hornet3d posted at 4:45 AM Mon, 6 November 2023 - #4477365

Thalek posted at 1:24 AM Mon, 6 November 2023 - #4477362

JustBeCause posted at 7:20 AM Sat, 4 November 2023 - #4477298

Would getting a large drive and doing incremental backups help any? If you did an incremental backup once a week, you couldn't lose more than a week's worth of work, horrific as even that thought is.  (Not that I've taken my own advice, but as drives are coming down in cost and increasing in capacity, it would be a good idea to start taking my own advice.) If you have a lot of files moving in and out every day, the average incremental backup would stay roughly the same size as the now removed files would not be included.

If you are running Windows, Karen's Replicator is still available, I have been told the author is no longer with us,  but it still works and is free.  It automates the whole backup process  and is really just a question of setting it up and letting it run in the background. The neat part is the program only makes incremental backups but the whole folder or drive structure is maintained.  This allows the backups to be quick but if a restore is ever required it is just a question of starting the process and letting it run.  The program has all sorts of options like the back up days, frequency whether deletions are propagated or not and many other options.   A quick search of the Internet for Karen's Replicator should find the correct version for the version of Windows you are running.  I have used the program for years and have also used it for recovery more than once and it worked like a dream.  

Thanks, I'll have to look into that program.

Yes, precisely! It's my understanding that incremental backup software makes a full backup the first time, and then only copies the changes for subsequent operations.  Especially for people who have large drives, it would cut down immensely on their storage requirements, and you can choose to restore just the most recent copy, or restore the full thing.  Possibly with options between, like just the runtime(s).  That's speculation on my part, but it seems like a reasonable feature to put in.  Most of the time, you only have to replace the damaged or missing data, not the whole thing.

And, of course, a daily incremental backup would take much less time than a full backup would, so Hornet3D would be saving time as well as space. The exact time required would depend on how long it took the program to scan a disk for changes (probably by scanning just the directory, rather than the entire directory; again, a speculation on my part), but it would still use less time than a full backup.  I currently use the program Everything to index all of my files on all of my drives to make searches easier, and when it initially starts up, it is currently set up to update its database.  I've never timed it, but I think it's five minutes or less. An incremental backup would take longer than that, but still, how long does it take to scan an entire directory of one hard drive, and then copy a few hundred files?

[chuckle] Guess I'll find out for myself if I start using this backup software you recommend.

Thanks again.