Backup software advise wanted

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tod
  • Start date Start date
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Tod

I've got this person who want to be able to backup all data from
his C: hard drive (Win XP Pro) to his second hard drive D:
Any program that would automatically backup data ?
Something that works in the background.
 
Tod said:
I've got this person who want to be able to backup all data from
his C: hard drive (Win XP Pro) to his second hard drive D:
Any program that would automatically backup data ?
Something that works in the background.
Click to expand...

Set it up as a RAID array perhaps?

Otherwise... I use Drive Image (now Ghost) to image my HD to a USB drive
every night. Been working well for a year now.

Is this person doing any other backups? If not what he proposes isn't very
safe. In the event of a power supply failure both drives could be toast.
 
Tod said:
I've got this person who want to be able to backup all data from
his C: hard drive (Win XP Pro) to his second hard drive D:
Any program that would automatically backup data ?
Something that works in the background.
Click to expand...

Just use Windows backup. One of the advantages of a multitasking operating
system is that _anything_ can work in background.
 
Just use Windows backup. One of the advantages of a multitasking operating
system is that _anything_ can work in background.
Click to expand...


D: has to be NTFS (because of the 4GB file limit in FAT32) and you
should set the compression property on it.

The command is called ntbackup.exe. The online help has information on
how to set it up.

Backup up to a second disk is fast and good, but it's only part of a
real backup scheme
 
Just use Windows backup. One of the advantages of a multitasking operating
system is that _anything_ can work in background.
Click to expand...

Can it copy open files?

I think the OP probably should go back to the client for clarification. Does
he expect D: to be a clone of C:? eg Does he expect to be able to swap the
drives over if C:: fails? If he does then I don't think Windows Backup will
do the job. It's ok for backing up data but I don't think it can backup open
system or data files. I might be wrong but I recall that when I last used it
to backup C: there were a lot of exceptions in the log.
 
Can it copy open files?
Click to expand...


Assuming we are talking about ntbackup.exe, yes, for the operating
system. I used ot for years n a prodcution environemnt and have
restored C drives several times. The major downside, IMO, is that the
restoration proceedure is a PITA.

Applications are on a case by case basis. I'l told tha Outlook needs
to be closed to get a valid backup and I wouldn;t backup an Oracle
data base while it was running.
 
CWatters said:
Can it copy open files?

I think the OP probably should go back to the client for clarification. Does
he expect D: to be a clone of C:? eg Does he expect to be able to swap the
drives over if C:: fails? If he does then I don't think Windows Backup will
do the job. It's ok for backing up data but I don't think it can backup open
system or data files. I might be wrong but I recall that when I last used it
to backup C: there were a lot of exceptions in the log.
Click to expand...
He wants to backup data, not OS or programs.
 
I've got this person who want to be able to backup all data from
his C: hard drive (Win XP Pro) to his second hard drive D:
Any program that would automatically backup data ?
Something that works in the background.
Click to expand...

Does he also expect backup software to choose what is a "data"
automaticaly? If not, what does this person mean by "data"?
 
In XP and 2K3, yes. Look up "volume shadow copy" in Windows Help.
Click to expand...


So if I'm have Outlook running will ntbackup always produce a valid
backup of the outlook.pst file ?

I just looked up "volume shadow copy" on a couple systems;
On w2kSP4 there's nothing.

On an XP/pro system it's there and I played with vssadmin but I don't
know what to make of it, yet.

Is this an OS feature that other backup software benefits from ?
 
Al said:
So if I'm have Outlook running will ntbackup always produce a valid
backup of the outlook.pst file ?
Click to expand...

If you are running XP or 2K3, have volume shadow copy enabled, and tell the
backup program to use it, yes.
I just looked up "volume shadow copy" on a couple systems;
On w2kSP4 there's nothing.
Click to expand...

That's because it's not there in Windows 2000.
On an XP/pro system it's there and I played with vssadmin but I don't
know what to make of it, yet.

Is this an OS feature that other backup software benefits from ?
Click to expand...

Yes.
 
He wants to backup data, not OS or programs.
Click to expand...

Ok.

If he accidentally changes/deletes the contents of a file on C: does he want
to be able to get the old version back from D:?
 
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