Hi all,

 

Does anyone know of any backup software that will backup all the individual files (Windows 7) to USB hard drive rather than create a custom proprietary image with all the files within?

 

Have tried a few but not found anything yet.

 

Thanks

Synctoy?

A (really) fast USB3 stick would come in handy though.

Synctoy?

A (really) fast USB3 stick would come in handy though.

Thank you, I'll check it out. I have a USB3 drive just having issues with software

I use Crashplan.

 

There are several options available - one allows you to backup files to a local drive (which I do and is free to use, as is backing up to a friends PC). The only option you pay for with Crashplan is for the cloud backup.

At work we've had good results from SyncBack - http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/syncback-hub.html - where we need to keep certain files in sync. No special tools needed to recover them, and no need to worry about software versions.

Another vote for SyncToy for local backup to removable media.

 

Also depending on the amount and/or personal sensitivity of the data, you could consider making use of services like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive or MS OneDrive. With added benefit that you could access the data from other machines.

I use Paragon software some are free versions others are paid but the software backs up everything including the operating system.

Hi all,

 

Does anyone know of any backup software that will backup all the individual files (Windows 7) to USB hard drive rather than create a custom proprietary image with all the files within?

 

Have tried a few but not found anything yet.

 

Thanks

Windows Explorer if you have the files organised by folder etc., or build a .BAT file for the folders and execute it whenever you find it necessary.

 

Something like this which copies a folder on the G: drive called DADS_DATA, to a backup folder on another machine. Complete with a couple of checks! Created with Notepad, zero cost. runs under W7

 

@ECHO OFF

CLS

COLOR cF

ECHO MAKING VERIFIED BACKUP COPIES OF DADS DATA (INC MOZILLA MAIL) TO THE MAXSTOR DRIVE

Date /T

Time /T

rem

ECHO COPYING RELEVANT FOLDERS FROM G:

xcopy G:\dads_data\*.* \\HPG5460\MXLapTopBackups-General\dads_data\*.* /E/C/R/K/Q/H/Y/D/V

ECHO Return = %ERRORLEVEL%

If %ERRORLEVEL% GEQ 1 GOTO NOTOK

GOTO ALLDONE

rem

:NOTOK

ECHO ****BACKUP FAILED****

ECHO ****CHECK NETWORK CONNECTION AND HPG5460 STATUS BEFORE RE-TRYING *******

Pause

GOTO ENDIT

rem

:ALLDONE

COLOR 2F

ECHO FINISHED COPYING @

Date /T

Time /T

Pause

rem

:ENDIT

ECHO BYE BYE!

Edited 18 May, 201511 yr by RMurphy195

I would recommend using FREENAS if you have a spare machine to run it on.

Karen's Replicator  - basically a free front end scheduled copier.  I think it's still available (as the author died several years ago)  and hasn't been updated but is a simple scheduled file / replication programme. It has a low overhead and doesn't have any bloatware. I use it to copy new video files from my Humax Freesat box to the NAS, scheduled to run every morning.

 

If you want to use a . BAT file I'd suggest to use ROBOCOPY command instead of xcopy as it much better.

If the data is important make sure you have more than one copy of the backup data, with one of the copies being kept in a different location. If for example you have a house fire, burglary etc. you could lose your computer and your only backup otherwise. Just refresh the offsite backup periodically, at least you don't lose everything, perhaps a week or so worth of changes.

 

For Windows 7/8.1 I just use the inbuilt software, you can use that to recover from without even needing to install windows again, you can also restore individual files if needed. OK the file format is proprietary but differential backups generally are, and I can restore any file to any point in time between today and October 2014 currently.

 

The problem with Xcopy/Robocopy etc. is that they will overwrite the historic files with newer versions, so you only every have a backup of the current file. No point in discovering a file is corrupt and then finding out its also corrupt on the backup and that's all you have.

The one issue I have with the Windows File history is the size of the backup - I have it set up to back up my C drive and it is currently at 750+GB despite my C drive being 330(ish) GB.

 

Will have to prune it.