this is the most important feature you want. DataKeeper would, for example, run in the background and make incremental backups of all specified files and folders so many times a day or week etc etc.

You need to maybe let us know whether backing up data or backing up your system is the most relevant feature you want.

godtabh

pdogs wrote:

BootIt-NG should be able to burn directly to DVD for you.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

Fully functional trialware.

PS
With the large amounts of data involved would you not consider backing up onto an external HDD or Tape Drive. Programs like SyncBack and DataKeeper (if it can still be obtained) and even MS Backup should all be able to do incremental backups - if this is the most important feature you want. DataKeeper would, for example, run in the background and make incremental backups of all specified files and folders so many times a day or week etc etc.

You need to maybe let us know whether backing up data or backing up your system is the most relevant feature you want.

Basically I've got a lot of stuff like music/films/phots etc.

I have them back up on an external hard drive but I've heard on boards and other places that these are prone to giving up at the worst possibel stage. SO I want to back up this data. I dont mind about the other stuff on to DVD so that its there and if taken care off the back ups should last for a lot longer than the hard drive