Suggestions for backup procedures?

alfaniner

Penultimate Amazing
alfaniner
Joined
Aug 27, 2001
Messages
33,679
Location
Sorth Dakonsin
I've been trying to back up my laptop for a couple days. I have about 1.5 TB to copy from a 2TB drive, and a 2TB and a 4TB external drive for copying to. I can't get it to complete on the 2TB drive for some reason, saying there are not enough resources. I'm still trying to move things around to clear space on the 4TB drive. (This is where I usually screw things up, deleting my only backup and sometimes the original data. That's why I want a backup to the backup at first.)
I've tried the File Explorer drag&drop, but that always stops for verification of copying some weird format files, wasting a lot of time. or just kacks at the end saying there's not enough space (there is.) WHY they can't figure that out at the beginning is a big peeve for me.
I've also tried Ease ToDo Free and can't get that to work either.

So, suggestions for good backup software that doesn't require hand-holding all the way through?
 
Suggest you copy only some folders. Then when that succeeds do some more. Repeat until all folders copied. Any problems check to see what files have been copied and then do one folder at a time. You may find one file in one folder is giving you problems. Suggest that you start with an empty drive. Or at least an empty folder within that drive.
 
I have been using a utility DSynchronize to backup my Windows PC for some years now. It's similar to Linux rsync, you can compare specific directories and only update differences. This is controllable in many ways (e.g. delete files in the backup that are also gone in the original or not, ...) I think the major advantage for you would be that it can recover from an aborted copy. I have not had any problems with it.

There are a few different sources you can download it from, this one looks trustworthy: https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/dsynchronize.html
 
rjh01 said:
Suggest you copy only some folders. Then when that succeeds do some more. Repeat until all folders copied. Any problems check to see what files have been copied and then do one folder at a time. You may find one file in one folder is giving you problems. Suggest that you start with an empty drive. Or at least an empty folder within that drive.
Click to expand...
I have done that before but it is tedious and at this point in computer technology should not be necessary to do. But I wound up doing it this time. No idea why some of the files give me issues. I'd like a backup to run overnight -- I know I've done it before. I don't want to have to babysit a backup. But I'm still looking at options.
 
Tried several different things (again!) but looked into and downloaded FreeFileSync. Goddamn Microsoft itself only backs up to a Cloud Drive -- not enough space on their free offering, and I don't want my stuff offsite anyway.
FFS (! ;) ) is chugging along right now and looks to be what I wanted. 7 hours or so to go!
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Looks like you are all set, but something to consider is an older version of Macrium Reflect free.
I have never had it take " hours" to back up ~TB with USB.

I use something like this:



I've been using it for years to back up several TB of data.
Click to expand...
I have one very like that and used to use it to back up to one of my several external discs I've extricated from older computers. I don't think I ever had an issue then, either. But those discs aren't big enough to hold all the data I need to transfer, and the newer ones don't have those kinds of connections.
 
Well, not exactly...
It started out great, then I got the Black Screen of Death several times. I've tried all the online suggested options. I even wanted to boot into Safe Mode but couldn't find instructions that matched my computer. I was able to get in and run some diagnostic tests, but I'm always very leery of getting into the menu that talks about fiddling with the BIOS, especially when I don't have a decent backup yet.
I do have an old Robocopy script (marked as "not working") but I'll take a look at it. I do think I will eventually have to go folder by folder, the tedium I was trying to avoid.
 
alfaniner said:
I have one very like that and used to use it to back up to one of my several external discs I've extricated from older computers. I don't think I ever had an issue then, either. But those discs aren't big enough to hold all the data I need to transfer, and the newer ones don't have those kinds of connections.
Click to expand...
I'm curious what " newer disks ' don't have standard SSD interface?

1770393050093.png

Are you using m.2 drives?

1770392999282.png

I have an external adapter for those also.

UGREEN NVMe and SATA M.2 Enclosure​

 
It's hard to tell the scale from that picture, but my connection to my external drive is only about the width of a USB connector across.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom