Sync WHS
SyncToy is now available as version 2.0 Beta for download from the Microsoft Download Center. SyncToy allows you to synchronize folders between your home computers and your Windows Home Server by creating multiple folder pairs that you can keep synchronized.
I use it to synchronize my photos and music on my laptop and my Windows Home Server so that when I am out and about with my laptop I always have local copies available.
Other tools which have the same function include RoboCopy, included with the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools, the Robocopy GUI (Make sure you checkbox the /Z in the Copy Options page) and SecondCopy, which runs as a service on WHS and can be used to backup your server to another unit.
More info available at the Windows Home Server Blog.
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Hello,
Do you have this installed on the client computer or WHS? Which way would be preferred? I assume this is not a add-in.
Josh
Now wouldn’t this be nice if one had two WHS servers and one could sync between them, and across the Internet?
Hi Josh,
I have my copy of SyncToy installed on the server. An add-in for WHS implementing SyncToy will be available shortly.
Hi Bob Crook,
Two home servers. Now that would be nice.
Bob and Philip,
A friend and I are looking to take advantage of each of having a WHS. We are looking for automatic offsite backup. We have explored Amazon’s S3 model and it would work. But why not take advantage of our latent bandwidth in the night on our broadband connections and have his WHS backup mine, and mine his. 100G each would hit the critical files.
We are just entering into this and are looking for synchronization options. We’ll probably do a bulk load via USB drive and then have incremental syncs be done over the internet. We’ll see how it goes, but if you have ideas on sync architecture and tools, I’d be grateful for some info.
Tom
Hi To Krohn,
I personally back up to BlueHost.com via F T P. They give you 1,500 GB of storage space for approx. $7 per month, which is allowed to be used for backup purposes. You can backup the files and sync using either Second Copy or other software. See here for setup details.
Has anyone had problem with Robocopy not copying files in the top level of WHS shares. Mine will not copy any files that are located in d:\shares\music or d:\shares\videos… Files and sub-folders under these will copy just not files in top level of each share. Here’s options i’ve used.
robocopy.exe d:\shares \\other-server\e$\HPServer\d\shares /MIR /XJ /ZB /COPY:DAT /R:0 /W:0 /LOG+:\\other-SERVER\e\BACKUP.LOG /NP /TEE
also tried it like this
robocopy.exe \\HPServer\d$\shares \\other-server\e$\HPServer\d\shares /MIR /XJ /ZB /COPY:DAT /R:0 /W:0 /LOG+:\\other-SERVER\e\BACKUP.LOG /NP /TEE
I get same results from both methods. The backup log shows that robocopy sees the files in top level of shares, but just doesn’t copy.
3 d:\shares\Music\
76 d:\shares\Videos\
These 3 files in music and 76 files in videos are not in target.
@Criag: There’s now a better tool called RichCopy that replaces RoboCopy. Testing this right now on my newly built Scaleo WHS. Get it here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.04.utilityspotlight.aspx
Also, it would be a better idea to use mapped drives instead of directly referencing the folder structure in your example. At least, thats how I’m doing it right now. 🙂