how to back up faster

johnhoh said:

A couple times a day I run robocopy to incrementally back up only those files recently modified on a data drive. The backup target is an identical data drive on my home network and both drives have the same 1000 folders and 15,000 files. The command I use to do this is:

robocopy \\main\data\ \\backup\data\ /s /xo /ndl /XF ~*.* /xx /W:3 /TBD

this usually results in 10 or 20 files being backed up so that part takes just a few seconds but the whole job can take a couple minutes because robocopy has to check through all 15,000 files and it would be nice to cut that time down further. I'm wondering:

1) is there a way to use robocopy to do this faster, or
2) is there another program that I could use, one that would keep track of which files have been modifed so that all 15,000 don't have to be analyzed with each backup.
Thanks!
win10 21H2 19044.1415

Pretty much any method you use will have to "check" to see what has changed.
You might be better served by "scheduling" your Robocopy command to run just once a day or even once a week.
Set it for a time when you aren't using your computer.

I would recommend Macrium Reflect. It would create a full backup then run a differential backup which only saves changed files since the full backup. The paid version allows incremental backups which save changed files since the diff backup. It quickly checks for the changes though. On my 2TB SSD it takes 4 hours for a full backup including verifying the file. An incremental takes a few minutes incl verifying.
Depending on how often your files change the free version is enough; if they change every day & their loss would be difficult to recover then I would certainly consider the paid version.
Macrium Software | Reflect Free Edition

@Bastet

In order for Macrium to make incremental or differential backups... it still has to "check".
Aka, compare the current state of the computer to the state of the last backup... of w/e type.

Which, is the same thing Robocopy is doing.

Ghot said:

@Bastet

In order for Macrium to make incremental or differential backups... it still has to "check".
Aka, compare the current state of the computer to the state of the last backup... of w/e type.

Which, is the same thing Robocopy is doing.

Fair enough. I was thinking Macrium may be quicker.

Bastet said:

Fair enough. I was thinking Macrium may be quicker.

Yeah, I don't know the methods they use now a days. But back when I was coding... they just compared the list on the left with the list on the right. And they compared every item.
I can't think of any other way it could be done, but ya never know.

Or to put it another way... I would assume both Macrium and Robocopy use whatever is the fastest method.

You can really improve robocopy speed using multithreading.

How to use Robocopy multi-threaded feature to speed up file copy on Windows 10 • Pureinfotech

Ghot said:

Yeah, I don't know the methods they use now a days. But back when I was coding... they just compared the list on the left with the list on the right. And they compared every item.
I can't think of any other way it could be done, but ya never know.

Or to put it another way... I would assume both Macrium and Robocopy use whatever is the fastest method.

To do really fast backups of files on Reflect, you need the paid version to do incremental backups using change block tracking. I never bother with CBT normally as I have 2 fast 1TB NVME drives.

Hello @johnhoh,

I am a bit late, but these also contain excellent RoboCopy information . . .

> ROBOCOPY - ss64
> robocopy

I hope this helps.