ZephyrBackup
Homepage: www.geisswerks.com
Author: Ryan Geiss
Cost: Free
Feedback: send email to "guava" at the domain "geisswerks.com"
ABOUT ZEPHYRBACKUP
ZephyrBackup is a tiny-but-powerful backup scripting program.
It's basically a user interface that allows you to select
folders to copy using the fast and reliable "XCOPY" command.
It's a great tool for backing up your critical files to a
USB hard drive, or to another computer on the network.
To begin a backup, just select the source folders you want
to copy, as well as the corresponding destination folders
(where you want them copied to). Once you've done this,
you can save the backup script for future re-use.
You can map each source folder in the backup to a
custom destination folder, optionally using powerful tokens
to name destination folders intelligently. For example:
Source Folder Destination Folder
-------------- -------------------
C:\MP3 -> Z:\MP3
C:\MyDocuments -> Z:\backups\2008_01_31\MyDocuments
Notice that the second destination folder, above, was tied
to the current date. If you ran the backup the next day,
the folder name would be 2008_02_01. The special code
you would use to do this is simple:
Z:\backups\<YEAR>_<MONTH>_<DAY>\MyDocuments
Many options are available, from the day of the week (1-7,
sun-sat, Sun-Sat, SUN-SAT, sunday-saturday, etc.), to the
current user name. Click the 'formatting help' button for
full details.
ZephyrBackup supports copying files with verification. It
will also show you, very clearly, if any files were unable to
be copied (for example, if the file was open and locked by
another program). It can also generate a log file of every
file copied if you like, and can auto-save this to a location
of your choice.
ZephyrBackup is freeware.
INSTALLATION
To install ZephyrBackup, just copy the two main files:
zb.exe - the program
zb_doc.html - the documentation
To a directory on your hard drive, and create a shortcut to the
.EXE. That's all there is to it.
TIPS
COMPRESSED FOLDERS:
If your destination drive uses the NTFS format, then you can
select certain folders to be compressed (using Windows Explorer).
We recommend using this option for your destination folders that
hold large amounts of small files or uncompressed data (word documents,
text files, etc.). You will probably save about 30-40% both
in disk space (on the destination drive) and the backup will go
30-40% faster. However, you should NOT compress folders that
will store media data (music, video, pictures) - this kind of
data is already heavily compressed, so you won't be able to
save much space, and the backup will actually go slower in this
case.
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VERSION HISTORY
---------------
v1.0 - 2/3/2008
- Initial release.
v1.1 - 5/14/2008
- Fixed bug with 'Save Script' button.
- Fixed bug with log-viewing at the end of a backup, where sometimes,
the log would not be properly loaded.
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COMING SOON
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-build simple installer (using NSIS)
-add Sync mode