How to Backup and Restore Your Data Using SyncBack
How to Create a Backup Using SyncBack
When you start SyncBack (the location will depend on where you installed it to, but should be something like Start menu -> All Programs -> 2BrightSparks -> SyncBack -> SyncBack), you'll see a window like the one below. When starting for the first time, it will automatically prompt you to create a profile (which is just data outlining what you want to back, where you want to back it up to, and the various settings associated with this backup). If you're already using it, you can create a new profile by selecting "New" from the "Profiles" menu.
The next window asks for the type of profile you want to create. Since we're creating a backup in this example, we make sure that the first radio button is selected and hit "OK". After doing this, you'll be prompted for a name for the profile.
When the Profile Setup window opens, you'll see that there are lots of things you can configure. The most important is to specify the source and destination for the backup (what you want to copy, and where you want to copy it to). You can browse for the correct locations by clicking on the folder buttons on the right-hand side of the Source and Destination fields.
In this example, we want to back-up everything on our main disk (C:\) to a Backups folder on an external disk (F:\Backups\). We need to make sure also that "Backup the source directories files, including all its sub-directories" is selected, so that we back-up everything on the C: disk.
If we want to exclude specific files and directories (perhaps things like the Temporary Internet Files folder, which contains temporary files downloaded when we view web pages), we can use the "Filter" tab to specify what should and should not be included.
An alternative way to limit the scope is via the "Sub-directories" tab. This lists all of the directories within the folder we've chosen to back-up, and we can select those that we want to exclude by unchecking the boxes next to them.
If we hit the "Expert" button at the bottom of the window, we get extra tabs which allow us to change additional settings. One of the most important is the "Misc" tab, which allows us to create a schedule for the backup to run automatically by clicking on the "Schedule" button.
When we do this, the Windows task scheduler is invoked, with data for the SyncBack profile automatically populated. On the "Task" tab, if the user account has a password associated with this, we need to hit the "Set password..." button and enter it, otherwise the task will not run.
The "Schedule" tab allows us to change the day, time and frequency.
When we're happy (there are additional parameters we can change on the "Settings" tab if required), we hit "OK" and the task is scheduled to run as we specified.
Another useful facility that SyncBack provides is the ability to email the results of the backup. This is useful because it makes it quick and easy to check the status when the backup is running automatically. You can access this via the "Email" tab in the Profile Setup window.
If we check the box to email the log file when the profile has run, and enter the email hostname, port number, to and from email addresses and a subject, then we'll receive the log file in our inbox. Be aware though that these files can be very large, so you may only want to do this at first, while you satisfy yourself that the backup is working the way you want. After that, you may want to check the box to only send the log file if an error occurs. When setting this up, you can use the "Test Email Settings" button to ensure that the fields are all correctly populated.
When you're done, click "OK" and the profile will be saved and will run on the schedule you specified. If you want to start it manually to run it straight away, you can do this by clicking on the "Run" button in the main SyncBack window.
How to Restore Your Data Using SyncBack
When you start SyncBack (the location will depend on where you installed it to, but should be something like Start menu -> All Programs -> 2BrightSparks -> SyncBack -> SyncBack), highlight the profile that you want to restore files from.
When you click on the "Restore" button at the bottom, you'll see a warning like this:
If you're restoring files from a backup because they no longer exist (because they were accidentally deleted, for example), then this warning message doesn't apply. If you're restoring files that do exist though (because you want to revert back to the version in the backup, for example), then this message is applicable.
In a backup or restore, if the same file exists in both the source and destination, then the usual behavior is to always have the source file over-write the destination file, and this is the default behavior in SyncBack. You can change this behavior though (via the "Advanced" tab in the profile's properties) to specify a different action – for example, to always keep the file that was most recently modified.
If you didn't change the default behavior for the profile, then when you do the restore, if the same files already exist on your disk the files from your backup will overwrite them (which is probably what you want if you're doing a restore). If you did change this behavior (via the "Advanced" tab in the profile's properties), then the behavior you specified will apply.
If you click "Yes", you'll see a list of files for which the version in the backup differs from the version that currently exists in the location you're restoring the files to. If both versions of the file are the same (both exist and have the same name, modification date, size etc.), then they're not listed, because there's no need to restore them.
The first and second checkboxes preceding each file name indicate whether the particular file is present in the source (i.e. the backup copy) and destination (i.e. the folder I'm restoring files to) respectively. The "Different Summary" column explains the difference between the two versions of the file. Subsequent columns give information on the source (backup copy) and destination versions of the file.
If you're restoring an entire backup (because of something like a disk failure), then you don't need to worry too much about this step, because you just want to restore everything. If you're only restoring some files though, you should take a little care to be sure that the right versions will be restored.
In this example, File 1.txt has been updated since the backup was taken (the date for the destination version is more recent, and its file size is larger). So, if you go ahead with the restore, the older version from the backup will over-write the newer version, which may not be what you want (this is what the warning message earlier was referring to).
If you want to exclude certain files from the restore, you can right-click on them, and select "Skip file (do not copy)".
When you're happy with the list of files, click on "Continue Run" and the files will be restored from the backup.
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