i'm looking for a free program that will copy and back up only files that have changed and or are new. any suggestions? i'm looking for your input, not a google search link.

i currently have 4 backups that are probably all 85-95% the same. i have to go through them and sort them out and would like to avoid this in the future.

thanks.

xcopy would work if you don't mind cli and setting up a little batch file.

It can also check for and set an Archive bit among many other functions. Do help xcopy to see all it's triggers and their uses.

/D:m-d-y Copies files changed on or after the specified date. If no date is given, copies only those files whose source time is newer than the destination time.

Yeah the old FAT filesystem archive flag was made for marking files which hadn't been backed up since they were last changed. It's been kept for compatibility right up to Vista. You can view it with the attrib.exe command.

However I forget if the flag is ON or OFF if you need to back up a file. Anyways, I've never backed up and the archive flag is inconsistent (maybe it's ON when you need to back up, but it's always OFF for system files?).

And of course it's just a flag... it can't store as much info as modern backup tools do (ie date of last backup).

If you're using XP, the SyncToy works well. You can synchronize, echo, subscribe, contribute, and combine any folder pair. You save your folder pairs and the policy relating the files within them, all for future use. It will also show you what changes will take place for your review before actually running the program.

On linux you can use rsync or rdiff-backup.

There's a linux clone of Time Machine too.

I use Ctrl +c and Ctrl+v

i think i love synctoy. thanks Bobbert!
it'll do wonders for backing up the three computers onto one external drive my ex and kids use.