BRTCBackup Program

   With the addition of greater server storage capacity we are now able to provide the service of backing up your local computer data to the network. This will help to prevent the loss of your data incase the hard drive in your computer decides to crash. To make this happen we have created the BRTCBackup program.

   The BRTCBackup program will make a copy of the files on your computer that have been selected for backup, break that file into cd-burnable size chunks and then place a copy of those files on the server for use in case of a crash. Someone from Computer Services will do the initial setup, make sure that your important data is being backed up and walk through the backup procedure with you. After the initial installation you will have an icon on the desktop to run BRTCBackup. When you wish to backup (once a week, once a month, once a semester, whatever) you simply click on the BRTCBackup icon.   

Details:

   The amount of information on your computer will determine how longs it takes to perform the backup. For most people the backup program will finish in less than 20 minutes. You can use your computer during the backup, but you may notice that your computer performance will be degraded. A good plan would be to start the backup as you leave for lunch. For those people who's backups take longer we recommend starting the backup as you leave work and just leave your computer on that night.

   The local copy of your backup files will reside on your C drive in the BRTCBackup folder. The files will be zipped (compressed) files named Backup.zip or if your backup is large then they will be split into multiple files named Backup.zip.001, Backup.zip.002, etc. These files are made to fit on a cd should you wish to burn a cd backup of your data.

   When you start the BRTCBackup program you will have two backup options: Full or Differential. A full backup will make a copy of all the selected files. A differential backup will only copy those files that have changed since your last full backup. This feature is present for those who have large amounts of data. If your backup will run in 20 minutes or less then just keep running full backups. If your backup is large then you make wish to perform an initial full backup, and then periodic differential backups which will run quickly.

Details for the serious geeks:

   BRTCBackup is a program which basically does the following: calls ntbackup (XP's built-in backup program), feeds it the present selection list (also stored in c:\BRTCBackup), takes the resultant file and splits it into 650MB max chunks and then mirrors those files to the network drive. The zip program involved is 7-Zip incase you need to restore a spanned file set or you notice it under Add and Remove Programs.

   The BRTCBackup program can be scheduled if you so desire. You can use Scheduler to run c:\BRTCBackup\BRTCBackup.exe with either the /F flag for a full backup or the /D flag for a differential backup.