Topic 'Re: Verifying backups' in forum 'Microsoft Help' - dslreports.com

Re: Verifying backups

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 01:31:39 EDT

plencnerb posted : I re-read your original post, and it sounds like you are doing the compare at the drive level. In my case, the "root" of both of my compares was a specific folder, and inside of it, was all my pictures in multiple sub-folders.

If possible, I would create a directory on the root of the drive (maybe My Pictures) and when you do the compare between drives, don't compare the data from the drive property page. Instead, look at the properties of the folders that all your pictures are in.

If you compare the actual hard drives, you could get extra size and the same number of files / folders showing up, as the size may be counting OS and other files on the root of the drive.

--Brian
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============================
--Brian Plencner

E-Mail: CoasterBrian72Cancer@gmail.com
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Re: Verifying backups

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 22:02:20 EDT

Jodokast96 posted : Just did a quick search for Windiff and it does seem to be out there, but I wasn't too sure if any of the first few places that had it were safe. But I did find winmerge and am running it now.

Re: Verifying backups

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:52:11 EDT

Jodokast96 posted : Plen - Total files and folders are the same, but total size is not. Is it possible that there would be 4-12gb of such OS files? That doesn't sound right to me.

Dave - The only problem with me using batch scripts is I don't know nearly enough about them to know what to actually use.

Re: Verifying backups

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 20:15:13 EDT

dave posted : The old 'windiff' (part of Visual Studio) was handy as well. I don't know where you can get it from nowadays.

There's an open-source program called 'winmerge' which sounds similar.

Still, the underlying advice is the same: if you want to know if two files are the same, you have to compare them to see if they're the same.

Re: Verifying backups

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 20:10:30 EDT

dave posted :

said by Jodokast96:

What is the best way to be sure everything is identical across the 3 drives?

Compare the files.

If you can write batch scripts, it's easy: for every file, compare the two copies. Fail if one's mising or is different.

The tools you need are the 'for' command (for /?) and the 'fc' command (fc /?)

Re: Verifying backups

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:46:45 EDT

plencnerb posted : I wrote my own backup script that runs every day to copy files from my main drive to a 2nd 500 GB HD.

Its mostly a lot of xcopy commands. For my pictures, the command is below (btw, I run that from the root of the "My Pictures folder")

xcopy /E /Y *.* "D:\System Backup\Pictures"

If I do a right-click on the folder "Pictures" I get the exact same size if I went to the actual "My Pictures" folder on my C drive.

In the above picture, my source is on the left, and my backup is on the right.

What should match is the number of files / folders, and the Size.
"Size on Disk" may be different, depending on a few factors, including fragmentation level, and if you have compression turned on or not.

For me, I know my xcopy command won't copy the "Protected operating system files", like "Desktop.ini" and "thumbs.db". If a number of them are present on your source drive, they may not be copied to your destination drive / media, which could result in a difference in total files and size.

--Brian

--
============================
--Brian Plencner

E-Mail: CoasterBrian72Cancer@gmail.com
Note: Kill Cancer to Reply via e-mail

Verifying backups

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:26:08 EDT

Jodokast96 posted : I'm in the process of cleaning up and backing up my photos. I've moved/consolidated everything to a new drive, and have copied to a new third drive identical to the second. Before I continue, I want to be sure everything is where it should be. If I select the individual drive properties, I get different amounts of used space for each drive ranging from 4-12gb. But if I select all of the folders for each individual drive, I do get identical file/folder numbers and nearly identical data usage (less than 2kb difference). What is the best way to be sure everything is identical across the 3 drives?