I have a Windows desktop computer with a 500 GB SSD drive. I also have an external 10TB (I’m a photographer, so I have a LOT of images) where I store most of my data. I’m using Carbonite to back up my files from this external drive (and my hard drive) to the cloud.
However, I also want to keep a local backup copy as well. I recently purchased a 12TB Western Digital drive to use for this purpose. Ideally, I’d like to find a solution that does the following:
Allows for scheduling of full and incremental backups.
Copies the files as they are – not copying them to an image file. In short, I’m looking for a solution where, if my hard drive fails, I can just switch over to the new drive with no other major steps needed.
Free would be nice, but I’m willing to spend for the right program.
I no longer use a Windows PC but I had a great experience with Comodo - the main page is trying to hawk their cloud storage with a mere 10GB, but it will also save to a networked drive.
I don’t see that Comodo meets the second requirement, of storing the files as-is. I’ve recently started using IDrive, which meets the first and third requirements but not the second I think. Perhaps just install cygwin and set up a cron job to use rsync to back up the files? It’s kind of hacky but I think it might be hard to find a backup program that stores files as-is.
The best way I have found to do this is to set up a shared network drive. In my case, I use a NAS (8TB Synology, RAID 1), but you can also plug an external HDD into a USB port on some routers and do the same thing. The NAS/router resides in a different room of the house and is on a UPS.
I then use SyncToy (free MS program) to sync my drive and/or folders on my laptop to the network drive. It is a one-way “echo” sync and it is scheduled to happen every 12 hours. I use MS task scheduler to do this.
This works like a charm. For one thing, the software is completely free and very lightweight. It runs in the background if I’m doing some other task. It runs very quickly because it ONLY copies the new and changed files. It also means that I have instant access to a network drive/folder that has an exact copy of all my backed up files. SyncToy also allows you to exclude certain types of files.
More detail: I have two SSDs in my laptop (C: and D:) and all my work files reside on D: only. I use Macrium to make an image of the C: drive every night and write it to D: drive. About an hour later, and a second time around noon, SyncToy syncs my D: drive to the NAS. This means I have an image of my C: drive (OS and programs) available in my laptop at all times. I also have the complete contents of my D: drive on my NAS as a mapped network drive, but not in any image or compressed form. Works wonderfully.
Sorry. I forgot to mention that I exclude backing up the daily Macrium image file of my C: drive twice a day. I only back that up using a special scheduled SyncToy routine once a week.
I’ve had good results with SyncBack. I use the Free edition, though I’ve never tried the scheduling part. They offer two tiers of paid-for versions with even more options.
Thank you scudsucker! I don’t know if Comodo will meet my needs, but I’ll look into it.
Thanks, markn_1. I don’t know about IDrive, but I’ll check it out.
Thanks, ZonexandScout. I don’t have a NAS and I’m hoping to keep this as affordable as possible and not have to buy additional hardware. Will this work with just two plain old external HDDs?
Thank you, Heracles. I’ll take a look at SyncBack!
If your router can handle an external HDD, then you should be able to map it as a network drive. This allows you to make it a target for the back-up.
Why I do it the way I do it:
SyncToy is completely free, very lightweight, and doesn’t nag you to upgrade or subscribe. It just works.
Using a network drive as a target means you don’t have to worry about your laptop or PC getting damaged. It can catch on fire or be stolen for all you care.
The target drive has a completely browsable copy of your data and files. No compression, no special tools needed.
No need to hook up an external HDD for back-ups. I do mine through the wifi. Most days there’s only a few files to echo to the back-up drive. On busy days, I might have 50 or 60 GB, but it goes quickly.
Since you’re using MS Task Scheduler to run SyncToy, you can customize it as much as you want to without any other processes running in the background. If you want to run it every hour, no problem. Once a month? Same thing. SyncToy only runs when tasked to do so.
I use free Macrium to image my C: drive (OS and programs) to D: simply because the recovery seems to work better than many other utilities. Very fast and no errors. If C: is corrupted or infected, I can boot from my Macrium USB recovery device and just restore from the image on D:. (I had to do this when my M2 SATA SSD crapped out last year.) Macrium has its own scheduler and I use that.
I like the security of a RAID 1 NAS, but that’s a separate issue. Any mappable network drive works. You can do the same thing backing up from your laptop to an internal or external HDD located on a desktop.
I found that trying to maintain back-ups on an external drive that I had to keep connecting to my laptop was not going to be something I would do in a reliable manner. I’m just lazy and distracted.
TL;DR: Works perfectly for me, since I’m not dependable.
You still use SyncToy? I used it at one point, but it hasn’t been updated in more than a decade and I stopped using it at some point. I think I used Robocopy for a while but currently use FreeFileSync.
SyncToy works perfectly on Win10 and Win11. Why would anyone need an updated version? It’s just a sync tool. It’s extremely lightweight, fast, and I never get errors. I tried all kinds of back-up “solutions” and always came back to SyncToy. It does exactly what the OP wants…create and maintain an uncompressed copy of a drive or folder. No more…no less.
Robocopy is built into Windows and is a command-line utility that will sync all of your files to anyplace you can refer to. So your portable hard drive will be just fine. There are some scripts out there for parsing the robocopy output and sending an e-mail if it fails for whatever reason, or you can review the output log.
I like it because it’s simple, free, and very configurable. It can even be configured to monitor a folder and sync up after it detects X changes. Use “Task Scheduler” to schedule a run.
