Simple Backup Solutions

an svn server works great, if you're in the windows world check out tortise-svn

I have a free copy of Norton Ghost my boss gave me. Can't say I use it often tough. I backup my "fresh" system and reload the image when I want something clean. I only backup source code and documents, which means stuff in the 30-50mb range. Usually I'll just burn it.

Well, Ghost is too low-level for my needs, and SVN is overblown in its complexity.

It's not just code I'm trying to backup, but also game saves, documentation folders, etc...

I wanted a solution that would allow me to do something like right-click on a folder and hit "backup now".

Relative backups would also be cool (store just the diference between how the folder looks now, and how it looked 3 weeks ago, for example, for a smaller footprint)...

I wrote a quick and dirty shell script for my linux-based file server that every night does the following:
1) unlocks my secondary drive for writing
2) rolls over previous backups from the past 3 nights into new folders and purges the oldest
3) copies any changed files that are out of sync (using rsync) onto the spare drive onto a new backup set
4) performs a checksum on the existing files and reports any oddities
5) re-locks the drive to read-only status

It was cheap - only cost me the drive and the time involved to write the script...

Unfortunately I work under and for Windows systems only.

I think I might start to write down some ideas I have on "the perfect backup solution", and grab some code scraps I have lying around and making something up...

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Original post by Prozak Unfortunately I work under and for Windows systems only. I think I might start to write down some ideas I have on "the perfect backup solution", and grab some code scraps I have lying around and making something up...

Have you looked into using windows backup utility? You can schedule it to run at any interval you want. Not as effective or effecient as a linux solution but you should already have all the tools you need to do it.

Edit: Also as long as you aren't worried about versioning it should be trivial to write a batch script and set it, via the scheduler, to run at a particular interval and copy files over.

Well, Windows' Backup Utility (WBU) seems to be bloated, and amazingly enough, not quite versatile...

The concept of a backup for me, is just to have the Data in ''another'' place. WBU doesn't seem to fully grasp that concept, and from what I remember from using it, it always tried to coax me into puting my data on some storage device... when it would be perfectly fine to just copy it to another machine, at least in my view it would.

I sat down and wrote a few features I would like to see implemented on my Backup utility:

Features
* Each computer the backup utility is stored, should have a unique name.
* Backups are managed by LUA scripts, and can therefore be completely configured by the user.
* Ability to use right-click on a file or folder and add it to a backup job queue
* Ability to backup files across the house network, or across the internet, to a backup center.
* A backup center is a service that runs on a receiving computer, and it receives backup data from other computers. A file structure is used, per computer name, per job, per date.
* Ability to detect when user is away, and comence a backup.
* After each backup job, a log can be created, with each file's MD5 hash strings.
* Simple Backup to CD
* Backup Modes:
---o Absolute: A backup is made of the file or folder, and all scanned data is stored.
---o Relative: A backup is made of the file or folder, and what is saved is the relative diference between the scanned data and a relative data (relative data is called base)
---o Image: Similar to Relative, but base files are not saved, just their original size and MD5 signature. Subsequent backups will store files that have been changed. (this is useful when you already have the base files stored someplace, and can work from that image)
* Can use right-click on a file or folder to schedule or start a job.
* Can work in low-profile background mode so that it doesnt hog the CPU or drives while working.
* Data can be compressed and/or encrypted (useful for across-the-net backups)
* Ability to backup data to an FTP account
* Restore a folder to a certain state, from a date.
* Ability to Power down PC after job is done.
* Each job must have some sort of flat database that stores Job information and history (I need to research micro-database libraries, portable and free for any use, sql-like would be a big plus)
* Ability to backup registry information.

i've made a bat file that launchs winzip from the commandline and makes a backup. I can lauch that bat file in visual studio. don't know if there exists a command in dos to place the backup on an other pc.

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Original post by codehunter13 i've made a bat file that launchs winzip from the commandline and makes a backup. I can lauch that bat file in visual studio. don't know if there exists a command in dos to place the backup on an other pc.

Well, one of the goals is to make this as simple as a batch script, but obviously more powerful, with more options available to the user, and extensible through the use of plugins...

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Original post by codehunter13 i've made a bat file that launchs winzip from the commandline and makes a backup. I can lauch that bat file in visual studio. don't know if there exists a command in dos to place the backup on an other pc.

A simple copy with the computer name and shared folder should do it.

Before you go off and write your own. [wink] There are a few other options you should look at. Microsoft has released a power toy called synctoy. I couldn't get it to work (could load resource file or something like that) but if it works for you then it should take care of all your backup needs. The other one is one I started using today called Allway Sync. It has numerous sync options and can be set to monitor the folders for changes.

I'm going to go ahead and make a small utility, I have a lot of code lying around unused, and it was coded from scratch to be easily and quickly implemented, to be up and running in no time, so I'll time myself in how much something like this will take me...

Thanks guys, Rate++;

Synctoy is a handy little tool from Microsoft with a beautiful GUI. If you don't want that there exists also a little commandline tool called robocopy which is included in some of those tool packages you can download from microsoft. Both of these are able to mirror two directories.