Mirror data from one server to another for an ADHOC backup or to stage DFS folders prior to replication setup.

If you need to replicate data between windows machines you can use Robocopy to handle this task. i wont go into too much detail, but windows 7 and server 2008 includes robocopy as part of the base install. Try it out and let me know what you think.

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@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL

SET _source=\\FileServ1\e$\users

SET _dest=\\FileServ2\e$\BackupUsers

SET _what=/COPYALL /B /SEC /MIR /MOT:n
:: /COPYALL :: COPY ALL file info
:: /B :: copy files in Backup mode.
:: /SEC :: copy files with SECurity
:: /MIR :: MIRror a directory tree

::/MOT:n :: Monitor folder for changes on interval (minutes) to sync files.

SET _options=/R:0 /W:0 /LOG:MyLogfile.txt /NFL /NDL
:: /R:n :: number of Retries
:: /W:n :: Wait time between retries
:: /LOG :: Output log file
:: /NFL :: No file logging
:: /NDL :: No dir logging

ROBOCOPY %_source% %_dest% %_what% %_options%

 

simply create a .bat file with the code above and run it from an elevated command prompt (after editing the source and destination of course)  and it will make sure you have a copy on another server.

you can also add a job to zip up the folder that was created last time to keep archives or rely on shadow copy settings. either way its pretty cool.