How to use Node.js to backup your personal files (and learn some webdev skills along the way)

[@mohamedyoussef8835]

Awesome videos - great information - great explanations 😃😃😃

[@som.shekhar]

Nice video 👍 One question: If this node script is running on my old laptop connected to an external harddrive, and the directory I want to backup (source) is in my primary laptop, then how can I achieve this. If I SSH from my primary laptop into my old laptop, I can access the old laptop from the primary one but the node script (running on old laptop) can't access the source directory in my primary laptop then how will it backup? I'm a little confused here, can you please help me with this?

[@AlexEagleson]

Hey there! Good question. This example operates on the requirement that the source of the files is in some location that is always available to the script. In the example it is two external hard drives both on the old laptop (and it is backing up one to the other). The workflow that I use is when I take some files (say photos off my phone) I drag them onto the old laptop's external drive over the network. This can be SSH, or just drag/drop over network if using the same OS, or a remote desktop tool like TeamViewer or VNC Connect. The backup script then takes care of making a weekly copy of them onto another hard drive. You could have the primary drive on another laptop/machine, but it would require two things: the old laptop needs to be able to SSH into your primary machine, to `rsync you@primary/primary-drive:you@secondary/secondary-drive` and your primary machine needs to be awake and online at the time of day/week that the backup occurs. This video and tutorial is primarily meant to be an example of what's possible, how I've configured it to work for myself, and how you can hopefully use the tools to build a workflow that works for you!