How backup to USB Flash drive


14-May-2008	Home \| USB Flash Backup example

How back up to USB Flash drive

USB Flash drives (USB memory sticks) are small and lightweight removable devices connected to your computer via a USB port. The combination of high capacity, low cost, and ease of using has increased popularity of this devices for temporary saving files and exchanging data between PC.

In this article we'll review an example of using D_back software - how you can use USB flash drive as a storage device to back up your files. D_back distribution kit contains a good example of ready-to-use backup profile which is configured to back up user's Documents directory to USB Flash Drive. This example is independent of your system environment, so you don't need to do any changes, only execute it and explore results:

Insert USB memory stick;
Launch backup manager (D_backm.exe);
Press Open button on toolbar and select profile "My_documents_to_flash.bks";
Press Back Up button - that will open the backup sheet. On this sheet press "Run Job" button. That's all, the program will perform backup job automatically without your assistance.

The processing protocol is displayed in the bottom part of the window. Your documents directory (usually this is c:\Documents and settings\usename\My Documents) is backed up to your Flash drive to directory \Backup. The program creates backup in a file My documents-1.zip. Pay attention, that this example is not linked to location of your documents directory and independent of the USB flash drive letter, mapped by system.

How to setup USB flash drive as backup storage wihout linking to drive letter

Open Config menu and navigate to General sheet:
configuring of usb flash drive as backup destination

You see, that Primary Backup directory (the directory where the program should locate backup) is {Flash}\Backup. Here {Flash} is a Macro. The program finds the drive letter, assigned to USB and replaces the macro {Flash} by this letter on data processing.

An universal way to specify the user's documents directory

Navigate to the Files sheet. Here you creates a list of files or directories to be backed up. Double click on a single file path {My Documents} in the paths table, that will open the path's property editor:
backup of My documents

You see, that the user's documents directory is also specified as macro {My_Documents}. This macro will be substituted at execution by the path which depends on the user who has launched the program.