mirror file directory
Is there a way to use Acronis True Image 2019 (or 2020) to mirror a file directory between two hard-disk drives? I don't want to make a TIB archive if I don't need to, and just simply want to automatically copy/paste/overwrite a file directory (e.g. /Photos/) from one hard disk to another hard disk (e.g. once a week). I could do this manually with copy/paste in the file explorer, but would like to automate the process if possible.
I tried doing a "Files and Folders" backup (via "VSS without writers") but it seems to be making a TIB archive instead of just copying the files and folders.
Thanks for the answer. It would be helpful though to see this feature added in a future version of Acronis.
Nicole Sharp wrote:Thanks for the answer. It would be helpful though to see this feature added in a future version of Acronis.
Hello Nicole! I've registered your feedback as a vote for the existing feature request TI-115104 Return local sync feature, thank you!
Nicole, in the meantime, you might be able to use a simple built in Windows tool called robocopy to MIR one drive or directory to another one.
It's easy, but very powerful. Make sure you have the SOURCE before the DESTINATION as it always copy from the source to the destination - don't get them mixed up or you'll not be happy! I recommend you start with some test folders first, just to be sure.
As an example though, you would launch CMD (command prompt) by right-clicking and "run as administrator" (even if using an admin account) - alternatively, you can copy your code into notepad and change the extension from .txt to .bat to make it a clickable .bat file that you can run anytime you want, or even schedule to run as a scheduled task in Windows. For example, you could use something like this to simply copy one folder on C: to a new folder on D (making sure to use the actual source path and the desired destination path and name)
robocopy.exe C:\SourceFolder D:\DestinationFolder /R:0 /W:0 /MIR
That would copy the entire "sourcefolder" from C: to a new folder called "destinationfolder" on D: as an exact MIRROR with 0 retries and 0 wait time between failures. You can also output the log to a .txt file or use different switches to do different types of copies, but the one above seems like it would be what you're looking for.
robocopy /? will output all of the possible switches if you want to look at all the different options
**** NOTE: You should not attempt to mirror Windows file systems or program files that are in use - you should not attempt to use this to duplicate full OS drives. Robocopy is meant to help with DATA (files, documents, pictures, etc.) It works really well though.
If you are looking to mirror an entire user profile, you need to exclude a couple folders too because of "recursive" names used by Windows 8/8.1./10 for backwards compatibility with Windows 7/xp. For example, if you want to mirror an entire user profile, use /xd to exclude certain folders (in particular appdata because you will get in a recursive loop if you don't that nests appdata within itself over and over). For example:
robocopy.exe C:\users\exampleusername\ D:\exampleusernamebackup /R:0 /W:0 /MIR /xd Appdata /xd "Application Data"
Ultimately, if it's simple data you can easily copy individual folders or even a folder that has several folders within it to a different location using the /MIR switch to replicate the folders and files from one place to another pretty easily.