ROBOCOPY Backup best practices

First, helpful scripts

Recently, I came across an issue to copy/paste nested files/folders where we had to copy selective data but wanted to ensure not to overwrite existing data(folders/subfolders/files). I was ableto achieve it with the following three scripts with date ranges and then complete source destination copy paste.

! — This will compare data 90 t0 180 days old data

robocopy <AndoverPath>\DocumentStoreRoot <ExternalHardDrivePath>\DocumentStoreRoot /minage:20190601 /maxage:20181201 /e /XO /log+:c:\RoboCopyLog<TimeStamp>.txt

! — everything older than a year.

robocopy <AndoverPath>\DocumentStoreRoot <ExternalHardDrivePath>\DocumentStoreRoot /minage:20181201 /e /XO /log+:c:\RoboCopyLog<TimeStamp>.txt

How to take Differential Backup

I have been successfully using the following script for a few years now:

robocopy “Source folder” “Destination folder” /MT[:15] /MIR /E /ETA /ZB /log:”C:\logs\Dailybackup.txt”

robocopy C:\source M:\destination /MIR /FFT /R:3 /W:10 /Z /NP /NDL

The /MIR option (equivalent to /E /PURGE) stands for “mirror” and is the most important option. It regards your source folder as the “master”, causing it to overwrite any changes on the target side, which is a useful setting for a backup.

/R:3 specifies the number of retries, if the connection should fail, and /W:10 specifies a wait time of 10 seconds between retries. These are useful options when doing the backup over a network.

/FFT is a very important option, as it allows a 2-second difference when comparing timestamps of files, such that minor clock differences between your computer and your backup device don’t matter. This will ensure that only modified files are copied over, even if file modification times are not exactly synchronized.

/NP and /NDL suppress some debug output, you can additionally add /NS, /NC, /NFL to further reduce the amount of output (see the documentation for details). However, I would suggest to print some debug output during the first runs, to make sure everything is working as expected.

Another Process for differential Backup is as follows: 

I run this as Administrator so backup mode (/b option) can make copy of files in use.

Other options not related to incremental nature of backup are:

/XD to exclude directories from backup.

/XJD to exclude junction points (“My Music”).

/R:0 to set retry on failed attempts to 0.

/XA:SH to skip hidden and system files.

To remove as much logging info as possible, append the following options /NP /NS /NDL /NFL /NC.

How to Take Complete Backup 

robocopy E:\Data1 G:\Backups\Data1 /e /mir /np /log:backup_log.txt
robocopy F:\Data2 G:\Backups\Data2 /e /mir /np /log+:backup_log.txt
robocopy F:\Data3 Q:\Backups\Data3 /e /mir /np /log+:backup_log.txt
pause

Where:
/e = copy all sub-folders, even empty ones
/mir = mirror (check the files in the destination, and only copy newer files)
/np = no progress counter
/log: = create a logfile

Or What I use for my users is as follow if you want to stop and restart the process:

Echo off

“C:\EAGLESOFT\Shared Files\PattersonServerStatus.exe” -stop

robocopy “C:\Eaglesoft\Data” “F:\EagleSoft Backup 09-12-2015″ /e /r:0 /w:0 /tee /log:”F:\logs\patlog.txt”

“C:\EAGLESOFT\Shared Files\PattersonServerStatus.exe” -start

Complete Index for Commands

Copy options

File Selection Options

Retry Options

Logging Options

Job Options

Robocopy examples

robocopy c:\hope c:\hope2 *.txt

In this first example, any .txt file would be copied from the hope directory into the hope2 directory. Whenever you want to copy one or more files and not a complete directory the file must be specified after the destination directory.

robocopy c:\hope c:\hope2

In the above example, the robocopy command would copy all files (not directories) in the hope directory to the hope2 directory.

robocopy c:\hope c:\hope2 /e

In the above example, all files and folders (including empty ones) will be copied from the hope directory to the hope2 directory.

robocopy c:\hope c:\hope2 /MIR

This example will mirror what is in c:\hope into c:\hope2 and purge any files in the hope2 directory that do not exist in the hope directory. Use the /mir switch cautiously since it will be deleting files that do not match in the destination directory.

robocopy \\computer\hope C:\hope2