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Backup Software


aurelio
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I'm in the process of changing my current backup software (I have a very old version of KLS Backup), I wonder if you guys have any tips:

 

- I have just a few machines to backup

- I mostly have a few, but very specialized backup jobs on each machine (I don't really need system-wide-all-inclusive backups or drive images on this software)

- I need a good Scheduling capabilities in it.

- I don't really need a lot of networking options or capabilities on the software, but I'll take it as a bonus.

- I prefer for the software to have a small footprint, do not take too much resources on the machine to run (some machines are very old and have limited memory available).

- having the capacity to be portable and to backup to different on-line sources are a sure bonus.

 

Any tips and indications of what is the current backup software you're currently using and why would be mostly appreciated. Thanks! :)

 

PS: I don't know if this is relevant here, and if it is not, I apologize and will delete the topic later.

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If you need internet-enabled backups, check out Goodsync ($). If you don't, use Robocopy (free/part of windows or the windows resource toolkit).

I'm really liking the specs of GoodSync2Go, although it's a little bit over my budget (originally R$50 ~ US$27). Do you use it personally? Is it worth paying US$10 more for the "2Go" option?
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If you need internet-enabled backups, check out Goodsync ($). If you don't, use Robocopy (free/part of windows or the windows resource toolkit).
Here's one more proof that I'm a newbie... I couldn't find "Robocopy"... Where can I download it to test it here?
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You don't really "need" the 2go option. And if everything is mappable thru a single device (as drive letters), then backups can be completely automated with it to whenever contents change in watched folders from that primary system. Very nifty stuff. I have used it in the past, primarily because it was easy to manage and once setup was essentially always on.

 

I don't use it anymore, primarily because I needed versioning for backups (which it doesn't natively support). Neither does Robocopy, directly...but there are ways. ;)

 

In robocopy (which you can run in any command prompt for Vista, 7 or 8, or you can download this resource kit from MS for other Windows versions) you can tune the command line to effectively create versioned backups - and it has native automation and scheduling, so once setup you're pretty much done. For some of my clients I use this for daily backups of important data to a versioned backup tree (7 or 31 folders, one for each day of the week or month). It monitors important directories and creates backups on a schedule to the named day backup folder. Nifty stuff.

 

For myself, I use it in many ways, primarily as part of Ketarin and my web server management.

 

For Ketarin I use the following style of command to push my Ketarin directory to a network backup which is used (in similar fashion) to push the installers to my USB drives:

robocopy "." "w:\usb-key" /MIR /BYTES /ETA

This is scripted in the 'after updates' command for Ketarin.

 

I manage a lot of servers, and use robocopy for versioned backups for my Windows-based servers, and RSync for my other servers. I've looked at hosted version-capable backup systems such as Mozy and SOS Backup, but the resource usage on most of them is astronomical, and the last thing you need when the server is already under load from users making active changes (especially if they're making 2-character changes to a file a dozen times a minute - and yes, that's very common) is to have a service in the background actively backing up every single version of it and causing access errors for the user. Sigh.

 

There are several versions of RSync for Windows, too, but I have yet to find one that's as stable as the 'nix version, which is primarily why I use robocopy on Windows instead.

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I guess I should warn you, too, to be VERY CAREFUL with Robocopy and the "/MIR" option. This does not simply copy files, but erases anything in the destination folder that is not in the source folder. It can be absolutely devastating if used improperly (such as "robocopy . c:\windows /mir").

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you Shawn and Tomorrow, for taking interest and for all the great tips on this subject, I'm currently testing 5 different applications (including GoodSync, which I'm really liking) to see which one suits better my needs. It will be a while more before I can really decide. I'll post my impressions here once I'm done. ;)

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  • 1 month later...

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