Good program for synching two hard drives?

Totality · 14 Nov 2009 at 01:33

Is there a good free program out there that people use for synching an internal and external drive? Something that lets you select, for example, two folders and then hit sync and it will match the folders up copying files both ways?

I'm running windows 7 home premium if that includes such a tool, if not then I don't mind 3rd party ones.

Dano · 14 Nov 2009 at 01:44

Synctoy 2.0

AbsenceJam · 14 Nov 2009 at 02:48

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18078403

whitecrook · 14 Nov 2009 at 03:15

Totality said:
Is there a good free program out there that people use for synching an internal and external drive? Something that lets you select, for example, two folders and then hit sync and it will match the folders up copying files both ways?

I'm running windows 7 home premium if that includes such a tool, if not then I don't mind 3rd party ones.

What happens if you have 2 files named the same, but different content, on each drive ? What will happen then?

Maybe not the answer you'd like but I'd use (and do use) robocopy for this. The mirror operation would work well for this.

marc2003 · 14 Nov 2009 at 04:00

^if people want 2 way synching, they usually want the newer file to overwrite the older one.

whitecrook · 14 Nov 2009 at 04:10

marc2003 said:
^if people want 2 way synching, they usually want the newer file to overwrite the older one.

yes. I guess so, usually. point is the computer doesn't know that

also depending on the nature of the purpose of this syncing doing that can be disastrous and result in data loss. E.g Workiing on a document, cat stand on keyboard, deletes half the work then word autosaves it... syn process comes along and overwrite the older, more complete file with the newer messed up file -> data loss.

Unlikely, perhaps, but many similar events have happened, not to mention syncing the wrong way...

marc2003 · 14 Nov 2009 at 04:19

whitecrook said:
point is the computer doesn't know that

well it's not going to guess. the method will be documented or there will be options you can set.

memyselfandi · 14 Nov 2009 at 08:08

Dano said:
Synctoy 2.0

Synctoy 2.1

steve258 · 14 Nov 2009 at 08:11

Glad i found this thread! good tool thanks for sharing.

Dano · 14 Nov 2009 at 09:27

memyselfandi said:
Synctoy 2.1

Ohhh, didn't know it had been updated, nice

Totality · 14 Nov 2009 at 17:23

Cheers. I saw synctoy but though it could only handle single folder merges, but looks like you set up "Folder Pairs" in a list so its all good! Installing now...

Lee · 14 Nov 2009 at 21:02

I use Allway sync. loads of different options depending on what you want to do.

neil_g · 14 Nov 2009 at 21:47

Lee said:
I use Allway sync. loads of different options depending on what you want to do.

+1, more options than synctoy i found.

plus you can set backup folders in case of the above when files get overwritten etc

CaptainCrash · 14 Nov 2009 at 22:27

I'm not very impressed with Allway Sync - apparently it's too stupid to copy files that are locked by other processes (they actually try to spin this as a benefit, saying it's "by design to guarantee data integrity"), and on their own admission it sometimes crashes when trying to sync a large number of files (due to its "sophisticated sync algorithm").

Furthermore, the free version is for "moderate personal use only" and has a limit of 40,000 files synchronised in a 30-day period, which may or may not be a showstopper depending on the size of your pr0n collection.

My personal favourite (free) syncing/backup utilities are GFI Backup Home 2009 and FreeFileSync - both simple to use but loads of options, and they can use the Windows shadow copy service to copy open files (as any half-decent file syncing utility should).