On a corporate laptop/network, on which I have no admin rights or ability to install software.

Basically, I have a laptop and I can save stuff to the c: drive but that’s not backed up at all. I also have a ‘personal’ drive allocation on the LAN, which is backed up as part of the whole enterprise LAN backup process.

What I’d like to do is be able to store stuff on/work off the c:drive whilst working offline, and have it backup/sync with the personal drive allocation on the LAN when I’m connected to the network (directly, lets not worry about remote/VPN stuff).

Any way of doing it? I’ve had a quick play with MS Briefcase, but couldn’t really work out how to get it to work.

You should probably speak to your corporate IT people. Storing work on a local drive should be covered under a policy, and may not be allowed even if your drive is fully encrypted.

What he said, not to mention that if you have a requirement to do this then they should be providing a proper solution.

Why not just use Dropbox for all your personal stuff then you have it wherever you are.

Create a little batch file and use xcopy? But I’d have thought it would be covered by a coporate backup policy TBH.

XCOPY

xcopy “SOURCE” “DESTINATION” /D /S /C /I /H /R /K /Y

So maybe:

xcopy “C:\Users\Public\Documents\*” “E:\BackupFolder\Documents” /D /S /C /I /H /R /K /Y

I have checked, storing work locally is permitted (indeed, assumed to be the case, the LAN allocation has to be requested separately) and yes, they should provide a proper solution but they haven’t…

EDIT – No access to Dropbox (rightly). I don’t want to move anything outside ofthe corporate environment, as this is (understandably) seen as a Very Bad Thing.

Robocopy.

But yeah, any sensible IT department will redirect your Documents folders to a network share so that it can be backed up. Are you sure this isn’t already happening? You need to speak to them, you can’t be the only person who needs a backup.

The batch file method then…

Ah, they’re idiots.

As you were.

any sensible IT department will redirect your Documents folders to a network share so that it can be backed up.

They would, wouldn’t they?

Are you sure this isn’t already happening?

Yep

You need to speak to them, you can’t be the only person who needs a backup.

I honestly don’t think they care. I only care as I don’t want my stuff to disappear if my laptop dies.

Ah, they’re idiots

You may think that my dear; I couldn’t possibly comment.

Someone will care. What’s your boss think?

Anyway.

You have a ‘personal’ network drive. You could enable Offline Files on that drive and work directly from it?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/understanding-offline-files

So they assume you’ll store work locally but don’t provide a backup solution? Pretty gash really, they need to sort that out. Sorry, I can’t remember what we had when I worked for HP but it was OTS, maybe a McAfee product? It synced local directories to the Corporate cloud on a schedule.

It’s amazing that despite all the moving and copying files that we do these days that there’s not simple and cheap way to sync files across devices that doesnt require a 3rd party ‘cloud’ type system.

There’s a product called Transporter that you can use to sync files between networks that would probably do what you want but it’s buggy and not quite up to scratch yet from people I know who use it.

Seems like your best bet is a batch copy at the end of the day/whenever you get back to the office. Not ideal, but possibly the best bet at this point in time.

Agree with the others – should be something that is sorted out by the work IT people. Lots of options. As Cougar mentions you have offline files and folders. If this is a bigger organisation then using something like SharePoint and SkyDrive Pro to give you a similar level of LAN storage but local copy for offline work. Or combine Offline folders with redirected home drive and make sure you save everything to your My Documents folder.

Agree with the others

Me too.

For now, Cougar’s idea works fine. Ta!