Back Up HD to External at fixed time?

Albino_BlacMan · Sep 24, 2011

So I just got a Dell XPS laptop. I keep all my images on 2 external harddrives. Is there anyway I can get one external harddrive to copy itself to the other one everynight at like midnight? I don't want to do the whole RAID thing (I don't think) because I assume it would slow everything down since the two HD's are external and one is only USB 2.0 (and I don't even know if you can do RAID with an external)

Any thoughts on how I could make this work
--
Chris

Sean Nelson · Sep 24, 2011

Well an obvious solution is to use an XCOPY command which you run using Task Scheduler.

Or any other folder synchronization tool that you can run from the command line.

Albino_BlacMan · Sep 24, 2011

Alright you've proven that I'm totally illiterate when it comes to computer talk. Link to somewhere that would tell me how to do this?
--
Chris

Sean Nelson · Sep 24, 2011

Here's some information on how to use XCOPY: http://www.inspectmygadget.com/2007/09/21/how-to-synchronise-two-folders-on-a-single-machine-using-xcopy/

And here's a guide to Task Scheduler: http://tinyhacker.com/hacks/complete-guide-to-windows-7s-task-scheduler/

malch · Sep 24, 2011

Sean Nelson said:
Well an obvious solution is to use an XCOPY command which you run using Task Scheduler.

Hey Sean, it's time to ditch XCOPY. It's a hangover from DOS for goodness sake ;-)

Seriously, Robocopy is hugely better and it's installed by default with Windows 7.

Here's an overview with examples:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/robocopy-and-a-few-examples.aspx

Aides from being newer with lots more options, Robocopy understands modern file attributes including NTFS ACL's, junction points and more. And if you really want to get fancy, it can be used in conjunction with VShadow and the Volume Shadow Service.

Sean Nelson · Sep 24, 2011

malch said:
Hey Sean, it's time to ditch XCOPY. It's a hangover from DOS for goodness sake ;-)

Point well taken. The truth is I've never really used any of these bulk copy tools, I know them only be reputation. And I always assumed that Robocopy was a third-party program (which perhaps it was at one point). Now I know better.

Thanks for chiming in!

Denis247 · Sep 25, 2011

Get an alarm clock.

Albino_BlacMan said:
So I just got a Dell XPS laptop. I keep all my images on 2 external harddrives. Is there anyway I can get one external harddrive to copy itself to the other one everynight at like midnight? I don't want to do the whole RAID thing (I don't think) because I assume it would slow everything down since the two HD's are external and one is only USB 2.0 (and I don't even know if you can do RAID with an external)

Any thoughts on how I could make this work
--
Chris

malch · Sep 25, 2011

Sean Nelson said:
Point well taken. The truth is I've never really used any of these bulk copy tools, I know them only be reputation. And I always assumed that Robocopy was a third-party program (which perhaps it was at one point). Now I know better.

It first appeared with the Windows NT Resource Kit so it's mature without being too old and decrepit. A bit like us, eh? ;-)

scrambler2 · Sep 25, 2011

look in my previous message here:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1004&message=39309485

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Back Up HD to External at fixed time?

Albino_BlacMan

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Sean Nelson

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malch

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