Camera Labs

Hello all, great site and forums are excellent.

I was just wondering if anyone has set up automatic FTP backups ?

What I am looking for is a program, that will at certain times of the day, scan my photo folder for changes and upload my photos to my webhost. So if I have 3GB of photos, I am not uploading the full 3GB every 4 hours.

I currently use FileZilla for all of my FTP work, but it does not have any automation.

Any ideas are appreciated.

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Mike

9michael.com
Canon EOS 3000 + BG | Canon EF 28-80mm f3.5-5.6 II | Canon 540EZ Speedlite
Canon EOS 40D + BG | Canon EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 USM IS | Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II | Canon 580EX II Speedlite
My flickr

Bit late replying, but you can use Microsoft SyncToy to automatically backup your photos. I use it to copy my Photos folder to our server then mirror any changes that happen on my computer back onto the server. I believe it does time scheduling (sp?) too.

Great tool, free aswell

Clicky

Thanks,

Do you know if it is capable of FTPing them to a remote server ?

_________________
Mike

9michael.com
Canon EOS 3000 + BG | Canon EF 28-80mm f3.5-5.6 II | Canon 540EZ Speedlite
Canon EOS 40D + BG | Canon EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 USM IS | Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II | Canon 580EX II Speedlite
My flickr

Hi Mark, I had high hopes for sync toy, but recently did some tests on it for my column in PCW magazine and found it could be inconsistent at times.

I had more luck with Super Flexible File Synchroniser, or SFFS for short. The Professional edition costs around £30 from www.superflexible.com, where you'll also find a free trial...

It'll sync / backup to almost any location, including FTP and even Amazon S3 storage...

(Article to be published in Hands On Hardware, Personal Computer World August 2008 issue, out in June!)

Gordon

Hi Gordon,

Thanks for the tip. As you know, I use Amazon's S3 storage so this could be really useful. I'll check it out.


Publisher's live in their own little world.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hi Bob, I'd be interested to hear what you think, especially the S3 aspect. I don't use that, so didn't test it.

Hi Gordon,

Downloaded v4.13 for Windows and installation went fine. I shifted the program straight into "Advanced Mode" and setting up a Copy to my S3 account was pretty straightforward. Some of the terminology associated with S3 (such as Buckets) is odd but if you are already using S3 then SFFS doesn't add any extra complications.

I created a "Profile" to run an unattended "Left to Right" Copy once a week at 01:00 and then started the profile manually to see if it works. Currently it's looking good though it's grinding incredibly slowly through the 6GB of data I've pointed it at, but that's the Aysynchronous in ADSL for you. The fact that I was able to set this up with no mistakes speaks well for the program, though the less confident user will probably prefer the Wizards, which I haven't tested.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

.
UPDATE: Well, SFFS has now uploaded about 30MB of the 6GB I pointed it at and the ETA to completion is over 4 days. This would seem to imply that my uplink is only running at about half the speed I would have expected, if I've got my sums right.

I should have done those sums before, I suppose, but for the amounts of data involved if you are an active photographer I think remote storage using an ADSL uplink is pushing the boundaries. As I mentioned, that 6GB would have taken 4 days and that is only a fraction of the photographs that many of us have on our computers. Just considering an active day when one might shoot, say, 100 photographs. At 5MB each that runs to half a gigabyte of data. OK, a lot of those may not be "keepers" but, on the other hand, start some post-processing and aim to back up the intermediates and that half a gigabyte can easily be reached again. On the basis of what I saw this morning that amount of data would take 8 hours to upload. I'll stick to my Network Attached Storage backed up by a couple of USB hard disks kept in a fire safe. Much quicker if not quite so bulletproof.

In fairness "Super Flexible File Synchronizer" would be great for backing up smaller amount of data on Amazon S3 and the speed issue isn't any fault of the program. I'm just about to uninstall it, though.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Thanks Gordon, looks like this is exactly what I was after.

I now have the same problem as Bob, although not as much, 4Gb, but because its on a 2nd machine, I will just limit the speed and let it do it over a week.

Thanks again.

_________________
Mike

9michael.com
Canon EOS 3000 + BG | Canon EF 28-80mm f3.5-5.6 II | Canon 540EZ Speedlite
Canon EOS 40D + BG | Canon EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 USM IS | Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II | Canon 580EX II Speedlite
My flickr

Speed will always be the problem with offsite backup, but then you are getting the security aspect.

I found it useful for backing up onto an external hard disk which I carry around with me...