How-To Geek

I'm a college student and more than once my flash drive has failed me. I need an application that automatically backups your flash drive when it is inserted. In terms of shareware, the best ones seem to be GoodSync and Allway Sync. I really prefer one that is free and that doesn't limit the number of tasks/files I am doing.

Thanks.

How do you guys deal with the risk of your flash drive failing? I really don't want to manually copy my files every time I have to use my flash drive.

P.S. Cloud storage such as SugarSync and Dropbox sacrifices your privacy, bandwidth (would be fine if they allowed you to control the rate of uploading), and reliability (your account may be compromised, the company may fail, you may not have internet, etc.)

Thanks once again.

3 Ways to Automatically Backup Your Flash Drive

Then, of course there is the simple two line Batch file which can be placed in the autorun.inf file on the root of the drive so that it would run a simple .bat file whenever you plug in your drive. The .bat file would be something like:

xcopy *.* C:\flashdrive1 /a (/a only copies files with the archive bit set, ie. those that have changed.)
attrib -a /s (resets the archive bit. It is set when changes are made to a file.)

Few years ago I tried/used ALLWay Sync to do just that. It worked like a charm.
It's fast and reliable, with the ability to compare source and destination files to backup only new or modified files instead of re-writing over and over.

http://allwaysync.com/features.html

Since your Success in your College courses may depend on the USB Sticks, it is a No-Brainer to have many and back them up Manually.

Better to Pass and Graduate than to tell Professor your computer automatic backup plan failed.

And give your flash drives high drive letters. Not E or F, but R (for example)

I'm still not sure why my idea of a simple batch file in the autorun.inf file of the drive wouldn't be a cheap solution to backing up the new/changed files each time the drive is plugged in which is what the title to the topic wanted. Why are more elaborate/expensive solutions required. The method suggested has worked for my wife for years. In her case any time she wants to backup her files she simply plugs in the backup drive and it copies all her files to it. This is just the reverse direction.