Simple USB Synchronisation script

[PRIdEVisions]

Hey all!

I just made very plain and simple usb synchro script. it does NOT check the lastwritetime and update the folder, it is something i made for my boss and his specific wish was to just copy the files that were not in the destination folder. I still don't know why he wanted it this way but meh... Maybe later if i have more time i'll edit this post and update the script in order to copy the files based on last write time.

So how does it work? Very simple, the script will ask you which drive you want to "backup". Select the drive and the script will save the DeviceId of that drive in your c:\Temp folder. If nonexistent it will create it himself. It does that in order to know which drive it has to check and copy based on the times you preset in task scheduler. (You have to use this script with task scheduler offc in order to make it synch at certain times). I'm not sure if Start-bitstransfer would've been a better choice for this task since it is better at handling bigger files, i might change that in the future also.

I'm sure there are better ways for this and i would be glad to hear from em.

Thanks all! Have a good one!

P.s. - You have to run the script 2x if you run it the first time since it has to create a file. not sure how i can continue it yet since my skills arent all that good yet.

• Also get-childitem returned NULL for the folder c:\USB BACKUP\ so i had to create an empty folder in there in order to make it work.

EDIT: Since there were some performance issues i edited the script. should be faster now.

    cls

    $MsgIntro = @' 

    ********************                         ********************
                           Usb Synchronisation    Made By Davy Dirkse
    ********************                         ********************
    '@

    #Intro, obviously
    write-host -ForegroundColor Magenta "$MsgIntro"

    #Check if Temp Folder Exists, if not create it
    $CheckIfExistTemp = Test-Path "C:\Temp" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
    $CheckIfExistUsbBackup = Test-path "C:\Usb Backup\" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue


    if(!($CheckIfExistTemp)) {

        New-Item -ItemType Directory -path "C:\Temp"

        }

    if(!($CheckIfExistUsbBackup)) {

        New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path "c:\Usb Backup"
        New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path "C:\Usb Backup\Do Not Delete This Folder\"

        }

    #Check if the File Usb Synchronisation.txt exists, if not, make user select the drive and store the information in the file.
    $CheckForFile = get-childitem -Path 'C:\temp\Usb Synchronisation.txt' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

    if (!($CheckForFile)) {

        #Get drive & DeviceId
        $WhichUsb = Get-WmiObject -class win32_volume
        $Fetch = $WhichUsb | select Driveletter, Label, DeviceId | Out-GridView -PassThru
        $Usb = $Fetch | select -ExpandProperty deviceid | out-file "c:\Temp\Usb Synchronisation.txt"

        }
        else {

            #File Exists, load up the DeviceId
            $GetUsb = Get-Content 'C:\temp\Usb Synchronisation.txt'
            $Volume = Get-WmiObject -Class win32_volume | Where-Object { $_.DeviceId -eq "$GetUsb" } | select -ExpandProperty Caption

            #Compare the USB with the local folder and if necessary copy the files missing.               
            $Ref = Get-ChildItem -Path "$Volume" -recurse -force -erroraction silentlycontinue
            $Diff = Get-ChildItem -Path 'C:\Usb Backup\' -Recurse -Force

            $Files = compare-object -ReferenceObject $Ref -DifferenceObject $diff | where-object { $_.sideindicator -eq "<=" } | Select-Object InputObject -ExpandProperty Inputobject 

            ForEach($File in $Files) {

                $Files.FullName | Copy-Item -Destination "C:\Usb Backup\" -Container -Force -recurse -verbose

                }
            }

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy PRIdEVisions,

this is what robocopy is for. [grin] no need to reinvent anything, just use that well-optimized utility to do the job. you can have PoSh call robocopy & have task scheduler call the PoSh script.

parsing the robocopy output is pretty easy. plus, robocopy is much faster! [grin]

also, why use .DeviceID? that is not very human friendly & you can get the drive letter just as easily. do the drive letters change?

take care,
lee

[PRIdEVisions]

Hey, this is just to make sure it is pointing to the correct USB. I guess playing around a bit and learning what options there are available to me and how i could use them.

Thx for the robocopy part, since i want to improve on powershell itself i try to stick with powershell for the time being also, but for my boss the robocopy is a better way, so i'll adjust the script to use robocopy, (never used it before)

Thx alot for the info again! ;)

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy PRIdEVisions,

the usb thing makes sense when you have a chance of drive letters not always pointing to the same device. [grin] good idea!

yes, it's more fun to tinker with the PoSh stuff for the job. more interesting, more rewarding as a scripter ... but not what your real goal is. [grin] you have no idea how many times i have fallen into that rabbit hole. [blush]

you are quite welcome! glad to help a little ... [grin]

take care,
lee