I just bought a Seagate external drive and am wondering which method you recommend. Do you like to use the continuous backup software that is on the drive, or is it best to just disable that and use a backup software on the computer to just schedule weekly backups or whatever interval you choose? I think I will just be backing up my data partition anyways and not the Windows partition.
Backup method to external drive
- Thread starter dm76
- Start date
It depends on what you do as to what is best. What is good for someone else may not suit your work and apps.
It's not a good idea to immediately backup unless the software keeps old versions of files too. If you change a file and then realize the previous version was better, too late. I don't like things happening automatically. I like to think before overwriting. If I put a lot of effort into something I will manually initiate backup soon after. Someone who is less diligent may want to make backups more automatic.
It's not a good idea to immediately backup unless the software keeps old versions of files too. If you change a file and then realize the previous version was better, too late. I don't like things happening automatically. I like to think before overwriting. If I put a lot of effort into something I will manually initiate backup soon after. Someone who is less diligent may want to make backups more automatic.
S.T.A.R.S.
banned
I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU!
Anyway my advice is to NOT use the automatic backup at the specified time for the SAME reason which Nanobyte said!
jevery
Active Member
If you only need to backup certain files periodically you could write a little DOS batch program to automate the process. I only need to backup my library files, (pictures, documents, etc), and a few other files like favorites and contacts. All the rest of the data on my drives needs to be reloaded from disk or installation files for the program to work properly anyway.
Here's an example of the BAT file I wrote using notepad. Whenever I need to backup I plug in the external drive and click on a shortcut to the BAT file on the desktop.
@echo off
echo Backup important files to External Hard Drive G:
pause
rmdir g:\backup /s/q
robocopy "d:\computer files" "g:\Backup\Computer Files" /s
robocopy c:\users\john\contacts g:\Backup\Contacts /s
robocopy c:\users\john\favorites g:\Backup\Favorites /s
robocopy d:\users\john\documents g:\Backup\Documents /s
robocopy d:\users\john\pictures g:\Backup\Pictures /s
robocopy d:\zips g:\Backup\Zips /s
robocopy "d:\program files\winrar" g:\Backup\WinRaR /s
echo Backup Complete
pause
Here's an example of the BAT file I wrote using notepad. Whenever I need to backup I plug in the external drive and click on a shortcut to the BAT file on the desktop.
@echo off
echo Backup important files to External Hard Drive G:
pause
rmdir g:\backup /s/q
robocopy "d:\computer files" "g:\Backup\Computer Files" /s
robocopy c:\users\john\contacts g:\Backup\Contacts /s
robocopy c:\users\john\favorites g:\Backup\Favorites /s
robocopy d:\users\john\documents g:\Backup\Documents /s
robocopy d:\users\john\pictures g:\Backup\Pictures /s
robocopy d:\zips g:\Backup\Zips /s
robocopy "d:\program files\winrar" g:\Backup\WinRaR /s
echo Backup Complete
pause
S.T.A.R.S.
banned
Not bad for the BAT at all
Still if you really want something better,you need to OR buy the program for that OR make your own.I once made small program in the C# that actually backs up anything you want from the HDD to the USB HDD in the specified time written by the user every day around let's say 11:30 AM when the person was on the job,but left the computer ON of course.
Also you must be careful about one thing.What if WHILE the data that is being backed up is used by YOU?It is logical that it won't back up and the entire process terminates.So what I did here is that I simply would show a message to a user that says something like: "The data cannot be backed up right now because you are using/changing/deleting or adding some contents!After you finish with the modification,just click the small icon in the system tray and the backup process will start again.Or you can wait for the backup process to start again in the time you chose before so you do NOT need to do anything." Of course I also gave the user the option to NOT show this message at all and simply let the program to repeat the backup process again in the specified time (Hours,Minutes,Seconds) written by the user...
I also gave the option to do the same thing,but in the specified MONTH which also included Hours,Minutes and Seconds.It took me about 1 week to make this to work perfectly,but hey who cares lol.I earned 200 dollars for that crap lol.
Cheers!
Last edited:
Yeah that sounds like a good idea to not use the continuous backup. I used to use something like Acronis and just back it up once a week at like 3 AM when I knew I wouldnt be on it. Does the backup feature in Windows 7 work pretty well? Before I used to have it compress the files, but now my external drive is so big, I'd rather just leave them full size so I don't have to compress anything.