Automatic backup

Sean8 · Sep 29, 2010

I'm trying to setup automatic backup. In windows 7 I have it setup but it doesn't backup everything in that folder it backs up only stuff that was edited which causes confusion. Is there any easier way to automatically backup everything in a single folder to my external hd

newtekie1 · Sep 29, 2010

Forget using the automatic backup thing built into Windows, it sucks in my experience.

Instead use a Robocopy script and use task scheduler to automatically run it every night.

This is the script I use:

Code:

robocopy <source> <destination> /MIR /B /w:5 /r:5

Save that to a bat file, then tell task manager to run it every night. That will back up everything in the folder nightly.

Obviously the source is your source directory, and the destination is your destination directory.

If you want to back up multiple directory, you can just keep adding lines to the same bat file and they will all run when it is executed.

So if you wanted to backup your user documents to a folder called Bakcup on the external drive F:, then it would look like:

Code:

robocopy "C:\Users\username\My Documents" F:\Backup\ /MIR /B /w:5 /r:5

And remember, when you are using a path that contains a space, you need to put the quotes around the path, if the path doesn't contain a space then don't put quotes around it.

Sean8 · Sep 29, 2010

newtekie1 said:
Forget using the automatic backup thing built into Windows, it sucks in my experience.

Instead use a Robocopy script and use task scheduler to automatically run it every night.

This is the script I use:

Code:

robocopy <source> <destination> /MIR /B /w:5 /r:5

Save that to a bat file, then tell task manager to run it every night. That will back up everything in the folder nightly.

Obviously the source is your source directory, and the destination is your destination directory.

If you want to back up multiple directory, you can just keep adding lines to the same bat file and they will all run when it is executed.

So if you wanted to backup your user documents to a folder called Bakcup on the external drive F:, then it would look like:

Code:

robocopy "C:\Users\username\My Documents" F:\Backup\ /MIR /B /w:5 /r:5

And remember, when you are using a path that contains a space, you need to put the quotes around the path, if the path doesn't contain a space then don't put quotes around it.

Hey thanks it works, but I had to run it as administrator. Will it backup with task scheduler? Or will the administrator have a problem.

newtekie1 · Sep 29, 2010

I believe you have to tell task scheduler to "run with highest privileges".

It is a check box on the General Tab when you create a task, don't create a basic task, create a normal task.

Sean8 · Sep 29, 2010

newtekie1 said:
I believe you have to tell task scheduler to "run with highest privileges".

It is a check box on the General Tab when you create a task, don't create a basic task, create a normal task.

OOPs was using the other task scheduler got it all working now awesome

{JNT}Raptor · Sep 29, 2010

So tick the thanks button and give the man some credit...nice post newtekie1.

Exile_Chavez · Oct 1, 2010

if it wasnt an external secondary drive, i would say setup a raid 1 on it, it backs up your entire drive and gives you nearly double read speed. now if there was a way to setup a raid without reading from the external, and only writing to it, that would be quite benifical in terms of backup

angelkiller · Oct 1, 2010

Exile_Chavez said:
if it wasnt an external secondary drive, i would say setup a raid 1 on it, it backs up your entire drive and gives you nearly double read speed. now if there was a way to setup a raid without reading from the external, and only writing to it, that would be quite benifical in terms of backup

RAID is NOT backup!

Raid protects against hardware failures only. If you delete something you weren't supposed to on a Raid 1 array, it's gone. You can't go back and get it from the 'backup'.

capalbo · Oct 1, 2010

RAID as a backup??? Your OS corrupts and you're still still fckd up!!!

Sean89 - you could consider Microsofy SyncToy (free).

Backup is a 2-pronged approach.

There is system backup / imaging that protects you against hardware failure or OS corruption. The Win 7 inbuilt backup is quite good at that. There are other products (more featured) such as Acronis - obviously not free.

However just a system backup is not enough. It's best to also have a file backup that will protect your user files (files you generate ex. documents) from deletion, overwriting, sudden corruption (MS excel anyone??) etc.

I use the Win 7 inbuilt backup for system state and Altaro Oops!Backup for file backup. Both products saved my ass a few times but it was the Oops!Backup product that i'm most thankful for!!! I work a lot with docs, photoshop, dreamweaver files etc and since I modify these files on a daily basis I always want to have the latest version of the files backed up - Altaro Oops!Backup Continuous Data Protection does that for me.

Acronis - http://www.acronis.com
Altaro Oops!Backup - http://www.altaro.com

newtekie1 · Oct 1, 2010

Exile_Chavez said:
if it wasnt an external secondary drive, i would say setup a raid 1 on it, it backs up your entire drive and gives you nearly double read speed. now if there was a way to setup a raid without reading from the external, and only writing to it, that would be quite benifical in terms of backup

RAID is not a good substitute for a backup, as the others have mentioned. However, for home users RAID is certainly better than nothing, and if I was to recommend one solution for a home user it would be a RAID configuration. The reason being that most home users that come into my shop are usually dealing with a bad hard drive, I very rarely get home users coming into my shop complaining of data corruption or accidentally deleting a file. Not to mention most home users usually back up their data once, when they first buy the back up drive, then never do it again. They just don't think backing up their data is that important, until they loose it all from a failed hard drive...

I personally have a 3TB RAID5 array in my main system that is backed up once a day to a 3TB RAID0 array in another machine. I know some will probably say "backing up to RAID0 is stupid", but not really. The only issue with RAID0 is that the chances of data lose due to hardware failure is higher, but the RAID5 array already takes care of the hardware failure issue. The RAID0 array is there entirely for the "Oops I deleted 1.5GB worth of movies on accident!" moments, and yes I have done that and yes the backup did its job.

System Name	Build 1
Processor	i5 2500k
Motherboard	Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Cooling	Cooler Master 212
Memory	Corsair DDR3 1600
Video Card(s)	onboard
Power Supply	Corsair AX750
Software	Windows 7 Professional

Processor	Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard	AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling	Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory	32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s)	RTX 2070 Super
Storage	500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s)	Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case	Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s)	Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply	eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
Software	Windows 10 Pro x64

System Name	Build 1
Processor	i5 2500k
Motherboard	Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Cooling	Cooler Master 212
Memory	Corsair DDR3 1600
Video Card(s)	onboard
Power Supply	Corsair AX750
Software	Windows 7 Professional

Processor	Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard	AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling	Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory	32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s)	RTX 2070 Super
Storage	500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s)	Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case	Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s)	Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply	eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
Software	Windows 10 Pro x64

System Name	Build 1
Processor	i5 2500k
Motherboard	Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Cooling	Cooler Master 212
Memory	Corsair DDR3 1600
Video Card(s)	onboard
Power Supply	Corsair AX750
Software	Windows 7 Professional

Automatic backup

Sean8

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

Sean8

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

Sean8

{JNT}Raptor

New Member

Exile_Chavez

New Member

angelkiller

capalbo

New Member

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

System Name	Ummmm...Mine
Processor	I7 920 @ 4.2ghz @ 1.29v's load
Motherboard	ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
Cooling	Custom 1/2 inch H20
Memory	3x2gb Patriot Sector 7 @2008Mhz 27-9-11-9 1T
Video Card(s)	EVGA GTX 580 SC 900/1800/1090
Storage	1-Mushkin 60gb SSD 1-500GB WD Black and 2-1TB 32mb WD Black
Display(s)	25 inch Hanns-G 2ms
Case	Custom
Audio Device(s)	Turtle Beach Catalina
Power Supply	Corsair AX850 Pro Series-Modular
Software	All Kinds...and then some.
Benchmark Scores	3dMark 11 P7066 Compare Link- http://3dmark.com/3dm11/251153

System Name	Build 1
Processor	AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2ghz
Motherboard	MSI 770-C45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
Cooling	Xigmatek Dark Knight, 3 120mm Intakes, 1 200mm Exchaust, 2 140mm Exchausts
Memory	OCZ Gold 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 1333mhz
Video Card(s)	XFX HD-577A-ZNDC Radeon HD 5770 XXX Edition 1GB 128-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP
Storage	WD Blue 640GB 7200 RPM
Display(s)	ACER 23" Full HD HDMI Widescreen Monitor
Case	NZXT Phantom Black
Audio Device(s)	None
Power Supply	OCZ StealthXStream 700W ATX12V/EPS12V SLI Ready Crossfire Ready
Software	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit