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[park]

Happy New year all,

Here is my plan:
I want to have all my music files on two hard drives. One i will use to play and transport my music around (my portable usb2 hard drive). The other will be my backup drive should something bad happen.

I will want to periodically send all of the tag information for the files on one hard drive to the backup one (so that last played info/number of plays info and updated ratings stay current). How do I do this?

Also, preferably in the same process, I'd like any files not on the backup drive to be copied accross.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.
Bri

[KingSparta]

Buy a Raid 1 controler

with removeable drives

[serf]

Try Beyond Compare 2 from Scooter Software - easy to set up a script to "backup" or "update" 1 drive to the other - $30.

[LisaRCT]

There have been threads on this subject before where quite a number of backup options and software have been discussed.
I suggest you do a search on the forum.

[mindracing]

Second Copy 2000 would be my suggestion.

[LonWar]

Norton Ghost works very well.

[park]

To elaborate slightly. My system is a sony vaio laptop with firewire and usb2 drives. So I can't use a raid controller, right?

Also, the whole drive backup options are a pain because I have an 80gb hard drive with various stuff on it, but only really care about regularly backing up the 35gb of audio.

Is there no way I can just copy over all my songs to another drive (a one time deal) and just send updated tags to those files whenever I like?

Thanks,
Bri

[LisaRCT]

Yes, Second Copy will do that quite nicely . . . . .
It can do a 'simple copy' of one drive (or folder) to another,
it can do an 'exact copy' which eliminates 'obsolute files',
it can do a regular 'sync', it can do it manually or automatically, and is easily configured.
 

There are others which work similar, some free some not.

[Jaguu]

Karen's replicator (www.karenware.com) is freeware and does exactly what you want. You can simply replicate your complete audio folder to another disk whether this disk is attached to your system or on another pc.

Personally I replicate from pc to pc as in the case of a controller failure or complete pc failure I can simply go to the other pc, redirect my home directory and continue my work. I have a GigaLan between my 2 pc's.

The only drawback is similar to the problems with Raid 1. If you delete someting incidentally and replicate just afterwards, it will go on the replicated disk as well, unless you set a flag not to delete anything on the replicated disk.

You may set as many replication jobs as you like. I have different jobs for MyDocuments & Settings, Audio, Images and Video.

[LisaRCT]

WOW . . . . . . . .  Deja Vu!!

which is why I suggested a search for the last time we hashed this out.  

[KingSparta]

I just tested It on some of my MP3's it worked rather well, it even created the folders as it needed.

I may use it to back up my Lyrics from now on.

I also got the source code to look at.

[Jaguu]

King,

What did you test? The Deja-vu effect?

[park]

Thanks for all the tips everyone. I'll try some of them out and let you know.

I did try searching (using the term "back up") with the time period set to the last 120 days but the only relevant thread that the search engine picked up was this one.

Thanks,

Bri

[Jaguu]

You may try searching for "backup", "backing up", "save", "replication", "synch" etc.

[LisaRCT]

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=10487;start=msg64346#msg64346    

[NickM]

Ever lost your data?  I have, and I guess you only make the mistake once...

Each workstation / laptop / client I use, I keep a Ghosted System drive that is updated monthly - this has all programs but no data.  For machine failure, using a HDD replacement can have you up an running in minutes.

Then I keep the data centrally on a RAID5 server.  This streams changed files to a DAT all day.  Cost per MB is getting better by the day and most likely DVD would be a cheaper streaming option now.  I use SNAP servers because of the good warranty.

Lastly, I use a combination of MS Briefcases and Off-line synchronistation so that every client keeps local copies of the central data

Paranoid - perhaps.  Sleep well - yes.

nick

[KingSparta]

Ever lost your data?

Yes

The first time I Typed "Format C:"

I never did that again unless I was sure

That was before they had An "Are You Sure you want to format your drive this will erase all your files" Prompt.