Decent Freeware backup software

Damien360

I am looking for decent backup software that can work as a comparator when finished so I am not backing up everything each time and spending hours looking at it working.

There is loads of software that just backs up the entire folder but few seem work as a comparator very well. I only want files that change in the parent directory to be added to the backup to minimise the time it takes.

I have tried a few and I do not like them. The last one was syncbreeze to backup to an external USB drive but it keeps loosing my settings and writes the backup back on top of the parent directory on occasion.

Anyone using a reliable one ?

liamo

I use FreeFileSync to back up a number of folders to a NAS. Works perfectly every time.

Another useful utility for backing up from one PC to another is DeltaCopy. With the software installed on both PCs, one side acts as a server and the other as a client. Only the changes in a file are copied, instead of the entire file. Very useful.

Hope this helps.

Liam

Gadgetman496

I've been using AllwaySync for years and it has never let me down. It does exactly what you're looking for too

demanufactured

Synctoy

28064212

If you're comfortable with the command line and batch files, robocopy is great. Built-in to Windows, and infinitely configurable. I've tried various backup programs, but they just never have quite enough options. Plus, you're relying on a third-party company to continue to support their software, robocopy will always be supported

TonyStark

28064212 wrote: »

If you're comfortable with the command line and batch files, robocopy is great. Built-in to Windows, and infinitely configurable. I've tried various backup programs, but they just never have quite enough options. Plus, you're relying on a third-party company to continue to support their software, robocopy will always be supported

+1 for RoboCopy. Currently looking it at mirroring some files and folders on a drive. :-) Does what it says on the tin.

Damien360

Thanks for the replies. Really appreciate it.

liamo wrote: »

I use FreeFileSync to back up a number of folders to a NAS. Works perfectly every time.

Another useful utility for backing up from one PC to another is DeltaCopy. With the software installed on both PCs, one side acts as a server and the other as a client. Only the changes in a file are copied, instead of the entire file. Very useful.

Hope this helps.

Liam

I will look closer at those two. Have'nt used them before. Thanks

gadgetman496 wrote: »

I've been using AllwaySync for years and it has never let me down. It does exactly what you're looking for too

tried that and it failed to sync correctly. re-wrote the time on all the files and made finding ones by date impossible after.

demanufactured wrote: »

Synctoy

MS software that I tried but I had to point to the folders each time. It could not keep particular folders in memory so I could just click on one link each time.

28064212 wrote: »

If you're comfortable with the command line and batch files, robocopy is great. Built-in to Windows, and infinitely configurable. I've tried various backup programs, but they just never have quite enough options. Plus, you're relying on a third-party company to continue to support their software, robocopy will always be supported

I thought I was comfortable with command line as I learned in DOS many moons ago but I looked at the options on a html help file and it is very extensive, to the point of complicated. Might give that a miss. Thanks anyway.

28064212

Damien360 wrote: »

I thought I was comfortable with command line as I learned in DOS many moons ago but I looked at the options on a html help file and it is very extensive, to the point of complicated. Might give that a miss. Thanks anyway.

Ah you can dump most of the options straightaway. A very simple example would be:

robocopy "C:\Users\name\Documents" "\\networkdrive\backup\target\Users\name\Documents" /MIR /np /xj /w:1 /r:1

/MIR is the important option, it just means mirror the first directory to the second
/np is 'quiet' mode, don't output the progress bars
/xj means don't copy junctions, you can end up in infinite loops on Windows if you don't include this
/w:1 and /r:1 are for files that robocopy can't access, w is number of seconds to wait before retrying, and r is the number of retries to attempt (the defaults are to keep trying indefinitely)

Running this command means you end up with an exact copy of your documents folder on \\networkdrive. Running it in the future will just update the files that have changed, and delete files from the backup if they're been deleted from the source.

NB: Never edit the backup! Any changes made to the backup could be mirrored back to the source