Versioning Backup tool

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by WYC999, Aug 10, 2013.

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  1. WYC999

    WYC999 Registered Member

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    Hi all,

    I'm looking for a Backup (yes i mean backup of folders and files no imaging) Program that can do the following:
    • you can start a job created in it via batch
    • It's NOT a synchronisation tool. I want the program more to backup all defined folders in Full and save them in a file.
    • It should support versioning. If i run a job one a day than there is one Backupfile for this day. If i run it the next day it should creater another file with the date of this day and so on...
    • Great would be if it supported automatic deletion of old Backupfiles, which is build in a backup job. For example after running the backup job it should check if there backups which are - lets say - older than 30 days and delete them.
    • Be very reliable.

    I'd rather not program this with robocopy since i'm not good in programing..

    Suggestions, ideas?
     
  2. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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  3. TheKid7

    TheKid7 Registered Member

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  4. WYC999

    WYC999 Registered Member

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    @Pandlouk: Ah i didn't mention i don't want to save in the cloud just old school on different harddrive...

    @The Kid7: i'll have a look at it - the website looked a bit obscure..
     
  5. WYC999

    WYC999 Registered Member

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    @the kid: could you or someone else answer quick some questions - befor i spend much time verifying and checking:

    1) How does this work if i want to make everyday a backup AND it should keep the one from the previous day. I got that far, that i used a compressed file, since the program now needs to store everything in one file. But now i would need an Option that the program puts the date in the namefield or something different
    2) Is there a way that it deletes files older than... days
    3.) Is it reliable in you experience?
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2013
  6. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    Neither do I.
    I use it to backup in local drives.

    Panagiotis
     
  7. MarcP

    MarcP Registered Member

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    Macrium can do all that. And I made a script for it that deletes old backup of 15 days or more. And it can generate a backup batch file for you.
     
  8. WYC999

    WYC999 Registered Member

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    @pandlouk: ah O.K. website was pretty strongly worded towards incremental backups on Cloud. I'll check it out then...Thx for the Tip so.

    @MarcP: One of the few imaging programs i didn't check out is Macrium. Just to get you right: Do you mean that i create an image of a partition or can macrium really backup folders... Does Macrium need to have a service running for that? Or can i just start the batch, the batch starts macrium with parameters (for the job)?

    In Germany its late have a good night...
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2013
  9. MarcP

    MarcP Registered Member

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    Macrium does both. Imaging and file backup, whichever you want to do. For any jobs you create, it can generate a batch file for you to use whenever you want. Jobs don't need to be scheduled. And it leaves no service running in the background. You can set the batch file to do incremental or differential backups too if you don't want to do full backups everytime.

    I have a VBS script that I use with Macrium to delete differential images that are X days old. It's not hard to do and I used Macrium to schedule that script once per day (using Windows scheduler).
     
  10. WYC999

    WYC999 Registered Member

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    Hi MarcP,

    sounds interesting. It's not really rational, but i just have the gut feeling that its no good idea to install to imaging programs on the same machine. Since i use now IFW, i'm a little scared.

    But this thing with it creates the Batch sounds easy and good.

    cheers.
     
  11. MarcP

    MarcP Registered Member

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    You already have two imaging softwares on your machine. IFW and the Windows Backup tool. They both use VSS to perform their magic.
     
  12. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    WYC999,

    you may also want to take a look to
    FreeFileSync (superb synchronization app that supports versioning)
    and
    Backupmaker

    Do you want free or paid apps?
    Have you tried windows own backup tool?


    Panagiotis
     
  13. legacy

    legacy Registered Member

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    Hi

    I use this,

    http://www.ajcsoft.com/active-backup.htm

    "Have you ever experienced that horrible sinking feeling when you realize you have lost some work ? Maybe you deleted a file, over wrote it with another file or it has been corrupted etc. This can be very costly in terms of time and money and in the worst cases can land you in deep trouble.

    Now you can make this problem a thing of the past with AJC Active Backup!

    AJC Active Backup offers you continuous data protection by monitoring the files you change on your PC and then automatically and silently backing them up into a compact archive. You decide which folders and file types are backed up.

    The archive stores multiple revisions of each file you edit. Think of it as a revision control system for your hard disk. This means you can get back any version of a file giving you unlimited undo capabilities and also you have a complete record of what you have been doing. It also has the built in capability to show you a comparison of your files so you can see what has changed
    ."
     
  14. aladdin

    aladdin Registered Member

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    This is on Bidsdujour about a week ago for half the price.

    Best regards,
     
  15. WYC999

    WYC999 Registered Member

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    for clarification, since Pandlouk asked, since i'm looking for a software which is very reliable and should be active developed, comemrcial is welcome...

    I'm not looking for a program that is running in the background that "automatically and silently" saves files. For that i could use my AXTM license. As i wrote in first post I'm looking for somethin that has no service running, no nothing, i just start it via batch when i need it and after job is done it shuts down completely again...
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2013
  16. legacy

    legacy Registered Member

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    No problem,

    I use this for coding purposes. As its the best out there, for a software which is low on resources and has a built in file diff tool, so i can compare files which have changed and compare, which is great.

    I cannot think of a better software for you, so good luck.:cautious:
     
  17. manolito

    manolito Registered Member

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    The German computer magazine c't made a very reliable backup script called "c't RSync Backup" a while ago. It is basically a VBS script which uses rsync.exe. Configuration only requires adding entries for source and destination folders to the script. It can be run manually from a link on the desktop, you can create automatic tasks, or use it in a batch file.

    Download link: -ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/listings/1313-102-1.zip-

    The description is in German, let me know if you need any assistance...:D



    Cheers
    manolito
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 11, 2013
  18. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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  19. manolito

    manolito Registered Member

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    In the meantime I played around a little with this software, and I must say that I am quite impressed...

    I also took the liberty to translate the most important parts of the script into English, so it should be easy for anyone to use it. The translated script is here:
    http://www.sendspace.com/file/ua1cko
    Just rename it (remove the '.english' from the extension) and overwrite the existing script.

    I believe this software fulfills all the requirements from the first post of this thread...

    you can start a job created in it via batch
    Yes
    It's NOT a synchronisation tool. I want the program more to backup all defined folders in Full and save them in a file.
    Yes.
    It should support versioning. If i run a job one a day than there is one Backupfile for this day. If i run it the next day it should creater another file with the date of this day and so on...
    Yes
    Great would be if it supported automatic deletion of old Backupfiles, which is build in a backup job. For example after running the backup job it should check if there backups which are - lets say - older than 30 days and delete them.
    Yes. You can define the number of kept backups separately for hourly, daily and weekly intervals.
    Be very reliable.
    You bet


    The main advantage of this software is that it uses 'Hard Links' (only if the destination drive is NTFS formatted). The backup folder looks like it contains all backed up files in full, but in reality for unchanged files it uses almost no physical space because the file entries point to the same physical sectors on the HDD as in the first backup.

    Main restrictions:

    Needs admin rights
    Cannot backup open files
    Does not copy NTFS-specific features (Junctions, Streams, Sparse Files)



    Cheers
    manolito
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2013
  20. bgoodman4

    bgoodman4 Registered Member

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    It sounds like you might have things worked out at this point but I will mention 12Ghosts Backup anyway. Its HyperBackup feature will do what you wish and to turn it on you would just launch the program (deselecte launch with Windows) then shut it down when you are done.

    Adding files and folders is a snap,,,,,go to Explorer and right click on the file or folder and select add to HyperBackup. Recovering a file or folder works as easily. Navigate to the current folder or file in Explorer, right click, select show 12Ghost versions, all existing version of the file/folder will be shown, and then simply select the version you want. It will appear in Explorer in the same area as the current file or folder but will have a 1 or 2 etc added to the file/folder name.

    A very nice program which has been very reliable for me.

    Homepage is here http://12ghosts.com/ghosts/backup.htm

    PS: just thought I would mention that every time you hit save for a monitored file a new version is created. In addition versions are kept (more or less) as follows. 1 per min for the past hour (assuming you are hitting save often enough), 1 per hour for the last day, 1 per day for the last month. 1 per month for the last year....... Or something like that. See the publishers site for specific details.

    PPS: from the publishers site----

     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2013
  21. MrBrian

    MrBrian Registered Member

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    Areca Backup (free) does all of the things that WYC999 wants. I use v7.2.1, which isn't the latest version.
     
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