Free backup software to external drive

mrcheez

I want to create a backup of my work PC onto an external drive, but then be able to navigate the contents from my home PC without have to restore the backup (i.e. mount the backup as a separate drive).

I read Comodo does this (can't find the download though), but recommend any others?

MarkR

http://lifehacker.com/google-drives-new-backup-feature-reminded-me-i-have-no-1796129905

Have a look through this.

Lu Tze

mrcheez wrote: »

I want to create a backup of my work PC onto an external drive, but then be able to navigate the contents from my home PC without have to restore the backup (i.e. mount the backup as a separate drive).

I read Comodo does this (can't find the download though), but recommend any others?

As in have an exact duplicate of the files, a and not an image or compressed format?

You could copy the folders you want across initially from the work laptop to the external drive and then use Microsoft synctoy to sync the external drive from the work laptop then on, using the echo function it will update the external drive to exactly match what is on the work laptop i.e new files on work laptop copied across, files folders deleted on work laptop deleted on the external drive when synctoy is run

Alun

Macrium Reflect will do that. You can mount any backup file as a drive and navigate it just like a real physical one.

mrcheez

Lu Tze wrote: »

As in have an exact duplicate of the files, a and not an image or compressed format?

You could copy the folders you want across initially from the work laptop to the external drive and then use Microsoft synctoy to sync the external drive from the work laptop then on, using the echo function it will update the external drive to exactly match what is on the work laptop i.e new files on work laptop copied across, files folders deleted on work laptop deleted on the external drive when synctoy is run

I don't really have time to go through every folder so faster to just do the lot. I have a 3TB drive and the data is only around 400GB.

I'll check out Macrium, thanks!

Metric Tensor

SyncToy is the business - I use it all the time. It's simple and it works.

mrcheez

Macrium Reflect worked out perfectly thanks!

I take it I'm not missing any important functionality in the Free version?

All I need is:
- Backup everything
- Mount it so I can explore contents

Alun

mrcheez wrote: »

Macrium Reflect worked out perfectly thanks!

I take it I'm not missing any important functionality in the Free version?

All I need is:
- Backup everything
- Mount it so I can explore contents

Yes, the free version does all that. It doesn't support incremental backups though, only differential ones.

Fysh

Metric Tensor wrote: »

SyncToy is the business - I use it all the time. It's simple and it works.

It's a nice tool, but it does have some issues where it can cause data corruption in some circumstances. At which point why not just use robocopy in a batch file using a scheduled task?

Metric Tensor

I've been using it for years! But I haven't directly checked every file for corruption - should I run some sort of check?

Is there specific circumstances where you have seen it cause corruption that I can look out for?

Edit: I use it for work backups so I might never open the files it copies but in 5 years time I might need to after a hard drive failure or some such! I use both cloud and local backups but both rely on synctoy!!

Fysh

Metric Tensor wrote: »

I've been using it for years! But I haven't directly checked every file for corruption - should I run some sort of check?

Is there specific circumstances where you have seen it cause corruption that I can look out for?

Edit: I use it for work backups so I might never open the files it copies but in 5 years time I might need to after a hard drive failure or some such! I use both cloud and local backups but both rely on synctoy!!

There were known issues with version 2 when used with a NAS (see this Netgear thread, for example). 2.1 is supposed to fix the issue but some people have still reported problems with it, and since Microsoft basically hasn't done anything with it since the release of 2.1 I would imagine it's functionally abandonware at this point.

Tbh, other than the gui I'm not aware of any reason to use it over robocopy, myself. And I say this as someone who used SyncToy to sync tools & files to my Swiss Army Pendrive in a previous job for years.

Metric Tensor

My cloud backup runs Synctoy from the Task Scheduler in Windows 10 so I'd say that should be replaceable relatively easily! I'll look into it!

It's so handy for the usb backup though!

Thanks.

Johnboy1951

Anyone use this? Is it available for later versions of Win?

http://www.aboutmyip.com/AboutMyXApp/DeltaCopy.jsp