[AlanS47]

Hi. Altho I've subscribed to PCWorld for many years, I have just joined the Online community. Forgive me if this information is available elsewhere, just tell me where. My question: I use XP Pro on a HP Desktop Computer that has an additional hard drive (used only when inserted into the CPU's built-in slot). I also have a small SimpleTech hard drive for back up. I consider my desktop's "C" drive to be my main/master drive and the HP additional "P" drive and SimpleTech's "K" drive as backups. How do I synchronize "C" with "P" and "K" so that everything is not recopied each time I do a backup from "C" to the other two drives? Thanks.

[LincolnSpector]

Although synchronizing and backup are similar, they're not really the same. Synchronizing is generally done between two computers (often using removable media like to external drive as a go-between), making sure that both have the latest version of your data files. Backing up provides spare copies of your files in case something happens to the original. Backups usually contain more than one version of recently-changed files. That way you could, for instance, on a Thursday, restore Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday's version of a file.

See What's the Best Way to Backup What I Need to Backup? for more on backing up.

Lincoln

[AlanS47]

It seems that my choice of words may have confused exactly what information I'm requesting. Please let me re-phrase: After I have copied my photos (or my folders or whatever) from my desktop "C" drive to my external drive, how can I update (that is, copy new additions made to my "C" drive) my external drive's version of my photos? I call this synchronizing, but if this word is not correct, please replace it while focusing on my objective, which is not to recopy my photos every time I add a new folder to it. I understand that I could just copy the newly added folder or folders, but this cumbersomely entails keeping a record of what I added and does not seem practical. Thanks.

[LincolnSpector]

AlanS47 said:

It seems that my choice of words may have confused exactly what information I'm requesting. Please let me re-phrase: After I have copied my photos (or my folders or whatever) from my desktop "C" drive to my external drive, how can I update (that is, copy new additions made to my "C" drive) my external drive's version of my photos? I call this synchronizing, but if this word is not correct, please replace it while focusing on my objective, which is not to recopy my photos every time I add a new folder to it. I understand that I could just copy the newly added folder or folders, but this cumbersomely entails keeping a record of what I added and does not seem practical. Thanks.

What you describe is, indeed synchronizing. See Synchronize Files Easily With Windows' Briefcase for directions on doing it with XP's own tools.

But I have to ask: What is your reason for doing it. If you want the files to be available to use on other computers, synchronize by all means. But if you want a backup, it's better to use backup software than synchronizing software.

Lincoln

[Northlite]

I have used SyncBack and Backup Chunker (both free) for these chores and have had sucess using them. You create Profiles/Jobs, then what I do is when I am done working with the folders I want to be the same I run the program. I have done this between two computers, a flash drive etc. The trick is to set up - so that newer over writes older files, source always over writes destination, and files on destination but not at source are deleted from destination. Altho these are considered sync files I have used them to move them to another location for use. Since I have a few computers here I do keep a monthly back up on one of them, work on my laptop and sync with the flash drive daily.

Hope this helps.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!