I must again state how important it is to always backup your data frequently.
For example, I have three 250GB hard drives and everything is saved from the time I started to use the computer which was 10 years ago. If I loose the data which I found 10 years ago, I might not eve find it on the internet today.
There are many ways to backup your data and today I’m going to talk about mirroring your data using data mirroring software.
Data Mirroring means you have the exact same copy as the source on other location.
Eg, C:\data.doc is the original file. You then have another copy of data.doc on other drives.

It’s a pain to everyday backing up your data by copying to another location.
To simplify this backup, you can use a third-party data mirroring software to help you mirror your data.


MirrorFolder is a real-time mirroring and synchronization software to backup files on local/network/removable drive/disk from local hard disk. You can mirror your important folders, or even an entire drive, on another local/network/removable drive/disk either in real-time or in auto-synchronization mode. It works on Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP.
Once a mirror is setup, mirroring is done silently in the background without requiring any further effort or attention from you. Options are available to exclude file types and subfolders from mirroring. You may also optionally archive mirror files inside a zip file periodically. This data mirroring software is fully integrated with Windows and requires very little system resources, e.g., memory, processor time, etc., for running itself.

Some common uses of MirrorFolder are:

Mirroring on local hard disk – MirrorFolder is ideal for real-time mirroring on a separate local hard disk. In this mode, files in the mirror folder will remain identical with their source at any point of time. In case the source disk fails, you will have all of your files on the mirror folder/disk for immediate use. You may also use auto-synchronization mode of mirroring on local hard disk and choose to move older versions of files in the mirror folder to recycle bin during synchronization.

Backup on removable disk – MirrorFolder can be used for automatic backup of your working folders on removable drive/disk like CR-RW, ZIP disk, removable hard disk, etc., preferably in auto-synchronization mode as they are normally slower than local hard disk. You may also use real-time mirroring on removable disk in case it is fast and supports unlimited rewriting, e.g., removable hard disk. Removable disks are also ideal for storing zip archive files created by mirror folder.

Mirroring entire system drive – MirrorFolder can be used to mirror entire Windows drive on another local hard disk drive in real-time mode. In case the source drive fails, you can use mirror drive to boot the Windows without any lose of data/files (you need to make the mirror drive as “Active” in the Disk Manager / FDISK program when creating the mirror). Note that at present MirrorFolder does not support mirroring entire system drive on a remote network drive.

Synchronization between laptop and desktop computers – You can use MirrorFolder to synchronize files between a laptop and desktop computers using bi-directional auto-synchronization mode of mirroring.

Workstations to server mirroring – In a networked environment, MirrorFolder can be installed on each workstation computer to mirror important folders on them to one or more servers on the network. Once mirrors are created, MirrorFolder will keep mirrors on the server synchronized with the source folders on each computer on the network without requiring any further effort from individual users. That means, the server(s) will always contain an up-to-date copy of all relevant files of each workstation computer and individual users will no longer have to spend any time backing up his/her computer periodically.

Server to server mirroring – MirrorFolder can be used for mirroring of files/folders from server to server on local network. Since this data mirroring software runs under system account for both real-time and auto-synchronization mode of mirroring, it can mirror any files irrespective of its access right and who is currently interactively logged on the system. However, you must provide a user name and password to access the the remote server and mirror on.

MirrorFolder integrates itself with Windows on installation and you do not need to run a separate EXE file to use it. To create a mirror of a folder/drive, select it in Windows Explorer, then click the right mouse button to open the pop up menu and chose “Mirroring…” option from it. This will open the Mirroring tab on the property page of the selected folder as shown in the next screen shot (taken on Windows XP).

Now select Mirror To radio button on the property page and then Browse for folders to enter the full path name of the mirror folder in the edit box below. You may edit this mirror folder path name, if required, before pressing the Add button to add this path into the mirror list of this selected source folder.

Finally press Ok or Apply button to create the mirror of the selected folder/drive. MirrorFolder will initially copy files into the mirror folder in order to synchronize it with the source folder.

Now select the added mirror folder path name in the list box and then press the Options button to open the mirroring property page of the selected mirror folder. Alternatively, you may select the just created mirror folder in the Explorer on the same computer, click right mouse button, and then chose “Mirroring…” option again from the pop up menu to open the Mirroring tab on the property page of the mirror folder as shown below.

The Mirroring tab on the property page of the mirror folder will look like the next screen shot.

Select the mirroring mode, e.g., Real-time or Auto-synchronization, for this mirror. To chose additional synchronization options, use Sync. Options button. You can also chose to backup the selected mirror folder in a ZIP file periodically under Archive option.

Finally press Ok or Apply button to make the changes effective for the selected mirror folder.

You may change the synchronization options in the following dialog box after completion initial synchronization.

** I like this piece of data mirroring software because it integrates into Windows and it doesn’t takes up a lot of resources. This data mirroring software, however, is a shareware and you are free to use it for 30 days and after that you’d need to purchase it for US 39.00. I’d say it’s a worthily investment.
Note: This data mirroring software is NOT yet supported on coming 64-bit versions of Windows XP/2003.

[ MirrorFolder Website | Download MirrorFolder 3.00.117 (Trial) ]

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