Backup of a backup HDD?

So I have two 5TB WD external drives, currently using Drive A via USB 3.0. How do I achieve a setup where I can have Drive B hooked in and be a backup of Drive A (automatically)? In other words, a redundant or copy--both drives will have exact data. I can also take these drives out of the enclosures and hook them to the SATA ports if needed for the setup on my PC (Windows 7/10). What are my options? Thank you in advance.

 

Sounds like you're describing RAID 1. Some drive enclosures have two drives in RAID so this is all transparent to you until one drive dies.

 

Just connect both drives to your PC and you can set up RAID 1 within Windows Disk Management, and it will copy data equally to both drives, even though seen as only a single drive.

Alternatively, you can use xcopy command line in a batch file and schedule it to do a daily file copy only copying newer files. Or use one of many backup applications that can be configured for differential backups so you can have somewhat of a backup history to recover in case of virus infection or file corruption.

While it is good practice to have multiple backups, I find it is less likely to have a failed hard drive than it is to have infected or corrupt files. Unless you have a lot of real time data changes daily, mirrored will only help with the instance of a drive failure. Using differential or incremental backups with archive history gives you flexibility to recover from a virus infection or corrupted files.

 

I'll give RAID 1 setup a shot. Thank you!