Subscriber and friend Sam Boggs wrote me to say:
Terry:
I recently purchased a Seagate 160 GB external hard drive to back up key files. It did not come with any software; it just acts like an oversized thumb drive, and it works fine in that mode. I have manually copied “My Documents” to that new drive.My question is this:
Is there any software, preferably freeware, that will allow me to do a quick incremental backup (for example will write only new and overwrite only more recent file versions) without asking me about each individual file. For example, if I have an old text called “abc.doc” and it hasn’t changed since the last backup, I’d like the software to not put a second copy of abc.doc on the external HD, or ask me if I want to overwrite.I’ve seen “One button backup” advertised on some external HD’s but this doesn’t have it built in.
Thanks again for your very helpful and informative newsletter.
Sam Boggs
Must be time for articles on backing up your system and backing up your data.
Fortunately, I’ve written about backing up a number of times — and the first article in this issue is also about backing up.
Here are the classics:
Plus, there are articles in my newsletters about a month ago, or so, about my recent hard-drive failure experiences.
These experiences have convinced me to get started doing image backups again. I bought Acronis True Image and have been pleased with it.
My recommended software:
- For backing up your system, Acronis True Image (commercial), image backups and file backups, full or incremental
- For backing up your data, Replicator (free), file backups
One more option — a free one that may work for you (I have experimented a little with it, but was unsuccessful getting it to run on one of my computers — the Recovery Is Possible Linux (RIP Linux). The interface is not nearly as obvious nor as sophisticated, but the tools include “Parted” (“Part-Ed” — a partition editor) and “Partimage” ( “Part-image”, apartition backup and restore utility).
and