Second Copy
Backups are a pain to maintain. It's a simple fact that people do not like to do them, and usually when you need one the most is when you find out that you don't have one. And naturally, those of us in MIS preach to our users constantly "do backups", yet it's normal for us to forget to maintain backups of our own systems.Backups to tape just take a long time and require some non-trivial setup to accomplish. Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000 does not ship with a disk-to-disk backup utility, which would make life a lot easier. And any backup which requires any kind of manual steps is simply likely to be forgotten or not done frequently enough.
And let's not get into restoration of files from a backup set. It can be a nightmare finding the correct tape, and then there is that nerve-wracking wait while you hope the tape was not bad. If you've ever maintained backup copies of files on Zip or floppy disks, you know how frustrating the library of backups can be to maintain.
Along came a product called Second Copy. This wonderful piece of software solved my backup needs! It's a disk-to-disk utility, and one of it's most attractive features is directory synchronization. I use this on my home computer to maintain a backup copy of critical files from all of my disks.
Here is a description of the program from the company which produces the product.
"Second Copy 2000 copies files and folders from one location to another on the same drive, another drive or across the network. You can setup "profiles" that describe the source location, the destination location, and the frequency at which you want to copy the files. Second Copy 2000 monitors the source files for changes or additions and then automatically copies the new or changed files to their designated destination. The program uses familiar Windows Explorer interface. An easy to use setup profile Wizard, makes configuration job a snap. Advanced options include PKZIP compatible compression, password protection, directory synchronization and background thread priority control. You can also include or exclude specific file or sets of files from the copy and keep up to 25 old versions of files. Once you configure the profiles with your important file locations, the program sits as an icon in Windows "system tray" and unobtrusively copies files in the background. Can be used to synchronize files between the desktop and laptop, or between two remote sites."
This is so easy that it's hard to believe. You just install the program and run a simple, quick wizard. The wizard asks you a few questions about what you want backed up, where you want the files to go and how often you want it done.
What I did is purchase a second disk drive (disks are so cheap nowadays) and I use Second Copy to maintain a duplicate of my data disk. (You don't need to buy a second drive, as you could back up the data into directories on any drive with enough free space). I set it up to copy everything once every 8 hours, overwriting what already exists. And here's one of the really great features: I asked Second copy to create an archive version of everything it copies. Note that Second Copy only copies those files that are changed.
So now if I need a file from backup I simply use the normal Windows Explorer interface to find it from my other disk drive. If for some reason I need to go back a version, I can look in the archive directories.
Oh yes, I still do a full tape backup once in a while (since the Second copy backup is on-line virus programs can find these files and destroy them), but it's not as critical a matter anymore. As long as I do a monthly backup I'm covered.
To summarize, this is a great product to automatically generate a backup copy of your data. I would recommend it to anyone without reservation.