Free backup software

[alexsk8ca]

I am working at an internet radio station at a local youth center (I do most/all of the technical stuff) and I am looking for some free software to sync two computers and a external hard drive. I need to find a way to do this because the broadcasting and recording computers have to be synced (with music and recorded shows and website stuff) and we need to have a backup of everything on the hard drive. I was looking at some software called Folder Clone, but it cost money, and since this is a non-profit youth center money is kinda hard to come by. Just wondering if anyone could help out, thanks.

By the way the station's url is http://www.shelburneradio.ca

[tokenuser]

Easiest way to go cheap is to go old school using batch files.

XCOPY and ATTRIB ...

[tokenuser]

Easiest way to go cheap is to go old school using batch files.

XCOPY and ATTRIB ... then by pointing to the external drive, you can copy files back and forth, only copying files that have been changed on one computer or the other based on the backup attribute bit being set.

[alexsk8ca]

Ok I made the .bat file, and it is backing up now. I am wondering will it overwrite everything every time, because we will have to do this about everyday or at least once a week and I don't want to have to take 30 minutes out of my day waiting for it to overwrite files that are fine. I am also wondering will it notice that there are new files on one computer and back them up, but not delete files that are on one computer and not another.

[tokenuser]

Ok I made the .bat file, and it is backing up now. I am wondering will it overwrite everything every time, because we will have to do this about everyday or at least once a week and I don't want to have to take 30 minutes out of my day waiting for it to overwrite files that are fine. I am also wondering will it notice that there are new files on one computer and back them up, but not delete files that are on one computer and not another.Look at the options under the XCOPY. The key ones are:
/A Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
doesn't change the attribute.
/M Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
turns off the archive attribute.
Using these, the archive attrib is set/reset, and allows XCOPY to skip files that have already been backed up, while still backing up files that are modified or added.

You might need to do something funky to delete files from both machines ... I'll need to give that some thought :)

Also, if you have an AT command, you can have the batch file reschedule itself once it is run to run again later.

[alexsk8ca]

So should I put both of those in? Right now I have /e /v /y.

[ArmpitOfDeath]

Provided in your extreme poverty you aren't using a pirate copy of Windows, then SyncToy might do the job.

EDIT/ Oh they removed the Genuine Advantage thing. Well that's OK then.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx