You're not betting on a disk to last forever. Your bet is that both disks do not fail at the same time. Absent a fire or burglary in your home, you method is likely to be very successful. Of course, if your sync is complete, and you remove the files from the source, they will be deleted from the destination. Also, check the logs or at least the dates on your backed up files to ensure your backups are happening.
I also use sync toy and inexpensive, low profile usb flash drives to back up important files from our laptops.
It's always best to keep a copy of your important files off your premises and files that include personal data should be encrypted on and off your PC.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I back up all my important files (Calibre library, iTunes library, personal documents, etc) once a week onto an external USB drive using the very good (and free) Microsoft "SyncToy" tool. Today, when I ran the backup, it got half way through the scan in which it decides which files have changed, and hence need copying, and then failed with an error. Investigation revealed a seemingly irrecoverably corrupt file system on the external drive: presumably the result of a hardware failure, given that I'm scrupulous in correctly dismounting drives.
I'm now in the process of doing a sync to a new external drive to create a new backup.
Just goes to prove the old maxim, that there are two types of hard disk: those that have failed, and those which are about to fail!
I haven't lost any data, but it shows the importance of doing regular backups, and that backup drives themselves can (and do) fail.
|