can anybody recommend a good program to sync to an external folder or drive ? i dont mind paying for something good, ideally portable would be good but not essential
On Windows, I used FreeFileSync. The FreeFileSync version for Windows is not portable, but there's a FreeFileSync Donation Edition which is a portable zip. On Kubuntu, I use Grsync.
Are you wanting something that's automatic and in the background all the time, or something on-demand? I have never had an issues with robocopy running via script on a schedule. It's built in to windows. I also like Teracopy. It's very powerful. I don't like the fact the FreeFileSync uses lock files that can often conflict with my backups.
You may want to have a look at BeyondCompare; it all depends on what you want. https://www.scootersoftware.com/ It is not free. Standard and Pro version, for Windows, Mac and Linux. We have a thread here https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/beyond-compare.410603/ They have a very good forum https://forum.scootersoftware.com/ and support. About sync: https://www.scootersoftware.com/home#sync But I don't know whether this is what you want.
by syncing i mean i want to copy or move files and folders to another external drive or location and avoid writing the same and just update or add whatever doesnt exist
That's what I do. I use robocopy, which is baked into Windows, and the /MIR switch. It works perfectly. There's no need for anything new or third party.
Of course it's needed. How about scheduling, a nice dark theme interface, a user friendly interface with useful settings, how about real-time backup process, etc etc?
I just use Windows' task scheduler to run the script file that calls the robocopy commands whenever I want. I can have it run silently, so there's no need for a ui at all. As far as settings, all those are in the switches inside the script file. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.
I use Robocopy for data backups. Both for local and network backups and it's run as @n8chavez describes.
You guys know how to write and use scripts. Not everyone is as comfortable around that and having a gui that allows you to easily choose what to backup and where to backup to makes life a lot easier for us. I am also a happy Bvckup 2 user.
I like Bvckup 2 and I take your point. I use this... Code: set source= set target= set rlog= robocopy.exe "%source%" "%target%" *.* /mir /copy:DAT /dcopy:DA /r:0 /v /xj /mt:32 /log:"%rlog%" set source= set target= set rlog= You just have to fill in the first 3 lines. For example... Code: set source=D:\My_files set target=H:\My_files_backup set rlog=H:\data-rclog.log robocopy.exe "%source%" "%target%" *.* /mir /copy:DAT /dcopy:DA /r:0 /v /xj /mt:32 /log:"%rlog%" set source= set target= set rlog= Save it as robocopy.cmd (your choice of name) and run it as an Administrator. My daily data backup of 400 GB of files takes a minute. Mirror. As long as I haven't added large files to the data folder.
I will take save a copy and play with it some time, it's always good to know more things and maybe to use it on a desktop without a Bvuckup 2 license. I probably will still be more comfortable using bvckup 2 for my main jobs.
Robocopy has a bug if you copy from the root. I don't know how frequently this happens. I've seen it. This results in your backup taking hidden attributes and the target folder appears empty. set source=D:\ That's why I have my data files in a folder, D:\My_files But if you experience this bug it's easily fixed by running this from an Admin Command Prompt... attrib -s -h H:\My_files_backup
Not a need as such, but Bvckup 2 is certainly superior. There's a cool article on the site detailing the differences between the two.
set source=D:\ is incorrect It should be set source=D: If the bug occurs, the backup folder appears "gone". You can put attrib -s -h H:\My_files_backup at the bottom of the robocopy script I posted and you won't see the bug. This is for Win11. I recall Win10 and Win8 behaved somewhat differently. The bug only occurs if you copy from the root.
That's way more complicated than it needs to be. Robocopy (source) (destination) (flags). Use the /MIR flag for mirroring. /XN says to only look at the filesize, not the timestamps. That's it. Done. Just put your lines consecutively in a .bat file and you're done. Robocopy n:\Downloads z:\Downloads *.* /MIR /V /XN
Nate, /XN excludes existing files newer than the copy in the source directory. To me, /mir and /xn are incompatible. /XN would prevent a mirror.
That's incorrect. /nx makes robocopy look at the filesize of the data if the same file exists, and does not rely on the file's attributes. This is useful is a network share, or in my case could storage mounted as a network drive that has trouble with attributes. Without that switch every file would be seen as "newer" and thus every file would be constantly reupdating. You might not ever have the situation I do. But that's why I use it.
