Easy incremental file copy?

[Chicago Jake]

Okay, next question on external hard drives.

I've got a brand new 1.5 TB external drive to backup my two networked PCs. I've got fairly large My Documents, music, and photograph directory structures. Copying each one to the external backup drive takes well over an hour.

I'm not using any fancy backup software. Fuck that shit. I'm just using Windows Copy/Paste. The problem with that is, it copies EVERYTHING. Even the files that have not changed. If I could tell it "only copy the new files and files that are time-stamped later than the versions already in the destination folder," that would save me huge amounts of time.

I know there are backup utilities that can do this, but that's not what I want to use, if I can avoid it. I just want to copy, but only the new/changed stuff.

Can I do it? I'm not afraid of going to the DOS prompt, if that will get the job done. Thanks!.......Jake

[Ardbeg... innit]

Jake, doing it manually, the easiest way is to sort by the "date modified" column in windows explorer (click on the column to get the newest files to the top), and just grab the files there since your last backup and drag them to your backup drive.

Inelegant but it works.

[♥ COVID-19♥]

From the command line, there is also the xcopy command with the /D switch.

/D:m-d-y Copies files changed on or after the specified date.
If no date is given, copies only those files whose
source time is newer than the destination time.

[Chicago Jake]

Good suggestions, fellers; thank.

Gordon - that would work, if it was all in one directory. But I've gut multiple levels of hierarchy.

BB - I agree. xcopy is probably what I'll end up using. The nice thing about that is I could put it in a batch file for future use.

I'm still hoping for a way to do it from Windows Explorer, though. I was wondering if anyone had experience with Explorer add-ons like Tweak UI or stuff like that.

Thanks for the input!......Jake

[♥ COVID-19♥]

You may want to consider using Windows Task Scheduler to automate this -- but I would suggest you try it manually first, just to make sure it executes the way you expect.

[Exildo Wonsetler Briggs III]

Here you go!

I use this program all the time and it will backup across the network as well. Plus, it's FREE!!

............Bob

[Chicago Jake]

Sounds good, Bob. Thanks! I'll check it out.......Jake

[Ardbeg... innit]

Oct 9, 2010 23:53:09 GMT -6 Chicago Jake said:

I know there are backup utilities that can do this, but that's not what I want to use, if I can avoid it. I just want to copy, but only the new/changed stuff.

So you really wanted a backup utility after all?

[Robin Hood]

Jake, this is also VERY good, it is super easy to set up and it is free...

www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp