File syncronising software

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GerryD

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Gerald Davies
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Ok, I've gone and purchased a 2nd hard disk drive, to backup all my photos. I've copied all the images to the new hard disk and want some software to allow me to copy changed/new files only to the 2nd hard disk.

Does anyone know of any software that can do this?
 
Slapo said:
Check this out if you use Windows:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/XCopyConsideredHarmfulRobocopyOrXXCopyOrSyncBack.aspx
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Thanks slapo, batch file written, easy to use, and quick :)

Chillimonster said:
Microsoft SyncToy 2.0

http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/...36-98E0-4EE9-A7C5-98D0592D8C52&displaylang=en
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A little bit simplistic in my opinion Chillimonster, but it does what it says on the tin. :thumbs:

neil_g said:
allway sync
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Looks like a very good package, Neil_g. had a little play, but managed to confuse myself :bonk: Looks very capable :).

1st impressions. I'm liking the robocopy function because I can create a batch file to copy multiple folders, i.e. pics on one removable disk to another, lightroom data and documents files on c drive to the backup disk in one command. For each of the windows based programs you have to syncronise one folder at a time.

It needs a little technical knowledge to get going, but once setup it may be the way forward. I also feel this may be the fastests as it runs through dos, so will have less system overheads.

Thanks to the 3 of you for your suggestions :thumbs: I'll let you know how I get on, as I need to do a little more testing.
 
Chillimonster said:
Yeah its simplistic, but that also means less to go wrong (IMO of course :) )
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Totally agree with you Chillimonster. After testing it it is simple to setup and easy to use :D
 
neil_g said:
fairly self explainitory, but if you try it out and get stuck just shout
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Thanks Neil. I think I confused myself, which doesn't take much:shrug:, as it looks like you can have one source folder and 2 destination folders or vise versa.
 
Been thinking about this a little bit more.

Do I really just want to copy the files over? What happens in the future when the disk is full and I need to go back and remove some files, that I deleted a few months previously on my work disk. Looking through 500gb of images is not going to fun.

I think using the synchronization software from Microsoft might have its advantages, although it will be slower and I have to put more time into running the program, but it means the backup disk is not full of discarded images. Saving me time and space in the future.

I seem to have done an about turn on this, but I think it makes sense. I'm still going to keep robocopy, as it definitely is a useful program.
 
taxi said:
Been thinking about this a little bit more.

Do I really just want to copy the files over? What happens in the future when the disk is full and I need to go back and remove some files, that I deleted a few months previously on my work disk. Looking through 500gb of images is not going to fun.

I think using the synchronization software from Microsoft might have its advantages, although it will be slower and I have to put more time into running the program, but it means the backup disk is not full of discarded images. Saving me time and space in the future.

I seem to have done an about turn on this, but I think it makes sense. I'm still going to keep robocopy, as it definitely is a useful program.
Click to expand...

FWIW I keep a copy of all the images I've imported into Lightroom, even the ones I've then deleted. A backup isn't just a backup against hardware failing, it is a backup against human error too...
 
geoffd70 said:
I've used ChronoSync for quite a long time and find it works well.

http://www.econtechnologies.com/pages/cs/chrono_overview.html
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Thanks Geoffd70, looks like a nice bit of software, but I was looking for something for nothing. :thumbs:

dapprman said:
rsync
:coat: :exit:
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Judging by quick exit above dapperman, I don't think I'll even look at this. Thanks for the suggestion

Craikeybaby said:
FWIW I keep a copy of all the images I've imported into Lightroom, even the ones I've then deleted. A backup isn't just a backup against hardware failing, it is a backup against human error too...
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Very good point Craikeybaby. :thumbs::thumbs:

Played with MS Synctoy last night and I gave up after 8 hours of it synchronizing my files. I let it run over night and had not got half way through my files. Thats far to slow. I'm assuming it needs to make a catalogue of the files first. Can anyone confirm this?
 
if you make a first time back up of your files it's going to be as slow as copying all your files to another location...synctoy is as about as reliable as it comes
 
Chillimonster said:
The first time is always going to be S-L-O-W, but the subsequent backups are lightning fast.
Click to expand...

walls said:
if you make a first time back up of your files it's going to be as slow as copying all your files to another location...synctoy is as about as reliable as it comes
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I was expecting it to take its time, but 10hrs is a little excessive, since the files have already been moved to the back drive already. :shake:

I'll give it another go later, as I'm out for most of the day
 
taxi said:
Judging by quick exit above dapprman, I don't think I'll even look at this. Thanks for the suggestion
Click to expand...
rsync is at the core of at least one of the above packages. It's very good, free (it's on the GNU open source license), but is command line only.
 
taxi said:
I was expecting it to take its time, but 10hrs is a little excessive, since the files have already been moved to the back drive already. :shake:

I'll give it another go later, as I'm out for most of the day
Click to expand...

I always started with an empty drive as backup - that may be whats cauing the slowness :shrug:
 
Slow lan speed could be down to over zealous antivirus scanning all the traffic?

I use synctoy to backup over my lan. It does take a while checking what it has to copy from my near 400Gb of picture folders but the actual copying is at the speed of the network. I've just added 5Gb of holiday pictures to my photos drive so I'm running it now.

I have it set to 'echo' so it will not be checking the remote drive for files now deleted off the PC's photos drive.

'looking for changes' took just under 20 minutes and now after 30 minutes it is half way through copying the new files it found.
 
dapprman said:
rsync is at the core of at least one of the above packages. It's very good, free (it's on the GNU open source license), but is command line only.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying its a bad piece of software, its just the image that was portrayed. I'm either going to stay with robocopy or ms synctoy now. Both have their pluses and minuses, but between them they will do the job.

Chillimonster said:
I always started with an empty drive as backup - that may be whats cauing the slowness :shrug:
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You may well be right chillimonster. But as it took 4 hrs for robocopy to move them, about 130gb of data, I'm not moving them again. I'm going to leave it until its finished this time.

paddyfrog said:
I have been using Cobian for years, never had the slightest problem with it and it is free
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/cobbackup.html
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Sounds an interesting piece of software.Thanks paddyfrog

RobertP said:
Slow lan speed could be down to over zealous antivirus scanning all the traffic?

I use synctoy to backup over my lan. It does take a while checking what it has to copy from my near 400Gb of picture folders but the actual copying is at the speed of the network. I've just added 5Gb of holiday pictures to my photos drive so I'm running it now.

I have it set to 'echo' so it will not be checking the remote drive for files now deleted off the PC's photos drive.

'looking for changes' took just under 20 minutes and now after 30 minutes it is half way through copying the new files it found.
Click to expand...

Its over a usb connection, via a hub. I've changed it now so that they are both connected directly to my laptop. Which has made a difference. Def running faster. :) I've not thought of disabling my antivirus. I might try that later, once disconnected from the web.

I've also gone for the echo option, as this also seems to meet me needs the best Robert.

Looking for the changes was very quick for me, but its the actual file copying that seem to be slow, but I fear this is down to the usb connection, and there's not a lot I can do about that. Looks like I'm going to have to be patient then. :'(
 
Here's a variation on a batchfile posted a few weeks ago. Copy&paste into a textfile and save as backup.bat (edit the directory locations and rename the file for your own purposes).

@echo off
echo %date% - %time% > J:\xcopy.log
xcopy "D:\Photos\*.*" J:\backup\ /c /s /r /d /y /i >> J:\xcopy.log
 
photon said:
Here's a variation on a batchfile posted a few weeks ago. Copy&paste into a textfile and save as backup.bat (edit the directory locations and rename the file for your own purposes).

@echo off
echo %date% - %time% > J:\xcopy.log
xcopy "D:\Photos\*.*" J:\backup\ /c /s /r /d /y /i >> J:\xcopy.log
Click to expand...

Thanks photon. I've done something very similar with robocopy. :thumbs:
 
I let synctoy run yesterday for 7 hours approx. to complete the copy and synchronize. I'll test it again after my next shoot to see what the performance is like.
 
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