External HD's and automatic synchronizing or backup

[Sean Dempsey]

Costco had the Maxtor 160gb drive for 160 bucks... quite a deal considering Staples wanted 180 bucks for the 120gb....

anyways, I like it alot, especially since my poor laptop only has a 30 gig drive. So I have all my work files, music, and software copied on the external.

I am wondering if there is any cheap or free software to make sure my external is sync'd with my PC. I am editing my "work" folder daily, and I'd like for the external to stay up to date, without manually copying it every day.

I didn't like the Retrospect software that came with the drive, I want something a little more precise. Anyone got some ideas? Even if it was something that I had to do manually, but I could make a list of folders I want to sync, or something. Basically anything that will make sure that somehow my external drive has the most current folders and their contents.

thanks group.

[Elysian]

Sean, I have run into this problem a few times in the past. See, I do a lot of Photography, but I also make a lot of digital art. One of the things that I wanted in a backup program is the ability to make archived copies.

I've visiting a lot of graphics forums until I stumbled over some post in which someone mentioned the program called SecondCopy 2000 ( http://www.centered.com/ )
What's so special about SecondCopy 2000 and what are my experiences?
Let me sum it up;

- Low price, only $29,95
- Stable; I use it for 2 years now and it never crashed. I use it myself to make copies of my files on my W2k Server. Copying files over the network has never caused me problems. Verify options are available, so you will always have exact copies. It also doesn't use a lot of resources, you even tend to forget the program is running in the background. I don't even run the program on my computer, it runs on the server, where it makes a connection to my files on my workstation once a day. That saves me some memory.
- The program only uses about 7 mb of memory
- You can make as many archived copies as you want. What are these archives? Let's say that you delete or modify a file. In that case SecondCopy will save this new file but only after it moved the original file to the archive folder and you decide what the maximum amount of archived copies is. You can also disable it.
- You can create profiles. Maybe you want a profile for making copies to a server, copies to your internet host, removable media, etc, all possible
- You can schedule you copies or backup manually. You can have the program running in the background all the time. Nice extra; you can't accidentally close the program by clicking on the little cross in top right corner of the program; it will minimize to the system bar (lower right corner where your clock is)
- You have different kind of backup methods;

simple copy
exact copy (That's what I prefer; my backup is always an exact reflection of my original files once the backup is finished. Even files that I delete on my workstation will be deleted (and archived if I have selected that option) on my server)
move
compress
exact compress
synchronize (handy when you work in two locations)

- You can save your settings and profiles on a floppy in case you want to reinstall your operating system
- Supports removable drives, UNC names, disk spanning, setup wizards, etc.
- You can save complete driver, or only selected folder or file names, you can even exclude folders or filenames.
- You can order SecondCopy2000 to run a program before or after the backup; I use it to verify that my backup has run according to schedule.

Sean, download the demo and try it out; you won't be disappointed ;)
I really think that this is one of these programs like Photoshop, Neatimage/Noise Ninja and FocalBlade/FocusMagic that every digital photographer needs to have and trust me, I've tried maybe 50 of these small backup programs, because I'm very picky, I only want the best. The program has won People Choice Award for Best Overall Utility for 2004, that's five years in a row now!

Another program that might be interesting is BackupOnDemand;

http://www.caddais.com/BackupOnDemand.shtml

$34,95

The difference between SecondCopy2000 and BackUpOnDemand is that BackupDemand is a real-time backup program; it means that it will make a backup of every new or modified file in real-time. Let's say you save a file in Photoshop or Office; BackupOnDemand will notice this and will automatically a backup at the same time, you don't have to do anything. It also makes use of archives, so the risk of losing a file is very small.
I've used it a few times and it's a very stable program, doesn't slow down your system (unless you save 100MB files of course) and is simple to use.

[Sean Dempsey]

SyncOnDemand wouldn't work for me. I had it doing my websites folder, which has about 10,000 files in it, but only 2gigs, and it would ERROR 5 on me. It's a partition, the W: drive, and it didn't seem to want to use a partition.

but that doesn't matter, because Second Copy 2000 is working like a dream. It's exactly what I wanted. I am buying it right now. The Sync option is just what I needed, since if I am on the laptop, I don't have local copies, so all changes are saved to the external, and when I get home, the external will then sync (and update) my main PC.. and I can work from the main PC without having to sync up by hand.

It makes me a little nervous letting the program handle my files and such... but if you say you've used it, I know you aren't rash or forgiving, so it must work well.

[Sean Dempsey]

JoeD

I tested SC2k out with my drive removed, and it just gave the error of a unreachable device, which is fine. But, do you know how the program will handle if my External drive is on a different drive letter for some reason? I've got a tone of drives... sometimes 17 (8 in 1 card reader... keychain usb drive... ipod... 2 opticals, 8 partitions on 3 hd's, the external...). So if my External is not on the "D" drive, I am assuming it will just error out, and I'll have to get it on the "D", or change my sync profiles?

More than likely I'll make sure it is always on the D drive, but in case of a mistake, I am curious.

[Elysian]

Yes Sean, SecondCopy doesn't know what D: is, only the operating system does. It will always try to copy to the device that is mounted as D: Any other backup program will do the same.

I don't now of any way to assign (and lock) drive letters to different removable drives, after all...when you unplug the device the letter is gone. I did some research earlier but couldn't find anything... yet. I'll search a bit more and maybe I can come up with some solution myself (nice challenge!).

But you have to be careful when you're going to use more than just one removable drive, because any backup program, whether it's SecondCopy2000 or whatever, will synchronize when ever it's being ordered to do so and if you connected the wrong drive you might be synchronizing the wrong data which could lead to data loss, keep that in mind!

It's important that you write down how you're going to backup everything the way it should be backed up. My experience with home and business backup procedures is; try to keep it simple or you're gonna burn your fingers one day.