Computer File Backup Recomendations

[JimD]

I use Outlook 2007 for work related email. It writes mail files to your hard-drive and also can access files you move emails into. I have a lot of directories of prior emails that are organized by customer and special topics. I keep old emails on my hard-drive and backed up to a DVD. For stuff that is still actively being worked, I have them on a server that is backed up daily. Access to the server is difficult while at home or traveling (I have to VPN and then map drives and still it is slow).

I would like to put all these on my laptop hard-drive but have not because I am concerned I will crash my hard-drive and loose all this information. The risk is low but the impact would be large. What I would like to do is to put the files on my hard-drive but then have an effective and relatively painless way to back them up. The email files are probably small enough they would fit onto a large flash drive (like an 8 gb). It would be nice to also backup a few other things but we are somewhere in the low gb range for the amount of data I am looking to protect. I'm looking mostly for comments on software to make the backup process relatively painless. Hardware comments are also welcome, however.

Suggestions?

Jim

[crokett]

A simple file copy might also be what you want. This command will do a simpe copy of files from one directory to another:

xcopy <source> <destination> /E /O /Y

The switches tell it to preserve directories, ownership attributes and supress prompts.

You could put that in a batch file and then run it via Windows Task Scheduler. However it will copy everything, each time instead of doing an incremental backup. Something like Norton Ghost would work but it costs money and you'd have to have it installed to recover files if necessary.

[LarryG]

I have generally similar backup needs to yours. I use, and heartily recommend, Second Copy from Centered Systems.

This little program is an absolute gem: very flexible, very feature rich, very simple to setup and use. The two things I like best is that it can backup files in their native format, and that I have found it 100% dependable. The opening page on the web site gives a great overview of the features, so I'll just let you click through rather than describe exactly what it does and how. Note that a free trial download is available.

I've been using this program for probably 10 years, maybe more (rather than the current Second Copy 7, I actually use an older version called Second Copy 2000; it does everything I need it to do so I've never bothered to upgrade) and we also use the same program for the daily backups of all our CAD files at the office.

EDIT: I forgot to say that at the office, we backup to an external hard drive (two, actually, that are rotated each day). In the past, we backed-up to a network drive on a secondary server. For my personal use, I now backup to a thumb drive; in the past, I have backed-up to other hard drives, floppy drives, ZIP drives. It's all the same to Second Copy.

[DaveS]

If this is the only thing you want to back up... why don't you just use the outlook back up tool?

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[BobSch]

A simple file copy might also be what you want. This command will do a simpe copy of files from one directory to another:

xcopy <source> <destination> /E /O /Y

The switches tell it to preserve directories, ownership attributes and supress prompts.

However it will copy everything, each time instead of doing an incremental backup.

If you add a /M switch it will copy only files with the archive bit set and then reset the bit on the original file. This should only copy new/changed files.