Tag Archives: features
Synchronize Files and Synchronize Folders with the Open Source Tool FreeFileSync
Now there are a lot of synchronization tools out there both paid and free, each with a different set of features and marketing spiel. What makes FreeFileSync stand out? It’s user-friendliness and performance. Both are buzz words already used so often that they almost lost their meaning. But still they describe best where FreeFileSync shines: Its user interfaces are stripped off from superfluous and needless options. Many similar tools seem to add every bell and whistle in a futile attempt to please each and every user, failing to realize they serve nobody in the end. FreeFileSync carefully selects only options that are relevant for backup and synchronization, while making tons of smart decisions under the hood. Most of these the user does not even notice unless he reads the long list of features that this tool supports.
Performance on the other hand is easily measurable. I have yet to find a tool which is faster than FreeFileSync, but there are a few tools specialized at high-performance file copying which seem equally fast. Using system logging tools like Process Monitor it becomes clear why: There is not a single superfluous file access during synchronization. There’s exactly one read access for each file during comparison and another one when synchronizing a file or folder. For a tool which is primarily I/O bound this is as good as it can get, but can rarely be expected when looking at other synchronization alternatives – no matter if free or commercial.
Besides these obvious features, there are more subtle characteristics that are easily overlooked. The FreeFileSync bug tracker has been empty or almost empty for years. This is not to say there were no bugs, but each of them was solved almost instantly within hours or a few days. This is quite remarkable for an open source software in general, and it does not even charge support fees. The release cycles have been around once per month for the past few years. This speaks for a modern agile software development process. Lastly with now five years of development it can be considered a mature and stable solution.
The first thing that you see when you start up FreeFileSync is a very well-arranged and structured user interface. It does not require much reading of documentation to figure out how to setup a synchronization task. You choose directories for left and right side, then compare them. This will fill the preview panel telling exactly what is going to happen before even touching your precious data. Now you can change the sync direction for individual files or select one of a number of synchronization variants. These are pre-configured rules that describe how you want your files and folders to be synchronized. The “mirror variant” for example will synchronize files and synchronize folders from left to right, making sure the target side is updated to reflect the source. Or you may want to select the “two way” variant where both sides are taken into consideration: Any change on one side is propagated to the other. If you have deleted a file, changed a file’s content or created a new file, this change will be synchronized to the other side, even if changes on both sides have occurred since last synchronization. Thereby the program is smart enough to detect conflicts, i.e. if you accidentally changed the same file on both sides, the program will warn and request a manual resolution. So the tool makes sure you do not lose important data, even if you make stupid mistakes.
FreeFileSync can be downloaded for free. Here is a list of the most important features taken from the project site:
– Detect moved and renamed files and folders
– Copy locked files (Volume Shadow Copy Service)
– Detect conflicts and propagate deletions
– Binary file comparison
– Full support for Symbolic Links
– Automate sync as a batch job
– Process multiple folder pairs
– Comprehensive and detailed error reporting
– Copy NTFS extended attributes (compressed, encrypted, sparse)
– Copy NTFS security permissions
– Support long path names greater than 260 characters
– Fail-safe file copy
– Cross-platform: Windows/Linux
– Expand environment variables like %USERPROFILE%
– Access variable drive letters by volume name (USB sticks)
– Native 64-bit support
– Keep versions of deleted/updated files
– Optimal sync sequence prevents disc space bottlenecks
– Full Unicode support
– Highly optimized performance
– Include/exclude files via filter
– Local and portable installation
– Handle daylight saving time changes on FAT/FAT32
– Use macros %time%, %date%, et al. for recurring backups
– Case sensitive synchronization
– Built-in locking serializes multiple jobs running against the same network share
Carbonite Online Backup Review: Does it Do the Job?
Carbonite is a fairly well known name in the world of online backup. It makes usage of a desktop computer user interface that’s user-friendly as well as effortless to set up and that makes endorsing up remarkably beneficial for end-users.
Carbonite divides its plans into home as well as business selections. For the company customer, the deal features 250 gigabytes of memory space for a total of $ 229 every year. This deal is expandable, however. There is additionally a server possibility readily available for business customers that require to back up their servers and which features a substantially much larger volume of storage spot. The home deal costs $ 59 each year as well as permits you to backup one laptop. A free testing is supplied for a 14-day term for home customers as well as a 30-day term for company customers.
Carbonite has some incredibly good features, particularly for those that aren’t the most technically innovative desktop computer users out there and who like a system that supplies them some guidance in endorsing up the files appropriately.
Pros
Carbonite has one of the most captivating ideas in backup software around. Instead of having to go with all of your files manually and figure out which ones you want to backup, the original installment process will certainly backup all of your documents, pictures, video clips as well as popular music files for you. You can easily add added files to the backup process, of program, and it’s no more complicated the best clicking on them. This makes it a very convenient service and one that will certainly most absolutely appeal to customers that want things to be as automatic as possible. SSL encryption is sustained during transfers.
Cons
Carbonite will take a prolonged time to finalize its backup procedure on the first usage. Since it endorses up so countless files automatically, it could even take a few of days to finish transfering anything off your computer. It’s a fantastic choice but predict to lose a bit of bandwidth during the first backup operation.
Investigation
Carbonite offers excellent business deals as well as great house customer deals. The business plans really should be enough to suit the demands of most providers, by having a mighty 500 gigabytes of storage space being readily available for their server backup deal. For house users, the original backup routine could be a bit frustrating in the volume of time it is very likely to take, however the safety it supplies will definitely be refreshing. Subsequent backup routines will not take approximately as lengthy.
Verdict
Carbonite has plenty of features that will definitely appeal to the end customer. Principally, the fact that this backup service permits you to have the files endorsed up immediately suggests that there is extremely little guess work involved in it. Including brand-new files to the backup routine is straightforward enough that any person will definitely be able to understand it. This makes it an excellent alternative for customers that simply desire something that will automatically endorse up their economic files as well as so forth. Business customers will likely appreciate many of the same features however the intuitive interface and self-regulating backup will likely not be of as much use to IT specialists.
Carbonite Online Backup Review: Does it Do the Job?
Carbonite is a fairly well known name in the world of online backup. It makes usage of a desktop computer user interface that’s user-friendly as well as effortless to set up and that makes endorsing up remarkably beneficial for end-users.
Carbonite divides its plans into home as well as business selections. For the company customer, the deal features 250 gigabytes of memory space for a total of $ 229 every year. This deal is expandable, however. There is additionally a server possibility readily available for business customers that require to back up their servers and which features a substantially much larger volume of storage spot. The home deal costs $ 59 each year as well as permits you to backup one laptop. A free testing is supplied for a 14-day term for home customers as well as a 30-day term for company customers.
Carbonite has some incredibly good features, particularly for those that aren’t the most technically innovative desktop computer users out there and who like a system that supplies them some guidance in endorsing up the files appropriately.
Pros
Carbonite has one of the most captivating ideas in backup software around. Instead of having to go with all of your files manually and figure out which ones you want to backup, the original installment process will certainly backup all of your documents, pictures, video clips as well as popular music files for you. You can easily add added files to the backup process, of program, and it’s no more complicated the best clicking on them. This makes it a very convenient service and one that will certainly most absolutely appeal to customers that want things to be as automatic as possible. SSL encryption is sustained during transfers.
Cons
Carbonite will take a prolonged time to finalize its backup procedure on the first usage. Since it endorses up so countless files automatically, it could even take a few of days to finish transfering anything off your computer. It’s a fantastic choice but predict to lose a bit of bandwidth during the first backup operation.
Investigation
Carbonite offers excellent business deals as well as great house customer deals. The business plans really should be enough to suit the demands of most providers, by having a mighty 500 gigabytes of storage space being readily available for their server backup deal. For house users, the original backup routine could be a bit frustrating in the volume of time it is very likely to take, however the safety it supplies will definitely be refreshing. Subsequent backup routines will not take approximately as lengthy.
Verdict
Carbonite has plenty of features that will definitely appeal to the end customer. Principally, the fact that this backup service permits you to have the files endorsed up immediately suggests that there is extremely little guess work involved in it. Including brand-new files to the backup routine is straightforward enough that any person will definitely be able to understand it. This makes it an excellent alternative for customers that simply desire something that will automatically endorse up their economic files as well as so forth. Business customers will likely appreciate many of the same features however the intuitive interface and self-regulating backup will likely not be of as much use to IT specialists.