External Backup needs some love

[RMerlin]

External backup to USB could use some improvements. Right now, it would take me 8 hours to refresh my backup over USB, versus 30 minutes through the network when using FreeFileSync. That ain't right...

1) Proper folder sync. Right now, even if I enable the Incremental option, refreshing an existing backup has the NAS copy everything again even if the files haven't changed since the last backup. The backup task should skip any file that hasn't been modified since previous backup. This alone would turn an 8 hours job into a 20-30 minutes one.

2) Ability to skip folders or files. I don't want to backup all those #Recycle folders, it's a waste of time and disk space.

3) 1 on 1 sync should allow multiple folder pairs, instead of requiring to create one separate task for each folder pair

4) Or, implement some form of job queue. If you start two tasks at the same time, it should be possible to queue them, so they run one after another. So if you have to create 4-5 separate 1-on-1 jobs, you could launch all of them at once, and they would run one after another.

5) Allow to configure the One-Button Backup to be assigned to an External backup job.

6) Possibly a bug in 2.6, but on the External Backup -> Info page, while a job is running, it doesn't display the USB disk model/manufacturer info. The info shows properly on the External Device page.

[pafer]

+1 on pretty much everything here.

That said...

Right now, even if I enable the Incremental option, refreshing an existing backup has the NAS copy everything again even if the files haven't changed since the last backup. The backup task should skip any file that hasn't been modified since previous backup. This alone would turn an 8 hours job into a 20-30 minutes one.

This only started with ADM 2.6 as far as I can tell - previously, 'incremental' was acting correctly, for me at least.

I submitted a ticket and was effectively told that it's a known bug which should be dealt with in an upcoming update - in around a month's time!

[djvtravel]

Could you also include the ability to backup one external drive to another? This would probably have to come after the persistent naming of external drives.

Thanks for all the hard work.

[pafer]

To add to this request-list, encrypted backups would be very useful.

Right now, I believe everything is backed up un-encrypted, so anyone could take the external HDD, plug it into a computer and away they go!

If this is already possible and I've missed how to do it, please let me know!

[elfidge]

+1

Few more:

1) Log history of backups (verbose, or simple)
2) Email/Alert generated when complete
3) Email/Alert generated if not-complete (or error occurs)