Back-up of version of Railworks - Where on your computer?

[signalnorths]

When you use the back up files facility , where does the Back up version of Railworks reside on your computer? I ask because I'd like to send it to an external hard drive.

Many thanks in advance.

Len

[dumpadillo]

Anything I back up goes to an external hard drive.
Dumps

[chris higgin]

I have two back ups, one is a full copy of the disk that TS is on, the other is a copy of the assets and content folder, obviously both on separate disks.
The thing I am curious about is, the full copy is always two gb less than the main disk, but I can run TS off that disk and it runs as well as the original.
I am in no doubt that that somebody cleverer than I will have an answer.

Chris H

[johnrossetti]

If you are making a backup or Railworks to go to a hard drive. I would use Windows explorer go to the route of the drive it is on, find the Steam Directory and COPY & PASTE it from there. (this will then backup ALL your Steam purchases) in my case is E:\steam\

This also means that on that drive is a FULLY USEABLE copy of everything from Steam. ALSO make the backup after when you last used STEAM OFFLINE. (if you never go offline, then do so once BEFORE making the backup)

You will then be able to run Steam on any PC from the Hard Drive which can be very handy if you’re PC Conks out and you want to run Steam on a LAPTOP for example. Which, when I'm in Cornwall I don’t take my very large desktop, I just take the drive and use a PC down there.

As an aside you could always get FolderMatch to DO (if you buy) or check for free, that the copy was OK. I find foldermatch invaluable if you do a lot of copying or editing.
http://www.foldermatch.com/

Cheers John

[45002]

If it's a matter of simple backup

I have my pc's connected to a ethernet network with a 4tb and 2tb ethernet hard drives, I then just copy and paste the Asset and Content folders onto the 4tb and 2tb hard drives every now and then, never had any problems using this method and handy too for running TS on my others pc's.

USB hard drives are OK, but found it much quicker using ethernet hard drives.

MARTIN

[sbowness]

Hi Len

First preference for me is always an external drive with a possible further copy to the cloud. I use Acronis True Image to back up my Railworks folder and also one other Steam folder which keeps track of your set up in case Steam decides to do an impromptu refresh of everything (can't remember the name at the moment as I'm at work). I also keep incremental back ups in case I need to roll back a number of days. My Railworks folder is around 500GB, so with a couple of full versions and the various increments that can take up around 2TB or more.

If you don't have the luxury of an external drive or a separate internal drive, then a wise person once told me to put all of my data on a separate partition on my main drive. That includes such things as email files, documents, pictures etc. That leaves only applications on the main C drive. That way, if you ever need to reinstall windows then all of your data is separate.

[sbowness]

I have two back ups, one is a full copy of the disk that TS is on, the other is a copy of the assets and content folder, obviously both on separate disks.
The thing I am curious about is, the full copy is always two gb less than the main disk, but I can run TS off that disk and it runs as well as the original.
I am in no doubt that that somebody cleverer than I will have an answer.

Chris H

It's probably due to the way that Windows has written the data as it has built up. When you copy the whole lot to a new drive, it will be more efficient at packing it in. If it's been done file by file then there is the opportunity for little gaps to appear. It may also be down to the minimum size of each data block allowed in the drive settings. Gary or Peter Hayes will have the technical explanation. If you were to copy everything over to another drive, delete the original and then copy it back again, you could see it reduce in size from its original. Theoretically, a defrag should do the same thing.

[gptech]

one is a full copy of the disk that TS is on, the other is a copy of the assets and content folder,

The back up of the full disc will include the hidden, protected, volume information files that Windows creates. The copy of the Assets and Contents folder won't.

[peterfhayes]

Stephen
Your assumption is probably correct in that in the backup it is written as one contiguous chunk of data and can be smaller (or perversely in some cases larger) in size than the original.
Theoretically, they should be about the same size but you can never tell with Windows.
I only copy and paste as my "backup" and some dedicated backup software can and does reduce the size of the original.
I forgot - you may see different sizes say when copying from a SSD to a conventional spinner and vice versa.
NFTS and FAT32 can also play a part in backup sizes.
pH

[chris higgin]

Thanks all for your informative replies, interesting.

[chris higgin]

Thanks all for your informative replies, interesting.

[signalnorths]

Thanks for the replies