BACK UP AND SYNCHRONISE BETTER
7 Synchronise your folders
Synchronising folders means you’ll always have a current copy of your files that you can disconnect and take with you should you need to work away from your main machine. You can set up synchronisation using the free personal edition of Synchredible (www.snipca.com/42053).
Make sure your external drive is connected and, on the first screen, select the folder you want to back up by clicking the folder icon below Folder 1, and the folder to which you want to synchronise its contents by clicking the folder icon below Folder 2. We’re synchronising our Documents folder to an empty external drive, which is connected as D:( 1 in our screenshot).
Click ‘Next’, then specify how the synchronisation should be handled. You can sync just from Folder 1 to Folder 2 by clicking the left-hand tick box 2 . If you do, any file you add to or delete from Folder 1 will be added to or deleted from Folder 2, but anything you do to Folder 2 will have no effect on Folder 1. Ticking only the right-hand box 3 does the opposite, so operations you perform on Folder 2 will be reflected in Folder 1. However, we want to keep the folders fully synchronised at all times, which is how online-storage services like Dropbox behave, so we’ve ticked both boxes.
Click ‘Next’ twice, then optionally specify whether Synchredible should ignore any specified file types, such as large downloads that would quickly eat into your available space. Click the Exclude tab, followed by Add, then select ‘Manual filter’ in the dropdown menu. Specify the extension (such as *.iso to exclude all files with an iso extension) or folder (such as /backups/ for a backups folder inside Folder 1, if it exists) that you want to exclude.
Click ‘Next’ again, then expand the ‘Synchronization on changes’ section
and tick the boxes beside both ‘Synchronization on changes in folder 1’ and ‘Synchronization on changes in folder 2’ boxes to enable real-time monitoring. Any amendments you make to your files will now be immediately reflected in the synchronised folder. Click ‘Next’ twice, followed by Apply.
Finally, click ‘Execute task’ to perform your first synchronisation. This will take longer than subsequent syncs, which only copy across changes. Even so, our initial synchronisation of 633 files completed in less than two minutes. You can now close the Synchredible window and the program will continue running in the background.
8 Back up files as ISOS
ISO files are virtual disks. Creating one when backing up a folder ensures its contents exactly match the source material when re-opened, complete with its original sub-folder structure. You don’t need any special software to read an ISO, but you do need a free program like Folder2iso to create one.
Click the Onedrive link half way down the page at www.snipca.com/42052 to download Folder2iso. When it’s arrived, double-click the file to expand it, then launch the ‘Folder2iso.exe’ file from the /folder2iso/ folder inside your Downloads folder.
Click ‘Select Folder’ and choose the folder you want to back up, then click Select Output and navigate to the location where you want to save the ISO file. Give the ISO a name in the ‘File name’ box, and click Save. Next, click ‘Generate ISO’ (see screenshot) and wait for the process to complete (it took around 20 seconds for the 633 files in our Documents folder), then check that it’s made an accurate copy of your originals by navigating to the ISO file, double-clicking it, and selecting File Explorer when Windows asks how you want to open it. It should mount as a new drive (E: in our case), masquerading as a CD ROM.