Watching Lost and finding a good FREE backup program

Well, yesterday I said I was going to try doing a backup with SyncBackSE today. However, before I got on to that I decided I'd try some of the other programs that I hadn't tried yet, that were mentioned in the article/comments on 13 Great Free Backup Programs for Windows, Mac, and Linux. I was hoping that there'd be a free solution I could use that worked well.

The first program I tried today was Synkron. I used the clone mode with 'Do not backup updated files' ticked (this means don't backup files in the backup before you overwrite them with the updated files from the Master). Amazingly it worked! It did an incremental backup, deleted files/folders on the backup that didn't exist in the master, and was very fast. It also allows you to create a tab for each backup task, and then execute all tasks/tabs, or you can execute each one seperately if you wish.

So I setup a tab for each of the folders I wanted to backup to my external internal harddrive and then executed all the backups in one go. After about 10 minutes or so the backup was done.

Next I wanted to create tabs for each of the folders I wanted to backup to my LaCie external harddrive. I wanted to get rid of the tabs for backing up to my external internal harddrive, so I could again just do an execute all to backup all the folders in one go. Unfortunately Synkron doesn't seem to have the ability to setup backup 'groups' like Areca and some of the other software I tested yesterday does.

However, it is quite easy to get round this. In your user folder/App Data/Matus Tomlein (on windows, my folder was at C:\Users\Rusty\AppData\Roaming\Matus Tomlein) there is a config file Synkron.ini. After you have setup your 'backup group' with all the tabs you want to be able to execute in one go, either cut the Synkron.ini file and paste it somewhere else, or just rename it. The Synkron.ini file contains the details of the backup group (all the tabs) you just set up.

The next time you start Synkron, it will create a new Synkron.ini file, and all the tabs you added before will be gone. You can now setup all the tabs for your next backup group, then repeat the process until you have all your backup groups setup. Now when you want to load a backup group, just move/rename the relevant file back to the Matus Tomlein group and make sure the file is named Synkron.ini. Then Synkron will load all the tabs from the Synkron.ini file and you can do your group backup.

Not as easy as programs supporting proper backup groups, but not exactly hard to do either.

After getting all my backups done I vacuumed my room and cleaned some tea stains off the carpet. I started a virus scan, got lunch ready, then ate lunch.

After lunch I went on hotukdeals and bought some books. Then I watched a couple of episodes of Lost with Mac, Ben, Luke and Matthew. After that I went on HotUKDeals again, then watched more Lost with Mac, Ben and Luke.

After dinner I watched more Lost with Mac, Ben and Luke. I sorted a few photos, then went to bed.

Food
Breakfast: Grapefruit marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Mature cheddar cheese sandwich; cheese twist; prawn cocktail flavour pringles; a Kettle chip; ½ sliced pickled beetroot sandwich; banana; slice of Madeira cake; Coconut macaroon; Chocolate waver bar (yes, that's what its called); cup o' tea; Baileys chocolate truffle.
Dinner: 2x fish cakes; tomato ketchup; mashed potato; peas; small tinned mushrooms. Pudding was rhubarb crumble with custard and cream. Coffee; Celebration.
Supper: Shortbread finger; coffee.