Backup Software recommendations for image files

[edrod13]

I have done a little searching here in old threads but I have not really found what I am looking for. I am looking for some backup software that can synchronize two drives every week, daily, or everytime I change something.

I have one 500GB external drive (Seagate but DIY type enclosure) and then another internal Seagate 500GB partition in my machine. These drives are used exclusively for image files since photography is another hobby of mine. I shoot RAW so my files are relatively large and I can shoot an average of 100GB's in one year. What I am currently doing is manually backing up images every week or so but find that my two drives aren't always synched because I forgot a folder or some images that I re-edited. I would like to continue editing files on my internal drive and then have a software program synch both drives for me and just copy my changes to the external. This will ensure that both of my drives are always synched and I have an exact copy on both drives. Because of the file sizes eventually both 500GB will be replaced with 1TB's but I am still about 2 years away. Any recommedations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[minsonngo]

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/


I would like to continue editing files on my internal drive and then have a software program synch both drives for me and just copy my changes to the external.

Or you can consider a RAID setup to mirror the main drive.

[EzyStvy]

SyncBack is a flexible, and quite powerful backup and synchronization program that allows to to maintain backup copies of your files and folder, or to synchronize them, so that both locations always have a complete copy (e.g Laptop/PC). It offers different types of actions that let you choose how older and newer files are processed, which files should be excluded (by mask) and more. It offers standard file comparison based on the date and size, as well as optional MD5 checksum, which will detect even the slightest modifications to files. SyncBack also supports scheduled projects, FTPand zip compression of backups, as well as network login, simulation runs and more.

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/SyncBack/SyncBack.html

[TwoRails]

Another vote for SyncBack.

[not important]

SyncBack should do what you need. I don't believe Acronis will do scheduled backups.

[usnavyretired]

I'm running Acronis 11 and it does do scheduled backups but I'm not sure if it will sync two drives, haven't played with it that much.

[glc]

Acronis will do scheduled full, incremental, and differential backups, but it will not strictly "sync". Also, doing incrementals and differentials take just as long as fulls due to the way it processes what it has to back up.

[usnavyretired]

You are right there, thats why I do a full backup monthly because of the time frame for an incremental or differential backup then I delete the previous backup.

[fthy]

Many have said great things about Apricorn and i like many others have bought an Apricorn External Enclosure that comes with EZ GB II backup software with i did not use.

I use Windows Complete PC Backup and Windows Backup (daily) as my backup to my external Apricorn Enclosure and it seems to be doing the job.

[edrod13]

So is SyncBack a better choice for what I need to accomplish? My main goal is to have both drives synched so that if one fails, then I still have my images.

[TwoRails]

Try it out. They have a free (not just a trail) version here:

http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware

[not important]

Seagate has a free version of Acronis for use on their brand of drives. It's called Seagate Disc Wizard and is fully functional.
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=discwizard-eula&vgnextoid=580a5e3ddbf60110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD

[glc]

All Disc Wizard can do is partition, format, and clone drives. It does not have any of the imaging or backup functions.

[not important]

Seagate Disc Wizard, that I linked to, is a version of Acronis with all the functions of Acronis.
It will ONLY work with Seagate drives. They off the same for Maxtor called MaxBlast5

[glc]

Holy cow - when did they release THAT version? It's even more functional than EZ-Gig unless Apricorn has improved it recently. It even does selective backups. The only thing it won't do is incrementals or differentials, and it can't be scheduled.

[not important]

I've been using Disc Wizard for close to a year. I was having trouble with Acronis playing nice with Nero 7 Ultimate and I ran across the Disc Wizard.
There was an update awhile back but the only difference I saw was the interface.

[TwoRails]

Seagate has a free version of Acronis for use on their brand of drives. It's called Seagate Disc Wizard and is fully functional.
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=discwizard-eula&vgnextoid=580a5e3ddbf60110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD

Nice tip, not important!

[edrod13]

Well I have been using SyncBack and I am soooo happy about what It can do. I was hesitant to install and try since my digital images are priceless and I was concerned with something going wrong. I installed the program and it asked me if I wanted to backup or synchronize.

I chose synchronize, but when I opted to ignore files that only reside on the destination drive it gave me warning," It appears that you are looking to do a 1-way synchronization, if you would like to avoid problems and improve performance, then change your setup type to backup instead." Since I only modify, edit, etc.. on the internal drive it makes sense to use a backup instead of synchronizing because the external is just to keep a current copy of my images. I edited some pics today and created some new folders to be able to use the program and it worked great. Since I might move images around from folder to folder in the source drive, when I run the program it finds files that are only left on the destination drive. I was concerned that the destination drive will start having alot of duplicates but I like that I can change the settings to delete the files that only exist on the destination drive. I ran it once to delete these and immediately changed it back to ignore files that only exist on the destination drive. I will use this feature sparingly and carefully every once in a while to get rid of duplicates on the destination drive. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread.