If you care at all about your images, you'll have a solid backup strategy in place. I recently wrote an article that explained how you can go about setting up your own system:
Square Pixel Photography
In that article I mentioned the use of GoodSync to backup your files to an external hard drive or NAS device
Let me show you how to use it
What Does GoodSync Do?
At a basic level, GoodSync is a software package that will syncronise two file locations so that both locations mirror each other.
It is perfect to use as part of a photography backup solution.
A couple of standout features:
- Syncronise two file locations to backup your data
- Automated, scheduled and real-time file transfer
- Block level data transfer to minimise transfer sizes
- Version history control
- Configurable recycle bin to guard against accidental deletions
How To Set Up A Photography Backup
Before you start backing up files with GoodSync there are a couple of things you'll need to know first:
- The location of the files that you're looking to back up. Something along the lines of
c:/users/you/pictures/photography - The location of the drive that you want to replicate the files to. Preferably on a different physical drive. Something like
d:/backups/photography
Create A New Job
The first thing you'll need to do is create a new backup job. GoodSync will allow you to create any number of different backups jobs with different settings if you so desire. We just need one job for our photo files
Give your job a name. Something like Photo Backup - PC to External HDD
Choose the backup job type.
Select The Source and Destination Locations
Next you'll need to select the source location (where your current files live) and the destination (where your files will be duplicated).
Do this by clicking on the folders at the top of the screen
Then choose your locations and hit the apply button
At this point, you have a simple backup solution. You will probably want to configure a few more things before you start though
Change The Backup Settings
Right-click on the name of your backup job and choose options
In the general tab you can choose the number of days you would like to keep deleted files for. If you delete a file from your main PC, they will be kept in your backup for the number of days you choose here. Personally, I input 365 days. This gives me a year to recover any accidently deleted files.
Next, if you want the backup to run automatically: click on the auto tab. You can choose GoodSync to run whenever a file in your source folder is added, editied or deleted. The delay setting is just to give your PC time to finish with the file before it is copied across. You can also choose to run the backup on a timed schedule or when GoodSync starts if you'd prefer.
I'd suggest leaving all of the other settings at their default. Hit the OK button when you're done.
Wait For The Sync To Happen
If you chose the automate settings that I suggested above, GoodSync will automatically scan your folders and perform an initial sync.
There is nothing more you need to do - When GoodSync is open, it will keep an eye on your files and sync them whenever there are changes.
If you didn't choose an automatic option you will need to hit the Analyse button. Once the analysis is done you can then hit `sync' to start the process. Without the automation you will need to do that every time you want to update your backup
Remember: the more automated your backup is, the less likely you are to forget to do it. Less effort is better
Summary
Following the steps above, you will be able to sync two folders to backup your photos.
This will satisfy the '2' in the 3-2-1 backup strategy that I spoke about in my 'How To Backup Your Photos' article.
You can download the GoodSync software by clicking on the banner below to try it out for yourself
