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Super Flexible File Synchronizer Mini-Review

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tomos:
So, how is the company going in general? Are they bug fixing and feature updating and such? Does anyone know?
-Curt (April 15, 2009, 01:38 AM)
--- End quote ---

yes, very regular updates/fixes

mwang:
V4.xx is now not only very capable (which it was from the start), but also very stable. Sync profiles are also easier to manage.

Due to some stability issues and Unicode compatibility issues with SFFS, I went back to hand-made BC (Beyond Compare) scripts and batch files for scheduled sync'ing when BC3 was released. Relying on a 3rd-party scheduler (BC3 doesn't have one) and various scripts and batches (for BC3 scripting isn't capable enough) nevertheless made maintaining several sync/backup jobs difficult. So I tried SFFS again recently (about two weeks ago), and haven't had any issues so far. Its rock solid now, running non-stop on my system.

I still prefer BC3 for manual operation, and its Linux ver. is just as useful. The interface is perfect for me, and the ability to align differently-named folders/files is a godsend. For scheduled sync/backups, however, SFFS is the better choice.

tomos:
Version #5 is coming out soon - see below for details - partial file versioning for files over .4MB which can be combined with zipping & encryption


NEW FORUM (yaaaah)  :) http://www.backupcreations.com/forum/
there seems to be some sort of partnership with this new(?) online backup site (well, they will use a version of SFFS & SFFS has forum on their site). They here.


New Features In Version 5 (Preview now available for Windows)

Support for Google Docs
You can now synchronize with Google Docs! The functionality is described here.

Embedded SQL Database
An embedded Firebird SQL Database Server is now being used for the reference databases. This adds only 2 MB to the download and it does not need any configuration. It is used for SmartTracking, for the Destination Cache and for storing the checksums for Partial File Updating. The SQL server communicates directly via its DLL file, so there is no TCP/IP or other interprocess communication that would be seen by Firewalls. Embedded Firebird runs as part of the Superflexible or ExtremeSync processes.

Firebird is a great improvement over the old database structure, especially in terms of reliability and scalability. It can store an unlimited number of file entries and other data without becoming much slower. A separate database file is created for each job (like before). Old databases are automatically converted.

Differential Versioning Backup
You can now combine Partial File Updating with Versioning, Zipping and Encryption and use it with any backup storage location, including FTP and other Internet Protocols.

Checkboxes to choose:
- tab sheet Special: "Partial File Updating" (without Remote Service)
- tab sheet Zipping: "Zip Each File Individually"
 
The option "Filename Encoding" on the Versioning tab sheet is automatically active in this use case.
 
The Zip file sizes can now be limited too so that large files can be split (only in conjunction with Partial File Updating). The transfer can be stopped any time and zip parts already uploaded won't be lost.
 
Be sure to keep all zip files on the destination as they may all be needed to reassemble the file upon restore. Any older version can be restored by choosing the desired target date in the Restore Wizard, or by right-clicking the file in the Sync Preview and choosing the desired version. The option "Keep multiple files" is implied and does not need to be checked. It cannot be used to limit the number of older versions. All older versions must be kept on the backup.
 
A method to limit the number of older files that need to be kept on the backup storage is currently being developed and suggestions on the best strategy are welcome.
 
Block-level copying is applied to files which are at least 400,000 bytes in size. The granularity of the differential backup is determined dynamically for each file, based on its size. The smallest block size used will be 2048 bytes.
 
Each partial backup includes an MD5 checksum for each file, so that restored files can be verified to be 100% correct. You can see this in the file MD5.TXT that the partial zips contain. http://www.superflexible.com/history.htm

Darwin:
Thanks for posting this, Tom. I've been using the preview for quite a while (not sure when I started - at least a month or so ago) and I haven't had any problems with it, though my synchronizing needs are pretty basic (haven't tried partial file versioning and haven't tried the scheduler).

J-Mac:
Hey Tom, Mike:

I'm still using Version 4. I never hear anything about updates or new versions - I have to continually check the web site to see when updates are available. Is V.5 out yet?

One more question: are either of you using SFFS with Amazon S3 online data storage? I use Jungle Disk for that now but since they were purchased by Rackspace they very much want users to switch to using Rackspace's Online Disks instead of the Amazon S3 Buckets. Twice now with updates they changed mine over to Rackspace and I went through a lot of crap to get it all back to S3. So I'd love to dump Jungle Disk and use SFFS. Apparently SFFS can be used with Amazon S3 but I don’t think it has a UI to browse your files and folders there directly. Or at least it doesn’t in V.4 - maybe V.5 has changed this.

Anyway if wither of you are using SFFS with S3 I would appreciate some comments on that.

Thanks!

Jim

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