[Rob Alexander]

Originally Posted by lapchinj

I guess all my excitement about SynchToy is because I never really found anything that would do just what I wanted. Not that I turned over every rock or googled on the subject but I've tried a whole mess of products that I've heard about. I've never heard about Second Copy or some of the others being mentioned here but they are all worth a look and see.

Good point. I can remember when I first started doing this. I was using an Iomega Jazz drive to carry stuff back and forth between work (college professor) and home. I spent a long time never being able to keep straight which files I'd worked on where, and which was the newest version. Then one day, I discovered that I'd copied the older file over the newer of the same name and lost hours of work :bangin: , so I set out to find a solution. I tried about half a dozen programs, but none were even close to Second Copy in simplicity and power and I've been using it ever since. It has really changed my life in giving me the ability to work on anything in either location, confident in knowing that I have the exact same files on both computers and that any work I do will automatically be moved to the other location. :way to go:

But in fairness, I went along without such a solution for some years before that happened, and without that crisis I might now just be hearing about this idea and thinking how great it is. So let me apologize. ops: Rather than saying 'how come you didn't know this?', let me say... whatever program you use, if you regularly move files back and forth between two computers, you really, really, should set up a sync system like this. Once you do, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. 8)

[Rob Alexander]

Originally Posted by lapchinj

I guess all my excitement about SynchToy is because I never really found anything that would do just what I wanted. Not that I turned over every rock or googled on the subject but I've tried a whole mess of products that I've heard about. I've never heard about Second Copy or some of the others being mentioned here but they are all worth a look and see.

Good point. I can remember when I first started doing this. I was using an Iomega Jazz drive to carry stuff back and forth between work (college professor) and home. I spent a long time never being able to keep straight which files I'd worked on where, and which was the newest version. Then one day, I discovered that I'd copied the older file over the newer of the same name and lost hours of work :bangin: , so I set out to find a solution. I tried about half a dozen programs, but none were even close to Second Copy in simplicity and power and I've been using it ever since. It has really changed my life in giving me the ability to work on anything in either location, confident in knowing that I have the exact same files on both computers and that any work I do will automatically be moved to the other location. :way to go:

But in fairness, I went along without such a solution for some years before that happened, and without that crisis I might now just be hearing about this idea and thinking how great it is. So let me apologize. ops: Rather than saying 'how come you didn't know this?', let me say... whatever program you use, if you regularly move files back and forth between two computers, you really, really, should set up a sync system like this. Once you do, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. 8)

[lapchinj]

Originally Posted by Rob Alexander

...I was using an Iomega Jazz drive to carry stuff back and forth between work (college professor) and home... Once you do, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. 8)

Yeah I did Jazz, 100mb, 250mb, 750mb and then finally went to CF cards. I used all that for my sneaker-net backup and taking files to and from a client's site. Now I use only my laptop and digital media when going to a client.

I was looking at something like FolderShare since with all the preparation I do before going to a client's site I always forget something. But with all the different servers I have at home for development I think it's time to bite the bullet and create some access to one of them. I hope that SyncToy now doesn't put a kink into doing this.

I never really got burnt overwriting newer files with older ones even though there were more than enough times I had to spend time looking at which files contained my latest changes. The biggest pain I had is not taking along to a client's site the latest files that I need for a project. My laptop is supposed to be have an exact copy of my dev machine's projects but there is always something missing. Like you did I should have looked for a solution a long time ago. (should'ah, could'ah, would'ah but in the end I didn't). At least now with SyncToy I can be sure that my laptop will now be in sync with my dev machine.

jeff-

[jneely]

Anyone interested in doing this in a more scripted way may find ROBOCOPY useful. It's been a FREE part of the Windows Resource Kit for many years and is a standard tool in most IT professionals toolkits.

Here is a nice summary of the command line syntax (it is VERY powerful and VERY efficient):
http://www.ss64.com/nt/robocopy.html

And here is a sample script for mirroring data:

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL

SET _source=\\FileServ1\e$\users\

SET _dest=\\FileServ2\e$\BackupUsers\

SET _what=/COPYALL /B /SEC /MIR
:: /COPYALL :: COPY ALL file info
:: /B :: copy files in Backup mode. 
:: /SEC :: copy files with SECurity
:: /MIR :: MIRror a directory tree 

SET _options=/R:0 /W:0 /LOG:MyLogfile.txt /NFL /NDL
:: /R:n :: number of Retries
:: /W:n :: Wait time between retries
:: /LOG :: Output log file
:: /NFL :: No file logging
:: /NDL :: No dir logging 

ROBOCOPY %_source% %_dest% %_what% %_options%

I use this to backup all of my workstations to a server on my home network on a regular basis. You can easily schedule it too with Windows scheduler.

Another similar commercial tool is also available: XXCopy. It has even a few more capabilities than ROBOCopy.

[Jonathon Watkins]

Originally Posted by Rob Alexander

I've used Second Copy (http://www.centered.com/) since 1999 and it has been totally reliable with both easy set up for simple tasks and all the customization you could ask for if you're looking to do something more complicated.

I've also been using Second Copy as well for many years. It's well worth the money as it gives you soooo much control. It has not let me down yet and is a great semi-backup and archival solution.

[mrmagoo]

Originally Posted by Jonathon Watkins

I've also been using Second Copy as well for many years. It's well worth the money as it gives you so much control. It has not let me down yet and is a great semi-backup and archival solution.

I've also been using Second Copy for three years. I use the software to automatically backup my wife's laptop and my desktop computer onto my file server. I've stopped making CD or DVD backups of my digital photos/movies because Second Copy does a great job of performing the autobackup.

Second Copy has saved me twice. Once when my harddrive that contained all of my digital photos/movies died and a second time when my wife's laptop harddrive died. It was just a simple matter of installing new harddrives (well, my wifes laptop drive needed to be reimaged first using an old Norton ghost image), and copying all of the backed up files over onto the new drive.

[twestley]

I'll download and try SyncToy. I can't imagine that it's better than Beyond Compare (http://www.scootersoftware.com) which not only syncs folders but also compares and edits files. It syncs folders on your local and network drives (of course) but can also open and sync zip files and ftp sites. I use it all the time for comparing files, folder sync, server backups, laptop sync, and updating my website. It also supports plugins so you can sort of compare Excel and Word files. It is also scriptable.

However, Beyond Compare cannot access the Mobile Device "folder." One way you could make it work for Pocket PC sync is to build an FTP server that runs on the PC. It would use ActiveSync to convert and transfer files back and forth to Pocket PC. I can't find such a thing, so I'll probably build it one of these days. To make it better than ActiveSync, you'd want it to have access to memory cards and internal ROM and RAM.

If SyncToy is Way Beyond Compare, then I'll switch to it.

[midtoad]

Hmm, this SyncToy sounds quite a bit like a version of rsync for Windows, since rsync can do most of what SyncToy does. Are there any users of rsync here that have tried SyncToy and would like to comment on the differences?

S

[EricR]

Will any of these programs work with two computers (notebook and desktop) both sync'ing with our office server?

Thanks,

EricR

[twestley]

Originally Posted by EricR

Will any of these programs work with two computers (notebook and desktop) both sync'ing with our office server?

I use Beyond Compare every day for backing up desktop to server, then server to laptop which I then take home. It works really well and is very fast. I do it explicitly rather than by schedule.

[OSUKid7]

Originally Posted by EricR

Will any of these programs work with two computers (notebook and desktop) both sync'ing with our office server?

SyncToy should do that just fine. I'm currently sync'ing between my laptop (main computer now), external hard drive (for backups), and Tablet PC. I'll soon be adding my family's computer and my desktop computer into the mix.