Off-Site Backup Part 3 – Tools
Overview
The second part to off site backup goes into the tools. For the concept and background to this please see and security here.
Backup Program
I use SyncBack Pro to handle the file copy and triggering the file copy. You will be able to use SyncBack SE for off site backups. Features for online offsite backup include:
- SFTP – secure file transfer
- Versions / differential
The setup is really easy and there is a wizard that would guide you through the setup process. It even has a simulate option to check what it will do without making any changes to your files.
SyncBack has a very good wizard to creating a profile. Profiles are what store the action of what and where to copy to and from.
SyncBack Overview
SyncBack copies files from one place to another with various options with that such as removing the files after it’s copied etc. SyncBack allows multiple profiles which contains the source and destination along with additional settings. You can create multiple profiles so that each copy can have their own settings. Profiles can also be grouped so that they share certain settings such as when they run, etc.
Profile Settings
On the When section you can set SyncBack to start when it sees a drive letter and / or drive serial number, etc. This helps to automate backups that are not constantly connected to the computer. Use the drive letter and serial to limit the chances of your backup running on a drive that is not for backup. For example in Windows the E: drive is typically the next USB drive connected. This can be a USB memory stick, card reader,etc so I would avoid using this drive letter.
I turned off Safe Copy because when it’s on, files are copied onto the drive first, the backup file is deleted after and the copy is renamed to the same as the backup file. This causes a problem if you don’t have enough free space for copying the new files to the backup.
Starting Backup
Profiles can be started manually or automatically. Using Veracrypt and favourites, it will mount the drive to a mid / high lettered drive so that plugging in external drives is unlikely to trigger it such as O:\ for offsite. The trigger as per above can then see the drive is “plugged in” so to speak and start the profile automatically. These can be set in the When section of the profile. Automatic includes shortcut keys.
To start a profile manually by right clicking on a profile selecting one of the run options.
Summary
SyncBack has a lot of options to help automate the copying of files. At the very basic level it can copy files in 2 clicks and it gets more sophisticated from there.
