File/Folder Synchronization

[Gustavo Nardelli]

I'm looking for a software able to synchronize 90.000 images (growing ratw is 15.000 per year) between my computer and 2 external sources. (network drive and usb disk )

Files must be kept synchronized and deletions on the source/destination should be expect to mirror.

No proprietary format. No compression. Must be fast.

 

[GeoPappas]

There are plenty of programs that can do this. I have tried a few and really like SyncBack SE.

FYI: The speed of synchronization is going to be dependent on your hardware. If you want it to be fast, then you better get some fast hard disks.

 

[jgodfrey]

(nt)

 

[Hai Vu]

I like it enough to buy it. I used SyncBack before, but for some reason that I don't remember, I did not like it as well as GoodSync.
--
-Hai
http://haivu.smugmug.com/

 

[tapioca]

Syncback SE for me too! (nt)

 

[Unda Covalava]

Deos SyncBack check for data corruption? When syncing between 2 sources, and 1 source has a corrupt file, does the program alert you to the difference?

 

[Rob22315]

From Microsoft might be worth checking out.

h,t,t,p: www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx

remove the commas to use the link. If the link doesn't appear, just Google the name.

RG

 

[GeoPappas]

Deos SyncBack check for data corruption? When syncing between 2
sources, and 1 source has a corrupt file, does the program alert
you to the difference?

How would SyncBack (or any synching software) know if a sector is corrupt? This is the same problem with mirroring data.

Only the program that wrote the original data would know that.

SyncBack does have the capability of saving "versions". This will allow you to go back to a previous save if you find something wrong with the original. But of course, this requires more disk space.

 

[Unda Covalava]

By simply alerting the user if two files with the same name don't match up on the bit level before copying one over the other. I was wondering if it had that feature?

Deos SyncBack check for data corruption? When syncing between 2
sources, and 1 source has a corrupt file, does the program alert
you to the difference?

How would SyncBack (or any synching software) know if a sector is
corrupt? This is the same problem with mirroring data.

Only the program that wrote the original data would know that.

SyncBack does have the capability of saving "versions". This will
allow you to go back to a previous save if you find something wrong
with the original. But of course, this requires more disk space.

 

[Gustavo Nardelli]

SyncToy not a option. Too slow and can't see a list of the files to choose what to transfer. Great product for a free product.

 

[Gustavo Nardelli]

Come on folks, I wanna hear from you..

 

[Gustavo Nardelli]

no text

 

[ferraris]

http://www.folderclone.com - but it needs to be set up to run on a schedule (not sure if this is true of the other examples given).

--
Simon

 

[korsair]

I'm using AllwaySynch Pro version to synch 15 folders (one with 11,000 jpegs) Between my desktop, a laptop and a remote hard drive.

There is a free version which allows synchronization of no more than 20000 files per 30-day period. The Pro version is $20

Full featured and dependable, I tried most of the others and returned to this one.
http://allwaysync.com/

Korsair
'Nobody knows the weirdness I've seen'

 

[Gustavo Nardelli]

Am I going nuts or is this the same piece of software as GoodSync

 

[Gustavo Nardelli]

I'm reading the user's manual. Could please tell me more about this FAST BACKUP option? Do you use it? Does it improves transfer times? Can it be used for images?

 

[sensingsys]

does all that you ask, and is free. I have been using it for about a year now with no problems at all. The disks need to be UDF formatted, but this is easy via Roxio, etc, or using free programs that are available as detailed in the program help, which is what I did before I got Roxio.

 

[tigger183234]

It can do a preview of files that need syncing:
Just press the "Preview" Button instead of the "Run" Button.

But it may indeed not be the fastest option. I used it to copy from a external USB drive to my Laptop, and it took several seconds to compare the different directories.

Only drawback for me is that the preview of the files to be syncronized cannot be shown in an hierarchical folder structure to make it easier to exclude whole folders from the current sync.

 

[GeoPappas]

By simply alerting the user if two files with the same name don't
match up on the bit level before copying one over the other. I was
wondering if it had that feature?

So how would a program know whether the bits that changed were due to corruption or a valid modification (such as adding IPTC, editing the image, etc)? The answer: it wouldn't.

 

[GeoPappas]

I'm reading the user's manual. Could please tell me more about this
FAST BACKUP option? Do you use it? Does it improves transfer times?
Can it be used for images?

There are so many options with SyncBack. I have not begun to try them all. I looked up the "Fast Backup" option and decided to try it out. Thanks for the heads-up on this feature. It only works on "backups" (where you want to keep a copy of data synched on another drive). It "speeds up" the backup process by keeping the file list of the backup drive in cache, thus eliminating the need to scan the backup drive. Here is the explanation from the help file:

==========

Explaining Fast Backups

When you backup files to the destination it is assumed that no other application, or person, will be changing the files in the destination. For example, if you backup your files to another drive you are not going to be editing or changing those backup files (except using SyncBackSE to replace them as appropriate). Because of this SyncBackSE should be able to remember what files, and directories, are on the destination without needing to scan it to find out.

How 'Fast Backup' works

First, you need to enable the Fast Backup option on the Fast Backup tab. The Fast Backup tab is not visible if the profile is configured such that it cannot use the Fast Backup option. When the profile is next run, SyncBackSE will remember which files and directories it copied to (or deleted from) the destination directory. This means the first run of a profile, after Fast Backup is enabled, will take the same amount of time as without Fast Backup enabled. However, for the second and subsequent runs of the profile it will not need to scan the destination directory because it remembers what it did the last time the profile was run. This means the scan time is substantially lower (at least twice as fast, often far more) especially if the destination is on a slow device, e.g. networked drive, FTP server, etc.