Back up external hard drives

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Who is this article for?

CrashPlan Cloud

CrashPlan for Small Business

CrashPlan On-Premises

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Incydr Professional, Enterprise, Gov F2, and Horizon, no.

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Overview

You can use Code42 CrashPlan to back up storage connected to your device, such as an external hard drive directly attached via USB, Thunderbolt, or Firewire. By adding the contents of an external drive to your backup file selection, CrashPlan backs it up just like other files on your device.

Considerations

Steps

Attach your external drive to your device.
Open the Code42 app.
Select Details.
Select Manage Files.
Click your device name in the breadcrumb at the top of the Get Files browser.
To back up the entire drive, select the box to the left of your external hard drive. To select only specific files or folders for backup, click the drive, then browse the contents and select the items you want to back up.
Click Save.
CrashPlan begins backing up the files on your external drive.

Manage files

What happens if I disconnect my drive?

Your backed up files are safe when the drive is disconnected as long as your version setting for deleted files is set to Never (the default setting). When you reconnect the drive, CrashPlan resumes backup from where it left off. If you reconnect the drive and CrashPlan doesn't recognize it immediately, it is likely because the drive letter or name changed. See the troubleshooting tips below to correct the issue.

Disconnecting drives
CrashPlan doesn’t distinguish between files that have been deleted from your device and those that are temporarily unavailable because a drive is disconnected. If you disconnect your external drive, we recommend configuring CrashPlan to never remove deleted files from your backup archive.

Note: If your external drive isn't connected to your device when CrashPlan runs the file verification scan, it's possible that your backup status will report 100%, even if there are additional files on the drive that need to be backed up. CrashPlan will detect the changes and adjust your backup status the next time the drive is connected.

Replace a drive

To add a new drive to replace a drive that you no longer use, add the new drive to the file selection.

Once the new drive is selected, the data on the new drive is de-duplicated against what is stored in the archive. This process is entirely automatic and no action is required on your part. The old path may display as "Missing" while the Code42 app performs a synchronization (file verification scan). Once the Code42 app displays that synchronization is complete in the progress bar, you can deselect the old drive's file path.

Best practices (Windows)

Troubleshooting tips

Code42 app reports drive as "missing"

This issue occurs when the external drive is disconnected from the device or the letter or name assigned to the drive by your operating system changes. CrashPlan uses absolute paths when backing up. If the Code42 app cannot detect a drive at the specified location, such as when it is disconnected or when the name of a drive changes, it lists the drive as "Missing". You can correct the issue by reconnecting the drive or renaming the drive to match the original drive letter or name.

External drive stops backing up (OS X)

If an external drive stops backing up on OS X, it is likely because the drive didn't cleanly unmount (for example, after a power outage, or disconnection without ejection). When this happens, the drive can leave behind a "ghost" folder in /Volumes, even though the drive is no longer mounted. When the drive re-mounts, your device detects that the folder name for the drive is taken, and consequently appends a “1” to the drive name. However, CrashPlan looks for the folder with the original name, which is no longer connected. Use our troubleshooting guide to diagnose and correct the issue.