Suggestions as to how to go about setting up automatic remote backup of folders.
I'm trying et an idea as to the best and cheapest way to do this:
I have about 40 users on Windows XP and I want to periodically have certain folders of theirs backed up onto a remote server. I want it to be automatic, and I don't want to have multiple images of the data filling up the hard drive. We currently have Acronis, which is good if you have a ton of disk space, but for this it seems a bit over qualified. I used to use software called vice-versa which I thought was pretty good, but I'm wondering if there is anything else available that might already be included in Acronis that I'm not seeing or if there is something out there that anyone recommends for this kind of thing.
I have about 40 users on Windows XP and I want to periodically have certain folders of theirs backed up onto a remote server. I want it to be automatic, and I don't want to have multiple images of the data filling up the hard drive. We currently have Acronis, which is good if you have a ton of disk space, but for this it seems a bit over qualified. I used to use software called vice-versa which I thought was pretty good, but I'm wondering if there is anything else available that might already be included in Acronis that I'm not seeing or if there is something out there that anyone recommends for this kind of thing.
ASKER
About the second part of the command: Is the "I:" part an arbitrary drive letter or is that a part of the command? If it is a drive letter, could you instead specify a path such as \\NameOfServer\Directory\l
robocopy and a scheduled task can do this via a batch file.
You can even push it out via GPO or login script.
If you want something that the users can control then the free
Sync Toys from MS could be useful.
SyncToy v2.0 Sync
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C26EFA36-98E0-4EE9-A7C5-98D0592D8C52&displaylang=en
I hope this helps !
You can even push it out via GPO or login script.
If you want something that the users can control then the free
Sync Toys from MS could be useful.
SyncToy v2.0 Sync
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C26EFA36-98E0-4EE9-A7C5-98D0592D8C52&displaylang=en
I hope this helps !
ASKER
wantabe2: I got the script to run from the command prompt, but for some reason when I run the same thing as a batch file, I see that a cmd windows flashes for a second, but no files get copied.
right click the batch file & click edit or open with notepad. Add the word PAUSE at the bottom on this batch file, save it, & run it again. This will enable you to see the error & why it is not running.
ASKER
I added the word PAUSE both as the last line of the command and at the bottom of the file and It still acts the same. It doesn't hold the screen open for me to tell what's going on. What am I doing wrong? This is what it looks like:
xCOPY C:\"Documents and settings"\user\"My Documents"\*.* I:\Backup\*.* /y /s
PAUSE
xCOPY C:\"Documents and settings"\user\"My Documents"\*.* I:\Backup\*.* /y /s
PAUSE
ASKER
ok. I figured out what I was doing wrong. I thought I saw at some point that the batch file needed to be saved in unicode. I saved it as ANSI and it works now. But although this is cool, and I appreciate the knowledge, is there a way just to have it back up files that have changed so that it's faster and lighter? Thanks again.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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xCOPY C:\YOUR FILES\*.* I:\TO REMOTE SERVER\*.* /y /s
This will overwrite the files each night without prompts