Recommended Windows 10 automatic file archiver/backup?
- Thread starter bopeeptech
- Start date
PaulieDC
Too much gear, not enough composing. Oy vey.
Create a Library in Windows Explorer, the add the main folder where your music files are (or whatever you are saving), then hook up an external drive and turn on File History. It’ll auto-backup every changed file including versions. Get a big external drive, 2 Tb or more, they’re cheap now. Btw, File History automatically saves every file in your User Folder such as Desktop, Favorites, Documents, Photos, Music, etc.
Mornats
Hobbyist
I do this onto a NAS and it works really well. One time I saved a crappy version of my project over the top of the good version and file history got it back for me.
Vonk
Active Member
Casper - faultless system drive and data drive scheduled backups. I run a dual boot facility that gives an instant availability to carry on if there are problems with my main drive. I detest the unreliability caused by Windows updates and the problems it causes.
https://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/
https://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/
vitocorleone123
Senior Member
I use Arq to backup project files to Google cloud and Macrium Reflect Pro to backup on a complex schedule to each of my NAS and once a month back up to an external drive. Crap happens. Doesn’t mean you have to lose data (just some time).
Nico Schuele
Tolerated Member
I use Cobian backup. It's not only free, it is really flexible regarding schedules and locations you want to backup.
LinusW
Senior Member
Jottacloud or Backblaze for cloud backup. Time Machine for Mac backup to local NAS. Veeam for Windows or Linux backup to local NAS.
Fredeke
Senior Member
I don't know if this is automatic enough for you: Roadkill Unstoppable Copier.
It's basically a batch file copy tool, but you answer in advance every question it might have while copying (how to deal with unreadable files, how to deal with duplicates, etc, etc.) and then when it starts it will stop at nothing (except if you stop it, of course) - no prompt, no warning, no error message, just copying eveything until it's done.
What's interesting is that you can set it so that when encountering a duplicate (a file in the destination with the same name as the one you'd like to copy there) it only overwrites it if it is older. Otherwise it skips it.
In effect, that's a backup tool: copy the folder tree (possibly a whole drive) to your backup drive, and it will only replace the files that need to be updated in the backup. And since a file will only appear to be newer if it was properly modified (by you, presumably), files that got corrupted because of a filesystem bug won't get copied over their sound backup.
The limitation of this is that you don't have an actual journal of file modifications. You always have a backup of only the latest disk state you backed up. Which is good enough for me, since I always keep several backups anyway.
Anyway, that's what I use for data backup. It's limited, but since my backups are mere copies, I don't depend on specific software to retrieve them (you know, the kind of software which might not work some day in the future for some compatibility- or license-related reason)
Ah, and it's free.
For system backups now, I find CloneZilla very efficient. It comes in the form of a bootable CD. It's free too, and open source, which means we can hope for continued free support in the future. (You could use it for data backup too, but it wouldn't be efficient disk space wise)
It's basically a batch file copy tool, but you answer in advance every question it might have while copying (how to deal with unreadable files, how to deal with duplicates, etc, etc.) and then when it starts it will stop at nothing (except if you stop it, of course) - no prompt, no warning, no error message, just copying eveything until it's done.
What's interesting is that you can set it so that when encountering a duplicate (a file in the destination with the same name as the one you'd like to copy there) it only overwrites it if it is older. Otherwise it skips it.
In effect, that's a backup tool: copy the folder tree (possibly a whole drive) to your backup drive, and it will only replace the files that need to be updated in the backup. And since a file will only appear to be newer if it was properly modified (by you, presumably), files that got corrupted because of a filesystem bug won't get copied over their sound backup.
The limitation of this is that you don't have an actual journal of file modifications. You always have a backup of only the latest disk state you backed up. Which is good enough for me, since I always keep several backups anyway.
Anyway, that's what I use for data backup. It's limited, but since my backups are mere copies, I don't depend on specific software to retrieve them (you know, the kind of software which might not work some day in the future for some compatibility- or license-related reason)
Ah, and it's free.
For system backups now, I find CloneZilla very efficient. It comes in the form of a bootable CD. It's free too, and open source, which means we can hope for continued free support in the future. (You could use it for data backup too, but it wouldn't be efficient disk space wise)
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