Backup/sync'g software recommendation for an external backup drive

[Bob98SR5]

jason,

im gonna give this brightsoft first. if not satisfied, i'll try synctoy. thanks for the rec.

otherwise, how have you been? are you still in the reserves?

[neliconcept]

hmm curious about this as well, I have a blackx from thermaltake, its a hot swappable drive bay for 3.5" and I have about 7 500gb drives, i back up two per system so I have two in two different locations along with the files on the computer and inside the other externals I have.

but its such a freaking long time to backup and copy over what is already there.

[L33T35T Tacoma]

I have only 4 months left!!

As for SyncToy, its really simple. Basically you create a Left and Right folder. You can do 1 of 3 things with said Left and Right folders.

Synchronize- If you have all your documents on your computer (Left), and say you have a laptop or personal hard drive that you work off also (Right). Once the two are hooked together, you can Synchronize and if you updated, added, deleted, renamed or moved any files anywhere within the Left and Right folders, it will reflect on the other side, no matter which side was changed. You can think of this as having 2 "Master" folders and no slave folder

Echo - Changes made on Left folder will reflect in right folder, but changes to right folder will not effect the Left folder. Any files deleted on the left will be removed from the Right. This is pretty much a Master and Slave system, where you would never work on files on the backup hard drive.

Contribute - Files changed on Left will be updated to Right, but if something is deleted on Left, it will not delete on Right.

How I use it:
I have my "My Documents" folder as my left folder and on my 1 TB ext hard drive, I have a "My Documents" folder as my Right Folder. I have it on synchronize, so I can take the hard drive anywhere, do anything with the files, and next time I sync, everything will be changed on my laptop.

It works beautifully.

NOTE, I am using Windows XP. YMMV. In order for this to be seamless, I have Outlook Express store my email in an Email folder within My Documents. This can be changed through the Tools>Options>Maintenance Tab>Store folder. Note where the CURRENT store folder is. You will need to find this in order to retrieve it later. Make a BACKUP of it NOW. If this is done incorrectly, you can lose all your emails. I recommend making a new EMPTY store folder where you want it, change the store folder, and reopening outlook to a blank email box. Now close outlook and copy your email files (Inbox.dbx, Outbox.dbx, folders.avx, etc) over from your old store folder. Should work well.

Also, with TweakUI, another Powertoy for XP, you can change your Internet Explorer Favorites folder to be within your My Documents folder. Make sure IE is closed, and make a copy of your My Favorites folder in your My Documents folder. Using TweakUI, go to My Computer>Special Drives. Select the My Favorites option and change the folder to the new one within your "My Documents" folder. This makes a reformat seamless also. Just copy the whole My Documents folder and go.

Wow this was a lot more info than I had planned for, lol

[DHC6twinotter]

That's some good info. I've been wondering about this as well.

[slosurfer]

Bob, any updates on this? We're probably ordering one of the hard drives today.

[L33T35T Tacoma]

I thought this thread looked familiar, then I saw my replies

I use SyncToy almost every day now. There is a way you can run it as a command line and schedule it, so it'll run every night at say 3 in the morning.

[Bob98SR5]

chris,

synctoys rocks. its idiot proof and im an idiot

[slosurfer]

Thanks! I was actually talking about the harddrive you got, but I'm guessing that it's working good if your synctoys is working good.