For small office server data backup where online/cloud
backup is not feasible/preferred one can use robocopy function which is part of
windows OS. Once we choose the command options properly, it supports full +
differential backup on regular basis i.e. first time it will take full backup
of data and then only changed files are backed up/added to backup destination
folder which may be a USB backup disk OR network share.
Example:
robocopy \\server\D H:\1_D /S /E /XO /XF *.SYS *.EXE /XD
\\SERVER\D\ABC \\SERVER\D\Soft /MT:16 /LOG+:H:\svrDlog.txt /NFL /NDL
(This command backs up \\server\D
drive dirs & files to H:\1_D folder.) Pls. note that when we backup a data
volume not directory (i.e. D drive here), robocopy does hides the destination
folder which needs to be unhide by using Microsoft attrib command.
attrib -h -s H:\1_D
As mentioned in robocopy command /XD is to exclude source
directory from backup set and /XF is to exclude specific file type from backup
set. Also one can add /MAX:10485760 (to limit file size to 10MB) i.e. files
greater than 10MB in size will not be backed up.
Both these commands can be used in dos batch file which can
be scheduled in windows task scheduler to run at specific time. Also as
mentioned LOG is appended to logfile mentioned. We can verify backup status by
viewing logfile.