5

I create my backup on an external hard drive disk which contains several partitions (because it's also a Media Center HDD).

I'm looking for a light and gratis tool which allow me to save my data with advanced path selection option.

Below an example of the the mapping I want to execute:

D:
    \SmithUser
        \pictures         => goes in FirstPartition:\My Photo
        \downloads        => goes in SecondPartition:\Smith\Downloads
        \documents        => goes in SecondPartition:\Smith\Documents
        \video            => goes in ThirdPartition:\MediaCenter
        \music            => goes in ThirdPartition:\MediaCenter
  • Light gratis tool (my actual light one is less than 1 Mo installed).
  • Must have recognition with partition name instead of partition letters.
  • Nice to have selective compression options if it exists.
  • Interested of backup tools which can be interrupted and quickly restarted.
  • No needs about recurrent or incremental backup.

Currently I have to launch 3 different backup configurations to make it, I would like to know if there is some soft which allow me to make this backup with only one task.

2
  • Re your requirement 'only one task': If you want to start this manually, a 'run all tasks' would be OK, right? And if you want this run automatically, scheduled tasks would do the trick as well - just plan them a minute after the other.
    – user416
    Feb 26, 2014 at 16:12
  • @JanDoggen I do not use planned backup, I don't make regular one's because the HDD is primarily used as a media center disconnected from other computers. Feb 26, 2014 at 16:19

2 Answers 2

3

Bvckup 2 should do the trick - You'd want to set up one task per mapping

  • ~700 kb binary
  • free in beta, 20 dollars once released
  • can be set to do scheduled backups
  • can track by device id or volume name

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  • does delta copies, and won't copy unchanged files
  • can be set to manually backup, on a schedule or automatically when device is plugged in
  • can be set to run an external command pre or post copying - you could run a compression script then

I think the only issue is is it won't be gratis forever, but its a great tool, that happens to be free now.

1
  • I make a mistake when I primary wrote my question : I want to be able to do the three mapping with one task. I've already a tool for separated tasks. Feb 26, 2014 at 17:55
2

I'm fond of good old rsync.

It takes a bit to setup (it is a command line utility), but it's really easy to put your command lines into a batch file once you get it working.

It's free, and open source.

It doesn't do compression.

Restart does take a few moments as it re-scans, but it's not horrible.

The only slight downside is that (at least the version I'm using - cwRsync) can only find partitions by letter. Happily, this is pretty easy to deal with - Windows likes to re-mount a drive at the same letter it was at previously. So, if you use the drive manager to change that drive's letters to W,X,Y, and Z, it's unlikely anything else will get mounted there, and the drive will always remount at the same letters, so your rsync command will always just work.

It's even possible to set rsync up to backup any files it's removing from the target, so you are never in danger of losing anything.

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