USB Backup App - Best approach

Question

I'm interested in writing a little app to backup files from a USB to help my wife and reduce her stress levels when she thinks she's lost stuff!

I'm trying to figure out the best way to do so, I want something very simple, but like the idea of backing up files that change (bit like SVN). So I've come up with the following idea, but I'm wondering if there might be a better way that someone can suggest.

• Little form app with a 'backup' button that starts of a background thread.
• Thread obtains all the FileInfo's using a recursive search or similar on the USB drive, with a set of file types to scan for.
• Using this information it would compare it to previous information, removing, adding and updating files in a backup folder.

I only want to backup different files for speed. I'm not sure if scanning the backup directory and obtaining FileInfo's to compare would be the best way (obviously using a relative path) or by having a collection of FileInfo's from the last backup, which gets saved off to some XML file or similar.

Alternatively, there might be a whole better way of doing this! Anyone have any suggestions?

Answer 1

Well, for linux you can use something like rsync. http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/ or rsnapshot http://www.rsnapshot.org/

For windows, I believe that microsoft has SyncToy:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?amp;displaylang=en&familyid=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649-CCE41AF06EB7&displaylang=en

Answer 2

well, after years of honey and the kids destroying pc's, in one way or another, i opted for a 1TB NAS with Raid 1( < $400). i created an app that xcopy's selected folders / files on scheduled days. i rest easier now.