How do I set up 2 external hard drives to automatically backup new files?

I want to set up 2 external hard drives to automatically mirror my main external hard drive which contains all of my music and photos. External hard drive #2 would be kept at home and external hard drive #3 would be kept at work for safekeeping. I have no clue how to set this up or if it is even possible. I would like recommendations on who to set it up so the main external hard drive automatically backups any new files (songs/photos) to drive #2 all the time and then to drive #3 when I bring it home monthly and plug it in.

I know this sounds somewhat confusing because I am confusing myself but it is long overdue to backup my external hard drive. I would prefer not to have to pay for anything other then the extra hard drives. If I loose the family photos on the hard drive, my wife will look like this....

Thanks,
Rick

K-9 Cop wrote in post #15680216
I want to set up 2 external hard drives to automatically mirror my main external hard drive which contains all of my music and photos. External hard drive #2 would be kept at home and external hard drive #3 would be kept at work for safekeeping. I have no clue how to set this up or if it is even possible. I would like recommendations on who to set it up so the main external hard drive automatically backups any new files (songs/photos) to drive #2 all the time and then to drive #3 when I bring it home monthly and plug it in.

I know this sounds somewhat confusing because I am confusing myself but it is long overdue to backup my external hard drive. I would prefer not to have to pay for anything other then the extra hard drives. If I loose the family photos on the hard drive, my wife will look like this....

Thanks,
Rick

My wife looks like that right now physical HD failure now its $400-$1000 to try and get them back with a recovery service.

Have you tried storing stuff in the "cloud"? at an off site server/storage? It might be easier that having two external drives.

I use Carbon Copy Cloner. It's inexpensive and can be modified to be run automatically or on demand. I haven't tried to back up to multiple drives at once but I suspect it can be worked out. I have mine set to run on demand (copy from master to backup drive) and it works flawlessly. This setup allows me to disconnect the drives as well.

sffire wrote in post #15680325
Have you tried storing stuff in the "cloud"? at an off site server/storage? It might be easier that having two external drives.

I am so tired of hearing the cloud is the answer .... I tried this with dropbox and one other 30 day trial site (not sure which one). I placed 4 folders for upload (4 outings worth of photos). It took over 12 hours to upload. I could not imagen if I placed the last 10 years worth of photos in there for upload, it would be uploading for the next year.

On my Mac I use SuperDuper to clone 2 external drives.

If you use Windows 7, it is possible to set up a drive so that it is automatically used as the destination to back up files.

Start, Control Panel, System Security, Backup and Restore...

I only use the cloud (currently dropbox) to send and receive files from fellow photographers, clients, and ad service....Wilt has it right on the backup instructions ....

a bit off topic but on my Mac I use a external 4tb Western Digital Mac Edition drive and set it to a mirrored raid, on there is my lightroom catologues and my RAW files are on my Drobo, I just got fed up cloning drives and copying stuff so I decided to invest in a half descent storage system, and to date it's worked fine I tried the Cloud, way to slow.

Check out GoodSync ( www.goodsync.com ). I have used their software for years to keep different drives in sync with each other. You can choose to have all the changes go one way, look for changes on both drives. It's pretty powerful and has done me a very good job. I believe they have a free version (I used it free for a long time). The Pro version is not very expensive however. It's a set it up and forget it kind of thing.

Mr.Noisy wrote in post #15680449
a bit off topic but on my Mac I use a external 4tb Western Digital Mac Edition drive and set it to a mirrored raid, on there is my lightroom catologues and my RAW files are on my Drobo, I just got fed up cloning drives and copying stuff so I decided to invest in a half descent storage system, and to date it's worked fine I tried the Cloud, way to slow.

RAID is not a backup. RAID will not protect you from accidental deletion, theft, data corruption, fire, etc. It's more fault tolerant than a single drive, but your data is not safe. Personally I would have my photos on at least three physical drives/arrays in at least two locations.

K-9 Cop wrote in post #15680216
I want to set up 2 external hard drives to automatically mirror my main external hard drive which contains all of my music and photos. External hard drive #2 would be kept at home and external hard drive #3 would be kept at work for safekeeping. I have no clue how to set this up or if it is even possible. I would like recommendations on who to set it up so the main external hard drive automatically backups any new files (songs/photos) to drive #2 all the time and then to drive #3 when I bring it home monthly and plug it in.

I know this sounds somewhat confusing because I am confusing myself but it is long overdue to backup my external hard drive. I would prefer not to have to pay for anything other then the extra hard drives. If I loose the family photos on the hard drive, my wife will look like this....

Thanks,
Rick

CrashPlan's free version can do this, assuming your work IT policy will allow such connections.

You can set-up most of the sync softwares to backup as needed.

I have main hard-drive + external-1 and external-2

I backup daily to one external ... each month I switch to the other external and put the first one in a firesafe. I guess I'd prefer an off-site, but the firesafe is pretty safe.

I've been doing this for about 3 years - I only shoot jpeg, so I don't have to worry about having enough space.

I do use the cloud - but only for sharing, not for critical storage.

I use FolderClone for my sync-ing, but it's very old - some newer software would probably do better.

I velcro my externals to the lid of my laptop so it's very easy to do my daily's.

mmcguire wrote in post #15680781
RAID is not a backup. RAID will not protect you from accidental deletion, theft, data corruption, fire, etc. It's more fault tolerant than a single drive, but your data is not safe. Personally I would have my photos on at least three physical drives/arrays in at least two locations.

I couldnt agree more, hence using the Drobo to house the original RAW files, too many people read/write about all this,and never use it,
ive used raid systems for a while now, and they are so much easier than having several hdd's lying around and the time it takes copying files back and forth,the mirrored raid simplifies the whole deal, and it works well with lightroom, as for accidental deletion, thats no problem, as the orignal RAW files are on the Drobo and they are also copied to DVD in secure file storage.I dont keep any RAW files on my Mac Pro at all, everything is in my storage systems and I sleep soundly knowing there are several copies of my files without all the headache using cloning apps, and if a drive fails, so what, change it, the raid will rebuild itself and everything will carry on as normal. The Drobo houses 5 hdd's all 3tb so there is plenty of space.

For file and folder synchronization, and for just plan file management, I use a product called Directory Opus. http://www.gpsoft.com.​au/ With it you can manually synchronize any two folders that you see on your network, computer, or external drives.

Because of its very powerful file management and file viewer capability, I use it instead of Windows Explorer. With it you can view (almost) any type of file, including Canon RAW files, which I really like. I use it to quickly review RAW files that I have copied to my hard drive, without having to load DPP or LR.

The below screen shows the synchronization tool. Notice that I sync the "My Lightroom Pictures" folders on a 1TB external Toshiba drive and a 1 TB x 2 ReadyNAS Duo Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. The ReadyNAS Duo has two 1 TB mirrored drives that are automatically kept in sync with built in software. I also have about 130GB of music stored on the ReadyNAS device.

I synchronize between my Toshiba and ReadyNAS Duo as needed. And with the safety of mirrored drives, I don't worry about my external hard drive or one of the ReadyNAS drives failing. Essentially, I have three copies of everything.

The ReadyNAS software monitors each drive and reports bad sectors and other issues. In fact, after about two years I had to replace one of the drives. It was a piece of cake because the drives are "hot swappable."