I just got a big hard drive for the purpose of regularly backing up my entire collection. Other than formatting my hard drive, I’m not exactly sure how I should go about it though. I’ve never had any kind of data that was worth making backups for until now. I know obviously how to copy and paste folders from one hard drive to the other, but I’m curious if the community has a better way I should go about this. I’m constantly moving around folders, editing filenames, and updating videos. If I just copy and paste, all of those previous versions are going to remain on the new backup drive, and I fear that all that clutter is going to add up and affect storage space fast. If nothing else, it’s going to turn into so much clutter it will be too overwhelming to sift out. If I just delete the contents from the backup drive and then copy and paste my updated library into it each time I want to back it up, that will take many hours and likely even days. It took three days just to format my new hard drive alone. If do have to perform backups this way, am I potentially damaging the drive by putting unnecessary wear on it? Should I get software for making backups?
I feel kind of dumb asking this because I know this should be a Googleable problem, but is it just me or are Google results increasingly becoming trash for certain topics? It seems like the entire first page of results for this are ads for backup software, articles that are actually ads for backup software, and AI generated articles. Anyway I thought I might be better off just asking here, and hopefully the information here can help other community members.
I don’t have an answer since my old solution isn’t supported anymore. I used to use a Microsoft tool called SyncToy. It had several options on how to sync files and folders. The one I used was called echo i.e., everything that happens on the source is replicated on the target. That way I could rearrange and rename files however I wanted and SyncToy would perform the same changes on my backup USB drive. I’m pretty sure that there are similar tools out there. However, I use a NAS with RAID so if a disk fail I can replace that and I also use cloud storage so the backup need with a USB drive is not as relevant anymore so I haven’t really looked into a replacement for SyncToy.
Anyways, try looking for a file sync tool. Googling for SyncToy alternative I got this page with open source options. I’ve no clue if they are good, but it might be a place to start if you want to look into it further.
hi, well im not so tech savy but this is what I do, you can get a 4 TB flashdrive (which are cheaper than getting a SSD or harddrive) and use that as a backup. Do what you need to do to the main folder and once your done just update the flash drive. There may be some back and forth but this is more cost effective. Well for me anyway.
Thank you everyone who has replied so far. I’m so glad I finally asked this here because it sounds like you guys understand what I’m trying to do and have some good solutions. Some of this stuff is a little over my head. I’ll need to read through some of your different suggestions some more. I want to make sure I get my backup done correctly from the start before I just start copying a bunch of folders into it and making a big mess of things.
Personally, I prefer using some kind of ‘light backup’ for huge files that I would probably be able to re-download if needed.
In short, I only backup the small and important files like .funscript, and, for everything else, I only backup the filenames (to be able to know what I lost).
Basically, I have the following script that runs every night. The resulting .7z files are then included in my cloud backup.
c:
cd %~dp0
set idtemp=%date:~10,4%%date:~4,2%%date:~7,2%-%time:~0,2%%time:~3,2%%time:~6,2%
set id=%idtemp: =0%
mkdir temp >nul
dir /S /A:-D "C:\Medias" >"temp\AllFiles-%id%-Complete.log"
dir /B /S /A:-D "C:\Medias" >"temp\AllFiles-%id%-Medias-unsorted.log"
dir /B /S /A:-D "C:\Medias [sources]" >"temp\AllFiles-%id%-MediasSources-unsorted.log"
sort <"temp\AllFiles-%id%-Medias-unsorted.log" >"temp\AllFiles-%id%-Medias.log"
sort <"temp\AllFiles-%id%-MediasSources-unsorted.log" >"temp\AllFiles-%id%-MediasSources.log"
pushd temp
del *-unsorted.log
"%~dp0\7z\7za.exe" a "%~dp0\BackupFilesLists-%id%.7z"
del *.log
popd
pushd "C:\Medias\Adult"
"%~dp0\7z\7za.exe" u -r "%~dp0\BackupAdult-%id%.7z" *.funscript *.meta *.txt *.ofsp *.srt
popd
Note: I also use DrivePool, like realcumber. “Medias [source]” contains links to all my physical hard drives. “Medias” is the merged-folder that DrivePool creates.
Another thanks to everyone who’s responded so far!
For now at least, I’ve started using FreeFileSync. I found it through the open source alternativeto site that @sentinel posted. It’s going to take more than a few days for me to get everything backed up, but so far I’m really liking the software. It’s doing everything I want it to by mirroring one drive onto the other. It’s not a fancy UI, but it makes it pretty clear what’s being created and what’s being removed. If, for whatever reason, this software doesn’t cut it, I might try the software that @Realcumber recommended since it was also endorsed by @Zalunda or the one recommended by @mADsCRIPTS.
It seems like it would be a good idea to have a place on EroScripts dedicated to information on storing, maintaining, and backing up one’s collection. There’s a lot of good information in this thread alone. I may not end up using the more advanced solutions that @tj9999 and @Zalunda posted, but I could see many other members finding that info incredibly useful. Maybe we could get everything in one place and there could be a wiki or something with all of these bits and pieces on this topic that are currently scattered around the site?
Online storage has the risk of data removal. Pirated content is often still scanned even if the personal container is encrypted. These storage systems often work by hashes to recognise duplicate data, which for piracy detection makes it very easy.
A physical data storage medium is less vulnerable on that part (but are vulnerable to degrade over time).
Idealy you want both. And online is generaly more convenient in day to day use. Even if a file is then removed, your local and physical storage can still cover it.
But an important note to check in EULAs for online platforms. They must not have permission to manage your local data! Such permissions would allow them to erase your data localy upon detecting pirated content.
Especialy in the US thats an important thing to check for, and in the EU its not a bad idea to do that anyway. While in the EU they arent allowed to remove your data (as they cannot know the origin of the content), the US is a lot less carefull here. In the US they have a near wildcard on laws to cover the company to delete the files, while in the EU they dont. In the EU removal of such data is even illegal (since they cannot know the origin of the content, they cannot confirm whether that was legaly or illegaly obtained, hence arent allowed to remove the file).
Might be overthinking a backup aspect, but since a lot of content here is likely to be detected as pirated content, its worthy to still think about it and check for potential issues.
I just use this tool called rclone to sync folders.
The setup may take a bit but the commands are simple, and I make some batch files to backup any major folders.
The main commands I use are:
rclone copy FROM TO
rclone sync FROM TO
Where FROM and TO are directories enclosed with quoted.
So for example
rclone copy “C:\Users\John\Desktop\Funscripts” “D:\Funscripts Backup”
The sync command will make the TO folder have only the files that the FROM folder has.
Note that the commands have to be perfect as the deleted files using the sync command may not end up in your recycle bin.
I keep all videos, scripts, and mp3s (e-stim) off my main machine entirely, and use a 4TB Western Digital external HDD to store and manage all the things. I back that up on occasion to another 10TB that is partitioned to back up my machine regularly, and back up the “porn stash” separately.
I’ve been WFH and remote worker for 15 years now, we used Skype for years before Zoom came along, doing screen sharing presentations and more, so I’ve always had an eye out for the situations in which I might open a folder and “Recents” or the last-viewed would come up. Consequently, I’ve always had things on a clean separation; with the external HDD removed, there’s zero chance my private life gets shared accidentally.
I did have a data scare, once, which is why I now back up the HDD to another periodically. It was due to an OS issue, not the hard drive, so I would say WD is reliable storage. I don’t obsessively download everything anymore…and haven’t gone beyond ~50% full. Granted - I don’t run any VR or 4k, which keeps things manageable size-wise, but the addition of converted funscripts to mp3 means that data-wise it’s probably a wash.