How long to back up 220 GB?

[robcat2075]

I realize the actual through put of USB won't be as high as the maximum limit, but how long should i reasonably expect it to take to back up 220GB to a USB 2.0 external drive?

 

A full back-up I'm doing is plunking along at about 6MB/sec which will take about 12 hours.

[Fuchur]

I realize the actual through put of USB won't be as high as the maximum limit, but how long should i reasonably expect it to take to back up 220GB to a USB 2.0 external drive?

 

A full back-up I'm doing is plunking along at about 6MB/sec which will take about 12 hours.

 

Best you can archieve with USB 2.0 is about 480 MBit / s.

480 / 8 = 60 MB/s.

 

However you never get those connection-speeds.

More realistic is something like 15-25 MB/s.

 

Lets say you get 20 MB/s (depends highly on the size of the files you are transfering. Many small files will take (much) longer than one large file, etc.

 

For 20 MB/s:

220 000 / 20 / 60 / 60 = about 3,1h.

 

For 10 MB/s:

220 000 / 10 / 60 / 60 = about 6,2h.

 

For 6 MB/s:

220 000 / 6 / 60 / 60 = about 10,2h.

 

> Do you just copy the files or are you compressing them? If you are compressing, 12h would be a very good value.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

> Do you just copy the files or are you compressing them? If you are compressing, 12h would be a very good value.

 

They're not compressed. There's 156,000 files in all.

 

Would it be quite a bit faster if i switched to backing up to an internal SATA drive or does the filecount mean it 's gong to be slow anyway?

[Fuchur]

> Do you just copy the files or are you compressing them? If you are compressing, 12h would be a very good value.

 

They're not compressed. There's 156,000 files in all.

 

Would it be quite a bit faster if i switched to backing up to an internal SATA drive or does the filecount mean it 's gong to be slow anyway?

 

It's going to be slow anyway. It will be a little faster of course (you will receive write speeds up to 3 GBit/s (assuming you are using SATA2, real speeds may be at 50-80 MByte/s) but since it is not really the data-amount but the access-times which really count here, it will not be very fast neighter. SSDs may be a little faster, but it will cost you quite much more. USB 3.0 is more or less as fast as SATA3 (a little under that, but still very fast), but most HDDs can't provide that speed anyway and like that you will be at a level of SATA2 with USB 3 too.

 

All in all: Not much to do there. It will take a long time.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[Ilidrake]

I use an external drive to back up but I run everything with a batch file because DOS is still a bit quicker, and I can automate alot of the steps like auto overwrite without confirmation. Here's a batch example I use. Edit to desired effect.

 

@echo off

:: variables

set drive=G:\Backup

set backupcmd=xcopy /s /c /d /e /h /i /r /y

 

echo ### Backing up My Documents...

%backupcmd% "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents" "%drive%\My Documents"

 

echo ### Backing up Favorites...

%backupcmd% "%USERPROFILE%\Favorites" "%drive%\Favorites"

 

echo ### Backing up email and address book (Outlook Express)...

%backupcmd% "%USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book" "%drive%\Address Book"

%backupcmd% "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities" "%drive%\Outlook Express"

 

echo ### Backing up email and contacts (MS Outlook)...

%backupcmd% "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook" "%drive%\Outlook"

 

echo ### Backing up the Registry...

if not exist "%drive%\Registry" mkdir "%drive%\Registry"

if exist "%drive%\Registry\regbackup.reg" del "%drive%\Registry\regbackup.reg"

regedit /e "%drive%\Registry\regbackup.reg"

 

:: use below syntax to backup other directories...

:: %backupcmd% "...source directory..." "%drive%\...destination dir..."

 

echo Backup Complete!

@pause

[robcat2075]

Just to try I did a copy/Paste of the same 225GB of folders from one drive to another internal drive and that whizzed along at about 55-60 MB/s and got done in an hour.

 

that's fast and easy but since the backup program didn't manage it I can't really do incremental backups after that.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

One word... Syncback (I use Syncback Freeware.) This is the website ... Two Bright Sparks Dot Com

 

This will only update files which have changed or you can force backup everything with archive bit set, etc. Lots of options. Uses it's own copy engine or can utilize Windows copy engine. You also can exclude files or sub directories you don't want synchronized.

 

I sync 1.5 TB drives with this and it works great!

[agep]

I recommend SyncToy

Easy to set up and sync various folder pairs

[robcat2075]

A straight copy to my USB hard drive is hitting about 26 MB/sec.

 

So it looks like the backup program itself a huge bottleneck.

[thejobe]

i been using EZ Backup For years and years (since like windows 2000)

it has never failed me once.

makes the backup process that much easier.

[NancyGormezano]

One word... Syncback (I use Syncback Freeware.) This is the website ... Two Bright Sparks Dot Com

 

This will only update files which have changed or you can force backup everything with archive bit set, etc. Lots of options. Uses it's own copy engine or can utilize Windows copy engine. You also can exclude files or sub directories you don't want synchronized.

 

I sync 1.5 TB drives with this and it works great!

 

Me too. Your first backup will be long, but after that it's quite zippy for incremental backups. Amazing free, versatile program.

[Fuchur]

One word... Syncback (I use Syncback Freeware.) This is the website ... Two Bright Sparks Dot Com

 

This will only update files which have changed or you can force backup everything with archive bit set, etc. Lots of options. Uses it's own copy engine or can utilize Windows copy engine. You also can exclude files or sub directories you don't want synchronized.

 

I sync 1.5 TB drives with this and it works great!

 

Me too. Your first backup will be long, but after that it's quite zippy for incremental backups. Amazing free, versatile program.

 

I used Synkron for those tasks... very help and powerful too

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[mouseman]

I use FBackup, and I do full backups. I had to separate my C: and D: drive backups due to the time they take. I basically plug in the external drive, start the backup for either C: or D:, and it's done in the morning. The next night I do the other drive.

 

I know someone else that uses SyncBack Pro, although primarily for deploying files from a development machine to a production machine.

[KJ'd Beast]

Anyone use Easeus Todo Backup? I'm not sure about speed I've never really timed it. I have the free version. I mostly use the Lenovo backup software that came with my laptop.

[mouseman]

I guess I should have said I use a USB3 port + connector + drive. I know you said you have USB2, but if you can manage adding USB3, that's totally the way to go.