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SyncBackSE vs. SuperFlexible

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tranglos:
I just got "bit" by the scheduling feature in SFFS. I thought it was scheduled for earlier this afternoon but a reboot of my PC naturally had shut down SFFS and it is not set to auto-start, so - nothing happened.

Every other program I have used that has an internal scheduler automatically places the auto-scheduler feature in the startup folder. Not SFFS. You must manually start the scheduler, and if you don't manually create a link in the startup folder it will not start upon reboot and the files will not be synchronized.
-J-Mac (November 16, 2007, 03:58 PM)
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This is precisely what I was thinking when I evaluated SFFS. The interface, and the dangerous handling of scheduled jobs, including the fact that you must disable the scheduler before you can view your backup profiles.

I had a very hard time about a year ago choosing a text editor - I even tested products in $100+ price range, and none had the optimal mix of features and behaviors. I've registered three shareware editors, and they all annoy me in all sorts of ways :) But now, choosing a backup application seems even harder. Don't kick yourself over not having evaluated SFFS longer; I guess when I see an application that looks good at first sight and gets great reviews, I tend to assume it will suit me in the long run, and what's more, I want it to be good, I want to like the program.

The first backup application I bought was FileBackPC, in 2002. It was exceedingly powerful for its time, but in the end the UI was too complex to be sure I always got the settings right, and I couldn't live with the proprietary compression format, which meant I was locked out of my backups until I downloaded and installed the program. Today the UI is a little better, but it seems to be falling behind in features (no FTP backup, for example), and they've kept the proprietary format.

For now I'm sticking with Backup4All. The only major feature I wish it had is registry backup - HandyBackup does that, but at about $100 it is the only feature Backup4All does not have, and it misses a few others (no differentials, for example). I have a pretty long list of bugs in Backup4All; fortunately most are usability issues and cosmetic bugs, nothing that affects the reliability of the scheduled backup jobs. One thing that keeps me hesitant about Backup4All in the long run is the response I received from the author when I asked for ability to automatically run missed backups - I was basically told never to switch off the computer, which means to me the author may have gotten the idea that the program needs no improvement.

I'm still trying to get at the IBM offering, but unable to order it - so far I've been redirected from one helpdesk to another (very corteously, though :), now waiting for response.

.marek

NeilS:
I just got "bit" by the scheduling feature in SFFS. I thought it was scheduled for earlier this afternoon but a reboot of my PC naturally had shut down SFFS and it is not set to auto-start, so - nothing happened.-J-Mac (November 16, 2007, 03:58 PM)
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Do you have the Pro version, or just Standard? I was also a bit perturbed by the way the scheduling worked until I decided to try it with the ExtremeSync service installed (only available with Pro). With this, it behaves much more like you'd expect a backup program to work, i.e. you can fiddle with profiles and pretty much anything else without having to disable scheduling, not to mention allowing scheduling even if you are logged off.

It's a bit of a pity you have to buy Pro to get scheduling working this way though.


This is one of the poorest UI's I have seen in a while. It does sync fast and true, but I now know that I have to be exceedingly careful about every setting and test them all in every conceivable situation, as the developers have not put the customers' ease of use anywhere near the top of the feature list!
-J-Mac (November 16, 2007, 03:58 PM)
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Before trying SFFS, I'd seen quite a few comments and reviews saying that the interface was great, so I was a bit confused when I found it to be messy and inconsistent - I began to wonder if I was missing "the point" somehow, but I'm now pretty convinced that the interface is a bit of a mess.

To be fair, it's probably hard to provide as many options as SFFS does without things getting a tad messy, but I do think it could be massively improved. For a start, since there's so many options, I'd like much more control over unifying options across multiple profiles, or some form of option inheritance (e.g. I've got 8 backup jobs, all using the same core settings, but scheduled at different frequencies).

That said, it's not like I'm changing options on a daily basis, and the speed and reliability of SFFS is as good as anything I've seen, so the dodgy interface isn't enough to make me want to change to anything else any time soon.

- Neil

tomos:
also just had a look at SFFS version-history page & its getting an update every couple of days for the last couple of months
Hopefully the GUI might be improved for the next version at least .. maybe
I remember with the discount here, he was promising free updates (on request it sounded like) to people who bought with the discount - dunno is that discount still valid?

I am the software author and I want to add that a free version 4.0 update is no problem. When version 4 is out, there will be ways to get a free update, you just need to remember that you have been promised it!
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(dunno can i link to thread here - being for members only)

urlwolf:
by the way, SFFS has an option to recover all those individual zip files (even if you have incremental versions!) automatically. It mangles the names, but it understands them so no problem.

I'm using SFFS for incremental backups and it works better than any of the specialized solutions I have tried (backup4all, Genie, etc). Just tested it 4 days ago.

DBC:
by the way, SFFS has an option to recover all those individual zip files (even if you have incremental versions!) automatically. It mangles the names, but it understands them so no problem.

I'm using SFFS for incremental backups and it works better than any of the specialized solutions I have tried (backup4all, Genie, etc). Just tested it 4 days ago.
-urlwolf (November 17, 2007, 08:31 AM)
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That's good to know. Lack of automatic recovery of incremental b/u files was the problem you had with SyncBackSE, wasn't it?

DBC

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