Synctoy alternative??

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8th July 2019, 10:49
Barryboy

Synctoy alternative??

Hi...

All my digital photos (close to 250GB now....) are stored on a remote HD and copies kept on a second remote HD in case the first disk goes down for any reason. I don't store anything on my C: drive. I tend to make additions/deletions/edits to the files in the first drive and then at the end of the session copy over to the second remote HD using Synctoy under Win10. However this is getting stupidly long... it takes hours to run. Does anyone know of a similar program that will search for any differences between the two and just copy over the files that have been added and/or amended? There used to be something like this that ran under MSDOS 6.2 many years ago (albeit with much smaller file sizes) and I can't believe that there's nothing similar today.

Forgot to mention... Don't want to try to do this through PS or Lightroom and simply doubt Cloud storage solutions... also much prefer a free program than a paid for program :-)

Pleased to hear

Rob
8th July 2019, 10:55
sish101

Try SecondCopy:

http://www.secondcopy.com/

Sent through the ether by magic
8th July 2019, 11:05
Barryboy

Quote:

Originally Posted by sish101

Try SecondCopy:

http://www.secondcopy.com/

Sent through the ether by magic

That seems to be what i need... pity it's £31 to buy......

Anyone know of anything like this that's free please? (Pensioner on limited income....)

Rob
8th July 2019, 11:11
sish101

It's a free download. I'm sure that you can trial it for 28 days, during this time you can create and amend profiles as required. Once the 28 days are up, you can still use the program but it nags you for 10 seconds when you start the program.

Sent through the ether by magic
8th July 2019, 12:44
eletos

Have you looked at ROBOCOPY?

Free and I think already installed in Windows. Very fast and versatile sync tool.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
8th July 2019, 12:54
Barryboy

Two good suggestions, there... Will have a look at Robocopy and being a mean (and skint) sod I have no problem ignoring nag screens. Thanks, guys!

Rob
8th July 2019, 23:45
reecie

I replaced SyncToy with FreeFileSync. It does just what you want regarding changed files and you can configure it in various ways
9th July 2019, 00:45
JohnnyE

I use this https://www.2brightsparks.com/freewa...eware-hub.html
10th July 2019, 09:48
PhilipK

Quote:

Originally Posted by reecie

I replaced SyncToy with FreeFileSync. It does just what you want regarding changed files and you can configure it in various ways

+1 for FreeFileSync (https://freefilesync.org/) - I now use it all the time, and it's much easier to use (and has better functionality) than either Synctoy or Robocopy.
10th July 2019, 09:57
Barryboy

Well got absolutely nowhere with Secondcopy and EaseUS. Took one look at ROBOCOPY and decided it's beyond me. Will take a look at Freefilesync and 2brightsparks as recommended by JohnnyWE, Reecie and PhilipK

Will let you know how I get on. Meantime one of the IT guys here recommends something called Xcopy.... anyone use that pls?

Rob
10th July 2019, 10:13
PhilipK

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barryboy

Meantime one of the IT guys here recommends something called Xcopy.... anyone use that pls?

XCopy is a DOS command-line utility. It's basically COPY on Steroids (lets you copy sub-directories, etc). Robocopy then adds programmatic logic. FreeFileSync et al provide a graphical user interface, which makes them much easier to use.

If you struggled with Robocopy, I'm not convinced that XCopy is the right tool for you.
10th July 2019, 10:26
Skier

Some interesting suggestions here. I use Acronis (which I'm not a great fan of) to back-up to an internal hard drive and am looking for another solution to use in backing-up to a NAS - I currently use Quick Shadow Back-up but it's not great.

Here are my requirements:

- Must be able to mirror what's on the left (my computer) to what's on the right (NAS) including file deletions
- Must mirror changes in (or very near) real-time
- Produce back-ups that are transparent i.e. can be manually checked to see that they have copied across folders/files, not in a proprietary format (e.g. not in .tib files as they are in Acronis)
- Must be able to back-up files in use, specifically the Outlook .pst file
- Have an intuitive straightforward User Interface (UI)

Here's what I've found from using various utilities (some paid for, some free) over time:

Memeo Back-Up Premium: Extremely good UI, does everything I want and I used it for many years. However, it began to drop some back-ups plans and they couldn't be restored, they had to be recreated from scratch. Additionally, development appears to have ceased some years ago. I may end up going back to this.

Quick Shadow Back-Up: Locks Outlook when backing-up the Outlook .pst file. Doesn't reliably delete files in the destination that are deleted at source.

Acronis True Image: Produces Full & Incremental back-ups in an unreadable format. How do I know that when the time comes the source data is reliably copied and can be restored?

SyncToy: Has to be run manually or on a schedule i.e. no real-time back-up.

Free File Sync: Extremely poor UI with some areas of the interface I have no idea what they do and couldn't easily find out. Unless you have the utility full screen you can't see the back-up folder path.

Second Copy: Liked the UI but doesn't mirror source folder changes in real-time.

In fact, I think just typing this message has persuaded me to stop spending any more time looking and go back to Memeo Back-Up Premium for which I have a licence.
10th July 2019, 10:48
Barryboy

Further to the Xcopy comment.....

The guy is much happier with Unix than MS (considers himself as being ancient school, as opposed to old school) but he has done some research and suggested that a possible solution would be to copy only those files that have been changed in the source folder over to a destination folder and suggests the command

xcopy C:\sourcefolder E:\backupfolder /D /E /C /R /H /I /K /Y

This command should copy all files, including those in sub-folders, that are newer in the source folder to the destination folder. It will copy hidden as well as read-only files and will create the destination folder and/or sub-folders if they do not already exist.

Seems ideal... but he's not sure if it will work in Win 10. Anyone out there got any expertise with running MSDOS commands in Win 10?

Rob
10th July 2019, 11:25
PhilipK

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barryboy

xcopy C:\sourcefolder E:\backupfolder /D /E /C /R /H /I /K /Y

While it should work (including under Windows 10), personally I'd add the /V switch, especially if you're using /C (although it might take a bit longer). I'd certainly include /O or /X. You may also need /J if any of your files are especially large.

You can type "XCOPY /?" in a Command window to understand what each of the switches does. Or just use FreeFileSync :-)
10th July 2019, 13:36
Barryboy

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilipK

While it should work (including under Windows 10), personally I'd add the /V switch, especially if you're using /C (although it might take a bit longer). I'd certainly include /O or /X. You may also need /J if any of your files are especially large.

You can type "XCOPY /?" in a Command window to understand what each of the switches does. Or just use FreeFileSync :-)

Thanks, Philip. Many many moons ago before Windows was ever available I used to write small batch files for simple jobs under MSDOS and xcopy seems like much the same. If all else fails I will give it a try but I will definitely try freefilesync first :-)

Rob