Backing up

[Tinker]

I am wanting to make a copy of my launchbox installation on a separate drive for safe measure if I make the first copy including all the media initially what will I then have to copy over if I update launchbox or make any changes I obviously don't want to copy the whole thing everytime ?

 

thanks

[JoeViking245]

I was wanting the exact same thing.  Basically have a complete, current backup of my arcade drive (LB, emu's, roms etc..) without having to copy everything again or have a buildup of 'backups'. After a bit of looking around I learned what I was wanting to do was have a synched 'copy'.

I'm using Allway Sync.  Basically after the initial 'copy' [to the backup drive] it keeps track of all changes made [on the original source]. When subsequently ran, it will 'copy' only the changes.  Added, deleted and changed (updated) files.

It's free for non-commercial use "with certain limitations".  

Quote

...the limitations may not allow Customer to process more than 40,000 files in any consecutive 30-days. However, these limitations do not apply when synchronizing local files with the Allway Cloud online data storage account (including free Allway Cloud accounts).

I've ran it only twice [after initial copy] so far and a thing popped up (non intrusively) saying 'you might want to get Pro'.  Ran its' sync and everything appears to just fine.

[Tinker]

Great I will give it a try thanks for the help.

[JoeViking245]

Update on Sync software/program:  The file 'limitation' of Allway Sync kind got me nervous about whether my backup drive was actually a complete replica of my main arcade drive.  So did some more looking.

I came across FreeFileSync.  Current release is 12/12/2018. It's Open Source and under the GNU License. In other words it's free to use without restrictions and is current (updated).  Configuring it seemed a little more straight forward.  The only apparent difference (other the the 40k restriction) is that Allway keeps a running database file of changes made so it will do it's compare step a bit faster.  Whereas FreeFileSync needs to scan/compare both drives every time.  I would think the actual final step of syncing would be the same.