Bob Barlen

Using an FTP server as a hard drive (for backup)

Hi Everyone,

Is there any program out there that will allow me to synchronize the "My Documents" folder on my hard drive with an identical folder on an FTP server? My computer is constantly connected to the Internet, and I'd like it to automatically back up my work to a remote location.

Is something like this possible? I tried the demo of the Iomega Easy Backup software, but you need to pick a local drive for the backup. Right now I only have one hard drive, so there's not really much point in backing it up to a different spot on the same drive.

Is there any way to trick Windows XP into treating the FTP site as another physical drive?

Any help would be appreciated!

Jesse Leonard

You can always just map a network drive to an ftp site. This wouldn't let you use "My Documents" folder as the sync folder, but it would serve the same purpose.

JimmyJK

you can but usually you have to always keep a port open for such situations, whish is a BAD security flaw. Are you behind a firewall? Do you have any port protetcion software like Black ice?

I have a better alternat solution, but first, do you have a cd burner? or a dvd burner?

Bob Barlen

Hi guys, thanks for your replies.

I wasn't sure how to map an FTP site over the drive mapping, since it requires a location in the format \\location\ - what would I type in order to upload to an ftp site (ftp.bobbarlen.com or something like that)?

I installed a demo of a program called WebDrive, which seems to do exactly what I want. It maps an ftp site to a drive letter, and when you drag files into that "folder" it uploads them to the site.

http://www.southrivertech.com/produc...ive/index.html

With webdrive, I can use the "web"drive as the destination and the iomega software automatically copies saved files online. Basically, I want some sort of insurance in case my hard drive dies all of a sudden. Being able to pull my vital files off the ftp server would be very useful.

Jimmy, I have a CD burner. Most of the files I deal with aren't that large (1-2 MB) so I doubt I'd need a dvd burner. My CD burner is 48x, and it also does CD-RW, though I've never used that function. I'd love to hear your thoughts, as I'm relatively inexperienced in handling automated backup stuff. Right now I don't have a firewall (except the one in XP), and I don't have any protection software, though I was going to get the Norton Internet 2004 which is supposed to be a good software firewall.

If I'm connected to the FTP server constantly, is that a security risk?

Thanks!

Bob

imported_Andrew Pratt

Given that it sounds like you're connected to the web all the time you NEED a real firewall ASAP. Preferably a hardware router from D-Link or Netgear

Robert_Gaither

Why not keep your security and not use an online source and simply pick up a removable drive bay (or usb/fire wire case), hard drive (they're quite cheap currently), and simply back it up in this fashion?

Bob Barlen

Robert,

I want to try to find a solution that will always leave me with an offsite copy of the backed up files. A portable Hard Drive would work, but I'd rather do something where I didn't have to constantly take it with me.

Bob

Kimmo Jaskari

You can do this with a combo of two programs.

Either get Webdrive or Internet Neighbourhood. They both allow you to map an FTP to a drive in Windows; IN does that part better, IMHO, but Webdrive can handle SSH connections.

Once you have that connection established, you need a program called Second Copy, from http://www.centered.com/

It does just what the name says, copies files from one place to the other on a schedule. It even compresses the files to a file first before transferring, cutting down on your upload times and keeping file sizes down to a minimum.

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