I have an unused memory card slot on my laptop (running Windows Vista), so it would be nice to keep a card in there and use it for backup. But I don’t need to (and don’t have the space to) back up the entire Documents folder; just backing up newer files would be sufficient. Is there an easy way to automatically back up files updated in the last N days? Preferably preserving the directory structure? I don’t think conventional backup software work for this application - differential backup usually isn’t an option when the original full backup isn’t accessible.
I highly recommend against backing up to a device kept with the PC-- you lose/dropkick/set fire to the PC, and there go your backups as well as the device. Sit yourself down periodically and play lots of solitaire while backing up to a CD or DVD (remember to store DVD per mfr recommendations-- they are more finicky than CDs).
That having been said, my guess is that backup software that backs up to a ZIP archive, rather than a proprietary format, would answer your need (I used Handy Backup. They did not mention Vista, but I fired up my copy and it ran). You’d want to perform an incremental backup-- that is, a collection of those files changed since the last backup). Unfortunately, I do not know whether you can perform a full back up to one device, such as an external hard drive, and then a differential to another.
Do you have that many files? I have 60+ GB worth of data files, but I’ve got data going back to the 1980’s. If you do not have that much, just back up your entire Documents folder to a large SD or CF chip, or buy a cheap 2GB drive ($13 at Micro Center if you happen to be near one) occasionally. I saw 8GB USB’s for $30 at Staples last week, if you want to get spendy.
I guess I should have explained that I periodically synchronize my Document folder with my home desktop (which has a RAID-1 array and an external hard drive for backup), and also make backups to the external hard drive at the office. The memory card would just be an additional layer of defense, to recover the past few days’ worth of work in case of a hard drive crash. And I’m only considering it because I have a spare SD card I have no other use for.
I haven’t used those in a while, but my recollection is that with backup software that use removable media, when you try to make an incremental backup, it asks to see the first disk of the original full backup. Do you know if this isn’t the case?
The Documents folder on my laptop is 25 GB. Most of it is old files that don’t get updated, but new files can be in one of a dozen sub-folders, so I can’t just pick one or two major sub-folder to back up.
(Actually, this already is the result of picking folders that I need regular access to. My desktop has well over 100 GB of data, though most of it is MP3’s and digital photos.)
You could write a VBScript (filename.vbs) that takes files modified since a date/time or a timeframe (“yesterday”) and moves them to your SD card, and manually run that script every time you pop the SD card in.
You can get USB drives that will fit in a jacket pocket.
OTOH if your laptop has a CD or DVD burner, you could use that.
You might look at some of the options for the DOS command “xcopy”. For example, the following copies files that have the archive attribute set, and then clears the attribute:
xcopy "c:\documents and settings\Joe User\My Documents" F: /m
The archive attribute will be set again whenever an application modifies the file. This strategy ensures that you are only copying files modified since the last xcopy /m command.
The first time will probably copy all files, so you might want to do that to a destination other than the memory card.
xcopy also has a date option:
/D:m-d-y Copies files changed on or after the specified date.
If no date is given, copies only those files whose
source time is newer than the destination time.
I’ve seen lots of funky DOS tricks, and there’s probably one that can get this to be a relative date. To see xcopy options type xcopy /? at the DOS prompt.
Microsoft has a utility made just for this:
SyncToy
It’s half way between some tedious manual copy process and a slick totally automated backup solution.
They intended it originally for people who are moving digital photos back and forth between CF cards and their hard drive. These days, most people use it as a lightweight tool for managing their backups.
You simply define folder pairs and the rules to be followed for each pair (e.g. “A overwrites B only if B is older”). Once you have done this, you tell SyncToy to process all folders and it does.
I use this for my weekly (or biweekly) backups from my Linux-based network drives to an external drive. I just go into Windows, plug in the drive, run SyncToy, and tell it to process all folders. It does the rest.