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I need to backup some windows machines and have been unable to find the proper tool. What I need is a tool that does efficient copying of changed files to a windows network location, like Rsync does. In turn, the server will then back that up using rdiff-backup, a tool which does very clever incremental backups.

Right now I'm using windows' 7 included backup feature, but I really don't get that. It's too much off-topic, but it doesn't suffice (seems buggy as well). I looked into Amanda, but as soon as it wanted to install MySQL, I aborted. I also tried Deltacopy, but unfortunately, I don't remember what the problem with that was...

Any advice for an rsync like tool that just does daily syncs to a network location?

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I just rediscovered a deltacopy problem: no ability to exclude windows junctions (hard links), creating infinite loops and a lot of redundancy. This is a cygwin problem, so all cygwin apps do this... – Halfgaar Jan 10 '11 at 11:56
The proper tool to backups windows would be windows backup, I'm curious as to the problems you are having. Perfmorming an r-sync like backup will be far less efficient than a shadowcopy backup – Jim B Jan 10 '11 at 13:13
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WIndows 7 backup stores inefficiently (doesn't do incremental storage like rdiff-backup); it has no 'delete older than x' option, the display of backups when you want to remove backups only shows three backup sets, all like "from 25-12-2010 to 25-12-2010" (same start and end date) and the dates it shows seem random, even though it backs up every day (which is confirmed by that I can pick a restore point properly). – Halfgaar Jan 10 '11 at 13:48
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Synctoy seems to be what I need: it knows to skips junctions, it can simply run all tasks with synctoycmd -R, doesn't fail on unreadable files. Nice.

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Synctoy is a vastly under-rated tool. I think people see the word "toy" in the name and sneer at it, which is perhaps understandable, but it actually does a great job. – DJ Pon3 Jan 30 '11 at 16:16
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up vote 2 down vote

http://stoilis.blogspot.com/2005/09/windows-rsync-alternative.html
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/index.html
http://www.gaztronics.net/rsync.php

Have a look at the above links, you should be able to either setup rsync on windows or use an alternative tool as above.

hope that helps

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See my comment above about cygwin. This would apply to Unison too... – Halfgaar Jan 10 '11 at 12:39
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up vote 2 down vote

Try BackupPC. It's a web front end wrapped around an rsync-based client/server system. (I haven't used it in many years, but it was pretty useful then and it's still being updated.)

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up vote 1 down vote

I think Robocopy is probably the closest Windows specific program to rsync that you're going to get. You can script it to have the same functionality as rdiff-backup.

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Except that it doesn't use volume shadow copy, so it can't open locked files, it doesn't have a '--delete-excluded' option (can be overcome, but still annoying). – Halfgaar Jan 10 '11 at 15:40
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I think your best bet is going to be to find some software that utilizes VSS, such as Cobian Backup or Microsoft SyncToy. – churnd Jan 10 '11 at 17:11
Is SyncToy scriptable/schedulable? – Halfgaar Jan 12 '11 at 7:39
Yes, using VBS or batch. It has a synctoycmd executable that you can pass arguments to. – churnd Jan 12 '11 at 12:12
Late comment, but synctoy seems what I need: it knows to skips junctions, it can simply run all tasks with synctoycmd -R, doesn't fail on unreadable files. Nice. – Halfgaar Jan 25 '11 at 11:37
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