Constant, Automated Backups from One External Hard Drive to Another

MeTV

So, after a moment of blind panic this morning when I thought I'd lost my main external hard drive (luckily, I'd just left it in the office on Friday), I realised I really need to start backing it up. However, my knowledge of computers isn't extensive enough to know how to go about it or even where to start.

Could some kind soul provide step-by-step instructions on how to have one drive (F) completely backed up to another (B) and then be constantly backed up in real-time, as files are added, edited and deleted on "F"? If "B" could be set up to keep a few versions of each file, in the case of a need for a rollback, that would be a bonus. "B" will be constantly plugged into a single machine while "F" comes everywhere with me and both drives, if it's relevant, are Samsung M3s, which come with backup software but I've never been able to get it working.

Manual backups aren't an option as I could be working on dozens of (on some occasions, maybe even 100+) files on any given day so keeping a list of what needs to be transferred and copying them across at the end of the day, some of them quite large, would just be too time-consuming.

If there's software required to get this up & running, the cheaper it is the better, as it's not really an expense I can afford to budget for right now.

seamus

Constant, near-real-time sync, is expensive resource-wise (i.e. it'll slow your machine down) and probably overkill for what you want to do.

If you are actually saving your files directly on one of the drives, then this is relatively straightforward.

If we say "B" is your master drive (i.e. contains the actual copies of the files on which you are working), then you can set up Volume Shadow Copy on that drive. Google is your friend, but it's easy to do. This allows you to achieve the "versions" you're looking for, where you can rollback changes as necessary.

You can then use the Windows backup service to do a full backup from drive B to drive F on a scheduled basis. Again, Google is easy here. In your case, you might want to do this 2 or 3 times a day; maybe lunchtime, then around 4pm, and then any time you shutdown your machine (i.e. to go home).

In reality the best backup strategy follows the 3-2-1 method;
3 copies
2 different media types
1 offsite

This sounds like overkill, but is achievable by basically anyone now. In your case, setting up a synchronisation job to a cloud service will give you both the offsite copy and the second media type. Think of it this way - you go out for lunch one day and your office goes up in flames, along with both of the hard drives. With a cloud sync, you still have a copy of your data and can be back in business the next day.

me_irl

Cobian Backup is a great free program to schedule backups.

http://www.cobiansoft.com/cobianbackup.htm

Choose files and folders to backup and then choose a schedule and just let it run.

Depending on the amount of data, you can use a Google Drive plan to install drive on that PC and also back the same files/folders to that too (this is your cloud backup)

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375123?hl=en