Backing up only new files added to the same folder structure?

Question

I have a large portion of my hard drive - several hundred GB - dedicated to storing image files (photographs) and I have developed a folder/file structure that is based on location of photograph rather than by date.

I back up my hard drive onto external media every few months, but the combined file size is starting to get so large that it is time consuming deleting the previous archived back up and copy the whole thing over.

Also, I need to be able to delete some files from my laptop hard drive folder structure, but retain them in the back up. So deleting the archive and then copying the hard drive over again will cause these files to be lost.

Essentially I want to have a mirror of my folder structure on my external archive, and only copy over any new files that have been added to the folder structure on my laptop since the last backup. I cannot do this on a file by file basis - there are too many to remember which are new.

Is there any automated way to somehow sync the folder structure on my laptop with the same structure on different hard drive, but only adding files and not deleting?

Thanks
Tom

Answer 1

There is a free program that may help... it is called Macrium Reflect. I am not sure of the incremental part (if that is included in the free version), but I have used this and I know that it is EXTREMELY quick for backups, and I believe it can be set to just certain folders.



Anyway it is well worth checking out, and as I said there is a free version.

Answer 2

What you're talking about is called an incremental backup. Lots of programs can do this including the backup program provided with Windows - http://www.argentuma.com/backup/software/windows-backup.html



I prefer a command line utility also provided in Windows Vista and 7 called Robocopy - http://ss64.com/nt/robocopy.html and http://www.computerhope.com/robocopy.htm



If you're using XP then you need to download the Resource Kit from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17657 If you don't want the rest of the Resource Kit then install it, copy robocopy.exe from System32 then uninstall the entire kit.



you can run robocopy from the command line but it's easier from a batch file. Choose the options you want and write the command to a plain text file. Save the file with a .bat extension. You can set a time to run the batch file using Task Scheduler - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Schedule-a-task - or by simply running the batch file whenever you want.



Here's the batch file I use for my backups...



robocopy c:\Users\brisray e:\brisray /e /XA:STH /r:0 /XF *.bak *.bkp *.tmp /XD temp* appdata /LOG:"c:\users\brisray\backup.log"



Here's what it does...



robocopy - the name of the program to run

c:\Users\brisray - the directory it's going to copy

e:\brisray - the directory it's going to copy to

/e - copy all subdirectories

/XA:STH - do not copy hidden, temporary or system files

/r:0 - do not keep retrying if a copy fails

/XF *.bak *.bkp *.tmp - do not backup files with the extension bak, bkp or tmp

/XD temp* appdata - do not backup files from the temp or appdata folders

/LOG - create a log file showing what was copied, what was not and show what is already in the backup



It looks complicated but it really isn't. The first time this is run it may take a while because it has a lot of work to do. After that it is blindingly fast - much faster than most other backup programs.



EDIT: There is another good reason to use robocopy over some backup programs. Some backup programs fail when they have to copy directory structures more than 256 characters long - this is a problem with the Windows API (application programming interface). Because robocopy uses the old DOS API it can handle directory structures up to 62,000 characters long. This is why it is often used to backup servers.

Answer 3

Depending on what utility you employ, most have a 'type' of backup called 'incremental'.

This saves modifications to old files, and new additions, but not 're-doing' files already backed up.

Look into your utility for details & steps.