Christopher Greaves

416-621-9348 cgreaves@chrisgreaves.com
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Encryption And Off-site Backup Storage (Home) ; Overview ; The Problem ; The Essence Of The Solution ; How Long Does It Take To Do A Backup? ; Assumptions ; Breakdown Of Tasks ; The Stand-Alone Solution ; The Networked Solution ; Let’s Get Started ; Mounting The Backup Drive ; Mounting An Encrypted Drive ; Waiting For The Backup Drive ; Processing Each Local Drive ; RoboCopy New And Later Files ; RoboCopy Parameter Files ; Append Session Details To A Log File ; Shutting Down the Computer ; Review For Local Systems ; Putting Together The Local Backup System ; SUBSTituting A Drive For A Folder ; Assembling The Batch File ; ( TITLE commands ); Running The Backup Batch File ; Examining Our Results ; Waiting For A Set Of Drives ; Issue the Backup Command To A Set Of Drives ; Modifying The Driving Batch File ; What About The Log File? ; The Upgraded Set Of Batch Files ; Encryption of backup data ; What Is Involved In Encrypting A Backup Device? ; ( Advice On Passwords ); What Is Involved In Mounting An Encrypted Device? ; User Mounted Or Automated? ; Using A DOS Batch File To Facilitate Mounting ; Using A DOS Batch File To Facilitate Dismounts ; Making The External Drives Available Across The Network ; Mounting A Shared Drive For Sharing ; Installing On A Networked Computer ; Running On The Big Beige Box ; An Improved Method Of Waiting ; Shutdown Or Restart? ; At Long Last! A Working Version! ; The Backup.BAT file ; The Mount.BAT file ; The ProcessDrive.BAT file ; The Shutdown.BAT File ; The Encryption Process

Toronto and Mississauga, Friday, December 03, 2010 8:26 AM

Putting Together The Local Backup System

We are now in position to assemble our little toolkit to produce a single DOS Batch file that will effect our backup.

Prudently you might be asking how we will test our system. How will we know that it is working.

Well, if you don’t have a backup system in place, you’ll know it is working when the first time you run the job it takes an hour or more to copy all the files!

If, like me, you already have some sort of backup system in place, you may be concerened about corrupting your existing backup.

One answer to these questions is to test the system on a small part of your hard drive, and use a memory key as the target backup device. Such a test will run in a short time, and will provide a small set of fiels which can be examined for completeness. You can then create of modify one of the source files, rerun the test, and check that the new or modified contents appear on the memory key.

“But won’t these files be skipped when I come to do the real backuup?”. No. RoboCopy will copy files that are new or newer, so although you might have copied your Christmas letter to the memeory key during the test, it will still be a new or newer version than that on your extrenal backup drive; RoboCopy will re-copy it, this time to the external drive.

I have a 4GB memory key. It appears as drive F: on My Computer. Drive F: will therefore assume the role of my backup device.

I located a drive T: containing about 1.5GB of files. This drive is a DOS SUBSTitute for a folder on my hard drive. I will be treating a small folder tree as if it were a real drive for the purpose of my test.

SUBSTituting A Drive For A Folder

Toronto and Mississauga, Friday, December 03, 2010 8:26 AM