Just in case anybody's wondering, I just did some side-by-side comparison tests. I run my backups through PowerShell, it gives me a lot more flexibility concerning log files, reports, backup option control, etc. I've been using SyncToy 2.1 for as long as it's been available; I started with 1.2, so I've been pretty happy with it so far, and as others have said, 2.1 runs fine on Windows 10. I've been having some issues lately with the time it takes to sync as well as open-file errors, however. I'm backing up 1.17TB, so with a bunch of changes it takes a while. I recently bought a new NAS, and it took over two days to sync. Ridiculous.
Someone I trust told me about FreeFileSync so I tried that. (From FreeFileSync's "Vision" page, "In other words, if I were to find a file synchronization tool that was faster than FreeFileSync I would take it as a challenge and not stop until FreeFileSync is at least equally fast"). I didn't use the free version, I donated $10 and got the version that does parallel file transfers and set it to 32. It didn't seem any faster, so I started playing with timed test scenarios through PowerShell, syncing 250MB of files to new folders on the NAS. I tried SyncToy x64 2.1, FreeFileSync x64 10.5 and as a joke, I tried Robocopy. I mean, how fast can it be, it's been around since DOS days. It took me about 15 minutes of reading the options for Robocoby to come up with what I needed for the test (no unbuffered I/O for large files though), but to be honest, it took me almost as long for FreeFileSync. Their online help may look pretty, but it's a pain with every topic on a different webpage.
Long story short (yeah, I know, "Too late"), Robocopy blew the others away. SyncToy took an average of 11.944 minutes to backup that 250MB, FreeFileSync was better at 10.116 minutes, and Robocopy took 4.045 minutes for the same files. Extrapolate that out for the whole 1.17TB, and we're talking about saving 25.3 hours vs. FreeFileSync and 32.9 hours vs. SyncToy. Don't get me wrong, after the files are synced once, the time is no where near that, but time is still money. The one thing FreeFileSync has over both of them is rudimentary versioning (and I do mean rudimentary), and SyncToy can't run as a service to do real time synchronization, but Robocopy does have a couple of options to run again either after more than x number of changes are seen or after x number of minutes once changes are seen. It also does multithreaded copies if you want (basically the same as FreeFileSync's parallel I/O option that's only available if you donate).
What it all comes down to is this. I know major corporations that use Robocopy to move massive amounts of critical data from one datacenter to another because it's a safe, reliable program. Now that I know it's more than twice as fast as other programs, I've found my SyncToy replacement.
Note:
I do intend to try other programs to test against Robocopy's time. If anyone would like to see those results posted, let me know and I'll keep you updated.
Someone I trust told me about FreeFileSync so I tried that. (From FreeFileSync's "Vision" page, "In other words, if I were to find a file synchronization tool that was faster than FreeFileSync I would take it as a challenge and not stop until FreeFileSync is at least equally fast"). I didn't use the free version, I donated $10 and got the version that does parallel file transfers and set it to 32. It didn't seem any faster, so I started playing with timed test scenarios through PowerShell, syncing 250MB of files to new folders on the NAS. I tried SyncToy x64 2.1, FreeFileSync x64 10.5 and as a joke, I tried Robocopy. I mean, how fast can it be, it's been around since DOS days. It took me about 15 minutes of reading the options for Robocoby to come up with what I needed for the test (no unbuffered I/O for large files though), but to be honest, it took me almost as long for FreeFileSync. Their online help may look pretty, but it's a pain with every topic on a different webpage.
Long story short (yeah, I know, "Too late"), Robocopy blew the others away. SyncToy took an average of 11.944 minutes to backup that 250MB, FreeFileSync was better at 10.116 minutes, and Robocopy took 4.045 minutes for the same files. Extrapolate that out for the whole 1.17TB, and we're talking about saving 25.3 hours vs. FreeFileSync and 32.9 hours vs. SyncToy. Don't get me wrong, after the files are synced once, the time is no where near that, but time is still money. The one thing FreeFileSync has over both of them is rudimentary versioning (and I do mean rudimentary), and SyncToy can't run as a service to do real time synchronization, but Robocopy does have a couple of options to run again either after more than x number of changes are seen or after x number of minutes once changes are seen. It also does multithreaded copies if you want (basically the same as FreeFileSync's parallel I/O option that's only available if you donate).
What it all comes down to is this. I know major corporations that use Robocopy to move massive amounts of critical data from one datacenter to another because it's a safe, reliable program. Now that I know it's more than twice as fast as other programs, I've found my SyncToy replacement.
Note:
I do intend to try other programs to test against Robocopy's time. If anyone would like to see those results posted, let me know and I'll keep you updated.
