Windows Vista Blog

SyncToy - A Simple Way To Backup Your Files

March 13th, 2007 by SysAdmin

I was recently asked to install backup software on our support staff’s computer. The software not only had to be able to backup the contents of the My Documents folder but also synchronize with the backup file server and vice versa.

My first thought was to use XXCOPY and run a scheduled task every evening. However, I recently read about SyncToy, an easy to use application developed by Microsoft that allows you to backup and synchronize with just a click of a button.

SyncToy can backup files in the following way:

• Sync Copies new and updated files in both directions. If you rename or delete a file in one folder, that action is replicated in the other.
• Echo Copies new and updated files, and performs deletes and renames only from the left folder to the right.
• Subscribe Copies updated files from right to left, and only if the file already exists on the left. Changes made on the left will not be replicated to the right.
• Contribute Copies new and updated files on the left to the right, while ignoring deletions.
• Combine Keeps multiple machines in lockstep by copying files that exist on one side but not the other. Files that are deleted or renamed on either side are not affected or replicated.

The software also understands UNC file naming (e.g. \\MyServer\Joe_Blogs\My Documents Backup\) as well as local drive mappings and paths (E:\MyDocs_Backup).

The only issue that I came accross was that SyncToy needs the .NET Framework installed before it can run.

Once installed I configured SyncToy to backup the My Documents folder to the server. The backup took only a couple of minutes, which was impressive considering that it had to transfer a couple of gigabytes of data across the network. Next time the backup is run it will only need to change the files that have recently been updated, so that should only take a couple of seconds.

Download: SyncToy

Download: .NET Framework