03-21-07 12:12 AM
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage George Adams <g_adams27@hotmail.spambgone.com> wrote:[vb
col=seagreen]
> Can someone suggest a backup program that can handle what I'd like to do?[/vbcol]
> The short version: what cheap (or better yet, free) backup programs can
> backup files simply based on the archive bit?
GNU tar can do this.
> The long version:
> I have about 50G of files I'm going to backup onto DVD. They will
> become my permanent "master" backup. From then on, I want to do
> incremental backups, backing up only new or changed files. (For
> changed files, this may result in different versions of the same file
> being saved onto DVD, but as long as the backups are in different
> directories, it should be fine.)
I hope you have a reliable disk/write combination. In general
DVD writable reliability is pathetic.
> This sounds easy to me, but thus far I've had a hard time finding a
> free backup program that can handle this (haven't started looking at
> commercial software yet - hate to spend the money if I don't have to).
As I said, GNU tar can do archive bit. It can also do timestamp based
incremental backup (will keep a local files with a ''last backed up''
table for all files) or commandline input timestamp based
incremental backups.
> Some programs (e.g. SyncBack) will look at a destination drive and
> backup any files that are new or different. But this doesn't work for
> me, because the DVD I'm backing up today's files to may be empty. That
> doesn't mean I want it to backup EVERYTHING, though - I still only want
> files that are new or changed (i.e. archive bit on).
> So I need a program that will determine what to backup *NOT* by first
> looking at the destination drive/directory to see which files are not
> "in sync" with my source drive/directory. Instead, I want it just to
> backup what it knows is new or changed on the source drive
> (irrespective of what's currently on the destination DVD). The only
> two ways I know it can do that are:
> - looking at the archive bit of each file, or
> - keeping a catalog of what's already been backed up in days past, and
> determining which files are new and which are changed (either a
> different date stamp, file hash, whatever) and therefore now need to be
> backed up.
> So, what's free or cheap that can do this?
See above. The standard backup program for Unix, the ''TApe Archiver''
tar. I think there are usable Windows versions as well, but since I do
all my backups with Linux (for the Windows partiions I have my games
on as well), I would not know. But since your OS does not seem to
include a reasonable backup program, I conclude you are in the MS
world, were even basic functionality such as this is missing.
Arno
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