As a possible replacement for SyncFile consider Replicator from Karen Kenworthy (www.karenware.com). It also replicates a directory by examining the last modified date/time of each file and is also free (although Karen does appreciate donations). However, it has a Windows UI and can run in either unattended mode (using its own scheduler) or manually by setting up an icon on your Windows desktop that backs up one or multiple directories. The "tags" feature also provides a backup for the backup.
Posted by: michael horowitz at April 8, 2004 4:03 PM
I have downloaded syncfile to compare the date and time-stamps of different files. I am finding that if I use it to compare files across time zones the time stamps differ therefore syncfile thinks they are different. Is there a setting to change the time-stamp cusion to a few hours or ignore the time itself and only compare date or date & size?
Posted by: Matthew Engstrom at May 17, 2004 2:39 PM
I ran into this problem all the time when I was backing up across different disk formats ... an NTFS drive syncing with a FAT drive. The problem is that FAT doesn't know about, or store, timezone or daylight savings time information. NTFS stores all timestamps internally as GMT, so cross-timezone compares should work. (My problem happened twice a year ... when daylight saving time came and went).
Syncfile doesn't do what you ask (60seconds is the maximum "really sloppy" time comparison). I'll add to my todo list the ability to allow you to specify the amount of allowable difference as a parameter on the command line.
Posted by: Leo at May 17, 2004 2:44 PM
If you have JRE installed on your system or if you are willing to download and install it, there is one excellent backup program (AKGBackup) in Java. The url is http://www.akgupta.com/applications/akgbackup.htm
Posted by: John Miller at October 7, 2004 6:02 AM
I copy my entire current XP NTFS partition to a second hard disc. As long as it's partitoned first, (you can do this from within XP) , made active, and as large as my current C: partition (using Maxblast or any freeware to do this) it works fine. After copying, you must remove (disconnect) the original drive temporarily and boot from a floppy containing Fdisk. (i use a Win98 boot disk) It will say you have no valid c: drive because it doesn't see the NTFS partition as valid. You then answer yes to use disc as large disk, and then run Fdisk/mbr. Remove the floppy, reboot, and it will boot to the XP backup drive, and you have an entire, activated, backup of your complete active hard disk for a fatal crash (they DO happen, and for no good reason) of your current one. I bought a 60 gig drive for $40 a month ago and keep it in my case without power cable attached just for this purpose. This could then be reversed to a new, larger drive if required. This was the only way to make it work with
Posted by: Joe McElroy at November 28, 2004 3:14 PM
I had a virus i couldn't remove with spybot, adaware, avg, and trend micro so i restored my 2 week old XP backup and problem solved! Didn't think i'd need it with those tools....
Posted by: joe mcelroy at December 14, 2004 7:07 PM
I like ABC Backup!
(http://www.abcbackup.com)
Cheers,
Lara
Posted by: Lara at September 28, 2005 1:04 AM
For a nice non-techie backup solution, I'm using the new Carbonite Online backup (www.carbonite.com). It's $5/month with unlimited capacity. I have about 32GB backed up. Can't beat the price. It takes awhile for the initial backup as my DSL only uploads at about 2GB/day, but now that it's done, it just works away quietly in the background keeping the backup current. So far so good. Gotta check out their whacky web site if nothing else.
Hans
Posted by: Hans Klein at May 19, 2006 5:46 AM
I have been using carbonite (www.carbonite.com for a month or so for backup and
it has been working flawlessly.
Posted by: absi at May 29, 2006 5:25 AM
Carbonite hides this well within their FAQ:
To keep users with very high speed internet connections from hogging all our bandwidth and storage, we limit backups to .5GB per day once you have sent us 50GB of data. So if your initial backup is, say 40GB, the initial backup will go as fast as your Internet allows. If you add .5GB of new data each day, after 10 days you’ll have 50GB in your backup. After 100 days, you’ll have 100GB in your backup. There is no size limit. But you can only send us .5GB of new data each day once you have passed the 50GB threshold.
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As a possible replacement for SyncFile consider Replicator from Karen Kenworthy (www.karenware.com). It also replicates a directory by examining the last modified date/time of each file and is also free (although Karen does appreciate donations). However, it has a Windows UI and can run in either unattended mode (using its own scheduler) or manually by setting up an icon on your Windows desktop that backs up one or multiple directories. The "tags" feature also provides a backup for the backup.
Posted by: michael horowitz at April 8, 2004 4:03 PMI have downloaded syncfile to compare the date and time-stamps of different files. I am finding that if I use it to compare files across time zones the time stamps differ therefore syncfile thinks they are different. Is there a setting to change the time-stamp cusion to a few hours or ignore the time itself and only compare date or date & size?
Posted by: Matthew Engstrom at May 17, 2004 2:39 PMI ran into this problem all the time when I was backing up across different disk formats ... an NTFS drive syncing with a FAT drive. The problem is that FAT doesn't know about, or store, timezone or daylight savings time information. NTFS stores all timestamps internally as GMT, so cross-timezone compares should work. (My problem happened twice a year ... when daylight saving time came and went).
Syncfile doesn't do what you ask (60seconds is the maximum "really sloppy" time comparison). I'll add to my todo list the ability to allow you to specify the amount of allowable difference as a parameter on the command line.
Posted by: Leo at May 17, 2004 2:44 PMIf you have JRE installed on your system or if you are willing to download and install it, there is one excellent backup program (AKGBackup) in Java. The url is http://www.akgupta.com/applications/akgbackup.htm
Posted by: John Miller at October 7, 2004 6:02 AMI copy my entire current XP NTFS partition to a second hard disc. As long as it's partitoned first, (you can do this from within XP) , made active, and as large as my current C: partition (using Maxblast or any freeware to do this) it works fine. After copying, you must remove (disconnect) the original drive temporarily and boot from a floppy containing Fdisk. (i use a Win98 boot disk) It will say you have no valid c: drive because it doesn't see the NTFS partition as valid. You then answer yes to use disc as large disk, and then run Fdisk/mbr. Remove the floppy, reboot, and it will boot to the XP backup drive, and you have an entire, activated, backup of your complete active hard disk for a fatal crash (they DO happen, and for no good reason) of your current one. I bought a 60 gig drive for $40 a month ago and keep it in my case without power cable attached just for this purpose. This could then be reversed to a new, larger drive if required. This was the only way to make it work with
Posted by: Joe McElroy at November 28, 2004 3:14 PMI had a virus i couldn't remove with spybot, adaware, avg, and trend micro so i restored my 2 week old XP backup and problem solved! Didn't think i'd need it with those tools....
Posted by: joe mcelroy at December 14, 2004 7:07 PMI like ABC Backup!
(http://www.abcbackup.com)
Cheers,
Posted by: Lara at September 28, 2005 1:04 AMLara
For a nice non-techie backup solution, I'm using the new Carbonite Online backup (www.carbonite.com). It's $5/month with unlimited capacity. I have about 32GB backed up. Can't beat the price. It takes awhile for the initial backup as my DSL only uploads at about 2GB/day, but now that it's done, it just works away quietly in the background keeping the backup current. So far so good. Gotta check out their whacky web site if nothing else.
Hans
Posted by: Hans Klein at May 19, 2006 5:46 AMI have been using carbonite (www.carbonite.com for a month or so for backup and
Posted by: absi at May 29, 2006 5:25 AMit has been working flawlessly.
Carbonite hides this well within their FAQ:
To keep users with very high speed internet connections from hogging all our bandwidth and storage, we limit backups to .5GB per day once you have sent us 50GB of data. So if your initial backup is, say 40GB, the initial backup will go as fast as your Internet allows. If you add .5GB of new data each day, after 10 days you’ll have 50GB in your backup. After 100 days, you’ll have 100GB in your backup. There is no size limit. But you can only send us .5GB of new data each day once you have passed the 50GB threshold.
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