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Main Area and Open Discussion => General Software Discussion => Topic started by: urlwolf on September 07, 2009, 12:09 PM
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What's a good alternative to filehamster?
it crashed on my windows server 2008 64 machine, and it was a tad too pushy to get the pro version anyway...
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did you see this thread ?
AJC Active Backup ---- at Bits du Jour (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=15445.0)
work your way down from this post
Re: MOGware's FileHamster (Complaint) (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=16845.msg149435#msg149435)
but hey I see you posted there :)
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did you see this thread ?
AJC Active Backup ---- at Bits du Jour (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=15445.0)
-tomos
AJC Active Backup is certainly not as memory hungry as FileHamster (and snappier too), but if you read the AJC forum, a new beta version is about to be released, and it's written in .Net now, just like FH. I fear the worst!
The good thing about FH is that it stores each backup file as a physical file, with a timestamp, so restoring is a breeze. AJC uses a proprietary file format, so you need the (free, separate) viewer app to extract files from the compressed backup files. That said, I took the BdJ offer and have switched to AJC, since the memory footprint of FileHamster is quite obscene, and it has a few other quirks I wasn't happy about. I don't expect to be upgrading when AJC switches to .Net though :-\
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JP Software (makers of 4NT/Take Command) have a product call Cascade Point that is a a similar automatic backup that saves file revisions. I haven't used it, so I'mm not sure how well it works, but may be worth a try:
http://www.jpsoft.com/cascadepointdes.htm
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but if you read the AJC forum
-tranglos
Do you have pointer to the AJC forum? It doesn't appear to have a link from their website.
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Do you have pointer to the AJC forum? It doesn't appear to have a link from their website.
-mwb1100
You're right, there is no forum! Sorry about he confusion. I remembered reading that comment on a board - that board was Bits du Jour comment section:
http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/ajc-active-backup/#comments
The author's response is Aug 21 2009 5:47am
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I have not used it, but AFAIK Docshield is similar and free for non-comercial use:
http://www.docshield.com/
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DocShield requires Microsoft .NET framework version 2.0 running under any Windows operating systems capable of running the .NET framework This includes Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows ME, and Windows NT.
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Genie-Soft (the company behind Genie-Soft Backup Manager) has a new product called Genie Timeline (http://www.genie-soft.com/products/genie_timeline/default.html).
The most interesting part is its tiered backup scheme. It makes a backup every half hour, then it "saves the hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month." (quoted directly from its user manual.)
It's something I've always wanted, and has been available to Mac users for a long time with the famed Time Machine. In fact, I believe Genie-Soft got its idea from Apple, with the similarity in names and the feature comparison table between the two products on their web site.
I downloaded the trial version yesterday and tried it briefly. It worked as promised, and wasn't taxing the system too much (didn't slow down my computer during the few hours of trial). It's designed to be easy to set up at the expense of flexibility, however, which bothered me a lot, so I uninstalled it after a few hours. They have a page comparing Genie Timeline to Backup Manager Pro, which should give you an idea of its strength and weakness. The user manual (pdf) can also be downloaded.
I now have my own tiered backup scheme, using SFFS, DOpus, Powerpro and batch files. If you don't need a "tiered" system (I believe FH doesn't have one), just need something that sits in the background and back up frequently and quietly, then SFFS, SyncbackPro, MirrorFolder and some others should do it, though each with its own strength and weakness. But I think you know them all, since they've been mentioned many times here.
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I tried everything mentioned above, but didn't keep any of them. FWIW, here are some terse comments from my notebook:
AJC Active Backup 1.5.10 (decent, with two tiers, but I want more tiers and better looking interface)
CascadePoint 2.10 Build 29 (need to set up file types)
DocShield v.2.0.2 (no wildcard support for folder exclusion)
MirrorFolder 4.1.192 (can't preview what's included and what's not. not flexible in file/folder exclusion)
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I now have my own tiered backup scheme, using SFFS, DOpus, Powerpro and batch files. If you don't need a "tiered" system (I believe FH doesn't have one)...-mwang
FH does support a 'tiered' set of revisions (not sure if it's in the free version, though). They call it "DynamicRevisionHistory" and it's buried in the options for a 'watch'. It seems to be on by default (but maybe I set mine - all I know is that it's on right now for me), and "keeps all revisions from the previous 24 hours then only keeps the latest revision for each previous day, each week, month and finally year."
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FH does support a 'tiered' set of revisions (not sure if it's in the free version, though).
-mwb1100
Interesting. I'll have to take another look at FH, then. Thanks.
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You could have a look at AutoSave Essentials (http://www.avanquest.com/USA/software/autosave-essentials-112304?meta=pc-utilities&cat=windows-backup-software&sub=data-backup-software). I used to use AutoSave 2 (http://eau.v-com.com/product/AutoSave_Home.html) but development seemed rather slow (there have been no new updates in at least 2 years to AutoSave 2) and I moved to FileHamster. Not sure what the difference is between AutoSave 2 and Essentials but it seemed to do what it said on the tin (which includes file versioning backups).
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FH does support a 'tiered' set of revisions (not sure if it's in the free version, though). They call it "DynamicRevisionHistory" and it's buried in the options for a 'watch'. It seems to be on by default
-mwb1100
yes, it's on by default in paid version - even for backups already setup - I cant believe it - it's newish I think,
that's the last thing I want :tellme:
I've posted in FH forums asking for more info but the help file says:
Dynamic Revision History when set to True will clean your revisions for you based on what day they were made on. This will help to keep your library from being overfilled with a large amount of old revisions.
First day - All revisions will be kept.
Next day and each day for one week - One revision per day for the week
Next week - One revision per week for the same month
Next month - One revision per month up to the end of the first year
Next year - One revision per year
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Oh, is Genie Timeline available now? I looked a couple of weeks ago, and at least I couldn't find a download link back then. Would love to play around with it.
It's not like what apple's doing with Time Machine is that new or unique, by the way - it's been possible to do with rsync + scripting for quite a while. Apple just pretty-GUI'ed it :). Afaik Time Machine does a full file backup whenever a file is changed, Timeline has an advantage there since it does block level backups and thus captures only the changed parts...
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Here's an alternative: 12Ghosts Backup (http://www.12ghosts.com/ghosts/backup.htm).
"HyperBackup automatically stores multiple versions of your files and applies a reasonable filter to keep versions of every stage."
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I had a quick look at Timeline, and it doesn't seem like it's installing any drivers - I'm wondering how they're doing block-level backups in an efficient way if they don't have a filesystem filter driver to record the changes?
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It's not like what apple's doing with Time Machine is that new or unique, by the way - it's been possible to do with rsync + scripting for quite a while.-f0dder
rsync is great. It's what I use on my linux server, but I don't know how to do it with Windows boxes. DeltaCopy had no unicode support the last time I checked.
Apple just pretty-GUI'ed it :). Afaik Time Machine does a full file backup whenever a file is changed, Timeline has an advantage there since it does block level backups and thus captures only the changed parts...-f0dder
Timeline does block level backup only for files larger than 40MB, according to its manual. That's not much use for me (I don't use Outlook). SpiderOak uses that technology to the extreme, on the other hand. (As an online backup provider, it stands to gain much more from it.)
And yet my current local backup solution doesn't do delta copy at all, so it's not a minus against Timeline for me. What really drove me away was the lack of customizability, in what files to back up, etc. It's a new product after all, so hopefully it'll be more flexible as it matures.
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I had a quick look at Timeline, and it doesn't seem like it's installing any drivers - I'm wondering how they're doing block-level backups in an efficient way if they don't have a filesystem filter driver to record the changes?
-f0dder
No, it didn't install any driver (inside the Windows directory tree if that's what you mean) according to my log. It has a "BlockLevel.dll" and it puts a ton into the registry. Do you really need a "driver" to do block-level backups? It registered as a set of system services and does its work in the background. Can't it perform block-level backups that way? That seems to be how SpiderOak does it as well.
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mwang: there's rsync version(s?) for Windows, the one I bumped into was a cygwin build... and I try to stay away from cygwin as much as possible. rsync in and by itself isn't enough for backup though, imho - it should be combined with script/whatever to get the same kind of functionality as time machine has. I use rsnapshot (http://rsnapshot.org/) on my linux box, works like a charm.
Block-level backups are cool, but I don't really need it for the stuff I want backed up. Also, without a filter driver (or something really smart I don't know about), I dunno how they can detect block changes efficiently (comparing to a backed-up version would be stupid). I was mostly excited about the block-level feature because I thougth it would mean a filter driver (I've got a thing for those :-[)... which would mean the backup app instantly knowing about file changes in a pretty efficient way.
Haven't had time to play around with Timeline, but it does sound like it's configurability is on the low end - that kinda sucks. And wtf is up with including a web server as part of the application? O_o - takes up ~28MB installed, and seems like a pretty pointless thing to do. Oh, and if explorer is the only interface for restoring backups, then... ugh.
No, it didn't install any driver (inside the Windows directory tree if that's what you mean) according to my log. It has a "BlockLevel.dll" and it puts a ton into the registry. Do you really need a "driver" to do block-level backups? It registered as a set of system services and does its work in the background. Can't it perform block-level backups that way? That seems to be how SpiderOak does it as well.-mwang
Well, for what I know, you need a filter driver (.sys) to detect "X bytes written too ffset Y in file Z" change notification (rather than just getting "file has changed") - unless you can ask Volume Shadow Copy Service or something. If you don't get the "X,Y,Z" notification, afaik you'd have to do a manual compare of the file to a previous version in order to detect modified blocks. This would work, and conserve space, but it's a lot slower than simply writing out blocks you've been previously told were modified.
I noticed blocklevel.dll as well and took a quick look at it, and it's definitely not a driver. Seems to use SQLite for something, possibly to store list of changed blocks?... but I didn't look any deeper than that.
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mwang[/b]: there's rsync version(s?) for Windows, the one I bumped into was a cygwin build... and I try to stay away from cygwin as much as possible.-f0dder
That, and DeltaCopy were what I found the last time I looked around. From memory they all had problems dealing with unicode file/folder names, so I gave up.
rsync in and by itself isn't enough for backup though, imho - it should be combined with script/whatever to get the same kind of functionality as time machine has. I use rsnapshot (http://rsnapshot.org/) on my linux box, works like a charm.
-f0dder
My linux skill is basic, so I followed a tutorial to set up rsync, I believe. Don't really remember what, if any, other tools were employed. I'll keep your advice in mind when I maintain it next time. Thanks!
Well, for what I know, you need a filter driver (.sys) to detect "X bytes written too ffset Y in file Z" change notification (rather than just getting "file has changed") - unless you can ask Volume Shadow Copy Service or something.-f0dder
Thanks for the explanation. I'm not a programmer, so I can only observe. SpiderOak doesn't install a driver either (no .sys files). It does detect block level changes not only because they advertise the feature on their web site, but also the uploads (of changed large files) take so little time that I don't think it's possible otherwise.
It couldn't compare a file to its earlier versions since they sit remotely (well, I do have local backups, but SpiderOak wouldn't know where to look). I don't know if it asks Volume Shadow Copy Service or other system services for the necessary information. But as a cross-platform service with linux and mac os clients, it would have to ask different system functions on different systems if it doesn't do it by itself. That's still possible, of course.
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Here's an alternative: 12Ghosts Backup (http://www.12ghosts.com/ghosts/backup.htm).-cranioscopical
Tried this one as well (v. 9.0). No unicode support. :(
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Thanks for the explanation. I'm not a programmer, so I can only observe. SpiderOak doesn't install a driver either (no .sys files). It does detect block level changes not only because they advertise the feature on their web site, but also the uploads (of changed large files) take so little time that I don't think it's possible otherwise.-mwang
Well, when remote uploading is involved, the time saved even on fast ADSL links would make compare-to-get-changes quite acceptable :)
It couldn't compare a file to its earlier versions since they sit remotely (well, I do have local backups, but SpiderOak wouldn't know where to look). I don't know if it asks Volume Shadow Copy Service or other system services for the necessary information. But as a cross-platform service with linux and mac os clients, it would have to ask different system functions on different systems if it doesn't do it by itself. That's still possible, of course.-mwang
Hm, interesting.
One solution I could think of would be to store checksums/hashes of each block of a file locally, for large enough blocks that this doesn't cause massive data bloat. It would be faster than comparing to an old version (only one big datastream read + the much smaller list of block-hashes). Still requires processing the entire file though.
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One solution I could think of would be to store checksums/hashes of each block of a file locally,
-f0dder
Indeed that could be the case. SpiderOak maintains a huge "pandora_sqliite_database" (117 MB at the moment). In addition there are several .db files, mostly small, but the largest one--snapshot.db--is 52 MB large.
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You could grab sqlite.exe / sqlite3.exe from here (http://sqlite.org/download.html) and have a look-see at what tables those files contain :) (note: make a copy before opening, I don't know if sqlite3 will attempt to upgrade an older db on open, or only when modifications are done - but it'd suck if SpiderOak uses v2 format and suddenly the database is in v3 format :)).
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What's a good alternative to filehamster?
it crashed on my windows server 2008 64 machine, and it was a tad too pushy to get the pro version anyway...-urlwolf
Back to urlwolf's original issues. I'm testing FileHamster 1.7.0.3573 after learning of its new tiered versioning feature (called Dynamic Revision History in FH lingo). So far it hasn't pushed anything yet, and I can turn off the huge banner at the top even with the evaluation version, something I couldn't do the last time I tried (more than a year ago).
They also have just announced new product tiers: Basic ($29), Advanced ($79, but currently at $49), and Enterprise ($99). Not sure how they compare to the old scheme. Is Basic = old "free", and Advanced = old "plus" (was $30 or so)? Seems quite a price hike if it is. (Haven't visited their web site for a long time, so I might have remembered the old price wrong. Sorry if that's the case.)
(edit: missed "how" before "they compare" in the above paragraph.)
It's stable, no crash so far after some 40+ hours on my Windows 7 x64 machine. Time will tell.
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You could grab sqlite.exe / sqlite3.exe from here (http://sqlite.org/download.html) and have a look-see at what tables those files contain :) -f0dder
It seems too formidable a tool for me, command line only and such, so I used Firefox's Sqlite Manager extension to open the two biggest databases instead. As far as I can tell, your guess (of SpiderOak storing checksums/hashes locally) is probably right. A screen shot of partial database structure is attached below, for your entertainment. It's only partial for that's the most I could get on one screen, but should be enough to give you some clues.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
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They also have just announced new product tiers: Basic ($29), Advanced ($79, but currently at $49), and Enterprise ($99). Not sure they compare to the old scheme. Is Basic = old "free", and Advanced = old "plus" (was $30 or so)? Seems quite a price hike if it is. (Haven't visited their web site for a long time, so I might have remembered the old price wrong. Sorry if that's the case.)
-mwang
they havent setup the upgrade path yet so it's not fully clear
'FileHamster Advanced' (currently $49) is "Comprised of the old FileHamster +plus features [i.e the old paid version] and nearly all of the plugins"
Some of the plugins cost (when you got them separate) - I bought one for $10 or so.
But with this repackaging (it seems to be simply a repackaging :() you dont have a choice - you are basically paying for all the plugins
The new basic is the same as the old +Plus (paid version) but without any of the plugins - no zipping of backup would be what I would mainly miss - to me it's asking a lot to pay (anything) for any backup programme that doesnt zip your backups... but maybe I've been spoiled?
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It's stable, no crash so far after some 40+ hours on my Windows 7 x64 machine. Time will tell.
-mwang
If you really want to stress-test FileHamster, and if this is anywhere close to how you would be using FH, try copying a large number of (small) files to a folder that FH is monitoring. Try a thousand files at a time. (This is what I sometimes have to do when receiving projects from a particular client). If FH is configured to make initial revisions of new files, it will start copying frantically. Watch CPU and memory use when that happens.
I don't have a link ready, but I remember reading a post by one of FH authors (on their support forum) stating that FH creates a new thread for every file it copies. If this is true, it's a really poor design. Starting a thread is "expensive" in CPU terms, and starting hundreds of threads at the same time is an awful idea. This is what "thread pools" were invented for. If you also have the "bubbles" (notifications) enabled, you can see FH memory use reach a gigabyte or so, as it creates hundreds and hundreds of windows. This might still (barely) work if if were written in C++, but a .Net app doing that sort of thing can really bring down the system.
I bought the Plus version and used have it for almost two years, but have recently switched to AJC, which is less powerful but orders of magnitude leaner.
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The new basic is the same as the old +Plus (paid version) but without any of the plugins - no zipping of backup would be what I would mainly miss - to me it's asking a lot to pay (anything) for any backup programme that doesnt zip your backups... but maybe I've been spoiled?
-tomos
This is what it looks like so far. Here's a thread I started on the FH support forum (http://support.mogware.net/index.php?topic=1037.new;topicseen#new).
The thread has also produced another real-time backup alternative, which has not been mentioned here yet, I think: http://www.beanland.net.au/AutoVer/ (not tested)
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FileHamster Plus (the old "Advanced" version) was 29.50 - I know cause I have it. The new pricing matrix looks a bit steep to me as well.
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I don't have a link ready, but I remember reading a post by one of FH authors (on their support forum) stating that FH creates a new thread for every file it copies. If this is true, it's a really poor design. Starting a thread is "expensive" in CPU terms, and starting hundreds of threads at the same time is an awful idea. This is what "thread pools" were invented for. If you also have the "bubbles" (notifications) enabled, you can see FH memory use reach a gigabyte or so, as it creates hundreds and hundreds of windows. This might still (barely) work if if were written in C++, but a .Net app doing that sort of thing can really bring down the system.-tranglos
:o :o :o
If they do that, then it's a sure sign of an application you should never, ever touch. Threads are indeed relatively costly to create, and a 32-bit application can create around 2k at max (Mark Russinovich has a [urlhttp://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2009/07/08/3261309.aspx]blog entry[/url] for the curious). What you want is a producer/consumer queue (threadpool isn't the best of ideas, thrashing disk I/O and all).
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Hey guys, I came over to respond to another thread that was just brought to our attention today and saw this one so I thought I would just chime in quickly to see if I can address some of the questions raised above.
The new versions of FileHamster is intended to help cut down on a lot of the expense and complications of selling plugins individually which was causing a lot more work and support on the Mogware end. We are hoping this shift will also help improve the less technical user's purchasing process by having better defined choices…Sorry, I know a few others who really liked having the ability to purchase small addon plugins.
We kept the low-end tool (FileHamster Basic) at the same price point as the old +plus version. The advanced tool (FileHamster Advanced) is also at a similar price point because it includes all of the power user's plugins that we used to charge for individually.
We do still have the free version…The 30 day trial version comes fully unlocked then falls back into the free version after the trial period ends.
We are in the process of setting up an upgrade path for our existing users that might go live today which actually takes into consideration any previously purchased plugins so it will be fair for everyone regardless what addons they previously purchased.
As for the above mentioned test case involving a few thousand files, I’m going to have testing check into that today…If memory serves me right, we did have issues in some older builds when FileHamster is inundated with file change events but I was under the impression they’ve all been cleared up. If we do find anything, I can confidently say it will be addressed in the next drop.
Oh, and the thread issue…We do have a separate thread for copying the revisions; However, it is only one thread which buffers any subsequent events so they can be processed properly in the background. We did have a bug with the zip plugin a long long time ago that might have done this horrendous thing but that was quickly resolved.
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FileHamster Plus (the old "Advanced" version) was 29.50 - I know cause I have it. The new pricing matrix looks a bit steep to me as well.
-paulobrabo
Before the restructuring there were 4 levels of FH:
- Lite (free)
- +Plus ($30)
- Dev bundle ($50)
- Enterprise ($80) - I'm not sure if this was ever actually for sale, or if it was just 'pre-announced'.
+Plus included WatchTree filters & enhancements, network & removable drive support, and some other stuff over the free version.
The Dev bundle added the FTP, script and report plugins. An blog entry (http://blog.mogware.net/?p=34) indicates that buying these plugins separately would bring the cost up to about $70 - the Dev Bundle's price was $50.
In the new pricing scheme, they have the following:
- Basic ($30) - correspnds to the previous +Plus version
- Advanced ($50) - corresponds roughly to the previous Dev bundle
- Enterprise ($100)
The trial version give the Basic version's features, then drops functionality to a free version (that presumably corresponds to the previous Lite feature set).
Advanced corresponds roughly to the old Developer Bundle (not the +Plus version), but also includes replication, diffing and zip support (I don't think those plugins were in the Dev Bundle).
So, except for the Enterprise version the pricing is pretty much the same with a couple caveats:
- for about a year or more there was a 50% off 'Anniversary' sale, so the +Plus version was $15 and the Dev Bundle was $25
- the new 'Advanced' version is $50 for a 'Limited Time' - there was short period where the price was listed as $80, with the $50 price being an introductory special for the Advanced version. The long-term pricing is no longer on the information page - so it may or may not come back at some point. Whether (and when) the price on the Advanced verison rises would be guess work on my part, though it seems that Mogware's intent is to raise the price at some point.
So, the bottom line is that the as of right now the pricing reflects the ending of the Anniversay Sale special more or less (though Enterprise did rise in price according to my notes). It's not particularly steep compared to the old pricing unless you're comparing it to the old Anniversary sale pricing (which may be natural because it was in effect for a long while).
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Advanced corresponds roughly to the old Developer Bundle (not the +Plus version), but also includes replication, diffing and zip support (I don't think those plugins were in the Dev Bundle).
-mwb1100
when you put it that way the 'Advanced' pricing is quite good/fair - especially if you use any of those plugins. The zip plugin was always free IIRC
I still think the basic is a waste of time cause it doesnt even have the zip capability
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The upgrade pricing is available now (for FileHamster) - you enter your e-mail address and are presented with upgrade pricing. I *think* I sprang for the developer version last time around and I am very impressed with the pricing that I am being offered for an upgrade. Even the Enterprise package is VERY reasonable. However, I'm curious to hear from anyone that has installed the new version? I uninstalled FileHamster some time ago in the course of troubleshooting an (as it turned out) unrelated issue and have never reinstalled it...
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If you really want to stress-test FileHamster, and if this is anywhere close to how you would be using FH, try copying a large number of (small) files to a folder that FH is monitoring.
-tranglos
OK, tried it twice just now, 1st with the bubbles turned off, then with bubbles on. I used a folder consisting of 1500+ html files, totaling 17+ MB. Process Explorer's System Info. window stayed open on the 2nd monitor so I could monitor the "treads" value, along with other things.
First try (no bubble): the copy went swiftly, as expected on a reasonably fast system between local HDs. CPU usage shot to 80+ percents but thread count remained steady. After dropping the folder in DOpus, I went back to Firefox, and didn't feel any slow down. Background music kept playing all this time without the slightest interruption. FileHamster window was unresponsive for a couple of min., but recovered soon enough.
Second try: the copy again went swiftly. CPU usage shot up again but still no obvious changes in thread count. And again there's no slow down in Firefox, Word, or any interruption in music playing. The bubbles started coming up, 5 at a time (per default limitation in FH).
It got quite annoying after a few around, so I tried to shut the bubbles off for otherwise there would be 300 rounds to go with 1500+ files. FH's tray icon was nevertheless non-responsive. After several tries (during two min. or so), the context menu finally came up, allowing me to went into "preferences" and suspended the bubbles.
There's now a FH icon on the taskbar. Pointing the mouse at it would pop up a thumbnail of FH's main window (aero peek). Clicking on the icon, however, would fail to bring up the main window. Well, the window did appear but it shrank right back in split second, as if I minimized it right away (I wouldn't be able to minimize a new window with my mouse that swiftly if I tried). Since FH was unresponsive for a couple of min. in the first test, I waited this time, but it remained so after 15 min. or so. I eventually right clicked the icon and closed the window. The tray icon was still there, and double clicking it brought up the main window without problem.
So, for the most part FH is OK. There's no excessive thread usage. And I have little use for the bubbles anyway.
A side note: I wrote Tobias Giesen, the developer of SFFS yesterday, asking for the "tiered versioning" feature. He replied that he'll consider it for v5, on which he should start working soon.
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So, for the most part FH is OK. There's no excessive thread usage. And I have little use for the bubbles anyway.
-mwang
/me breathes a sigh of relief
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The upgrade pricing is available now (for FileHamster) - you enter your e-mail address and are presented with upgrade pricing. I *think* I sprang for the developer version last time around and I am very impressed with the pricing that I am being offered for an upgrade. Even the Enterprise package is VERY reasonable. However, I'm curious to hear from anyone that has installed the new version? I uninstalled FileHamster some time ago in the course of troubleshooting an (as it turned out) unrelated issue and have never reinstalled it...
-Darwin
Here's a thread in the FileHamster forum about upgrading Updates for Plus (http://support.mogware.net/index.php?topic=1039.msg4075#msg4075)
I was happy enough too about price offered (I'm not sure does it depend on how many plugins you bought before) - bought it (but cant promise Mike when I'll get around to installing it!)
here's the link to check upgrade pricing
http://filehamster.com/index.php?page=upgrade&action=upgrade
and another CPU test here (http://support.mogware.net/index.php?topic=1037.msg4090#msg4090)
How to reproduce 80-99% cpu usage:
Almost clean virtual machine (XP SP3 updated last week), Default installation of new filehamster trial (downloaded today):
Options -> Suspend notification bubbles
Extra addons: none
Watch folder properties: All default except: MaxRevisions=30, ShowBubble=false
Now copy c:\Program Files\ in the watched folder...
Screenshots http://img529.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=filehamster1.png (http://img529.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=filehamster1.png)
-gizmoz
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I took the opportunity to "upgrade" to the Advanced version this morning. File Hamster is great for my non-geek girlfriend who has no desire to learn about version control, but needs to keep her important documents from getting messed up or lost.
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Hi,
Maybe an (private) Freeware "alternative" (?) - not tested - but looks fine - and is -> ".NET free"! :)
PureSync - File synchronizer and backup tool (by Christoph Güntner)
http://www.jumpingbytes.com/puresync.html
http://www.jumpingbytes.com/en/puresync.html
http://www.jumpingbytes.com/en/PureSync_Automatic_Backup_Synchronization.html
Automated backup and synchronization:
- A scheduler starts a synchronization every x hours, days, weeks, months
- Start a synchronization or backup automatically when e.g. a USB drive has been plugged in
- Synchronize or backup automatically when a file (that shall be backuped or synchronized) has been modified.
cheers
EDIT: Just found, a simpler One: also ".NET-free", Portable, Unicode, Real-Time-Sync, Volume Shadow Copy ...
FreeFileSync (by ZenJu)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freefilesync
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freefilesync/files
Open-Source folder comparison and synchronization tool. It is optimized for
highest performance and usability without restricted or overloaded UI interfaces.
-> See Readme.txt for the list of key features!
Changelog v2.2
---------------
- New tool 'RealtimeSync': Watch directories for changes and start synchronization automatically
-
FreeFileSync (by ZenJu)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freefilesync
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freefilesync/files
-@thehop
FreeFileSync can't do revision control since it can't rename or backup the conflicted files.
But, it has great potential and the author is very nice.
By the way, I feel that DocShield is currently the only free alternative to FileHamster.
-
In reading everyone's posts, I just thought it would be worth reiterating that fact that FileHamster can still be used for free; if you don't mind the reminders that you are using an expired evaluation version. Of course we want folks to eventually upgrade to the commercial version but if they don’t mind the ads then they can continue to use the evaluation version as long as they like…It truly is a personal choice.
Just on a side note, I also wanted to mention that of all the alternative mentioned above, none of them offer the immediate and automatic revision control that makes FileHamster so unique.
-
Just on a side note, I also wanted to mention that of all the alternative mentioned above, none of them offer the immediate and automatic revision control that makes FileHamster so unique.
-Mogware Support
AutoVer (http://www.beanland.net.au/AutoVer/) does, thanks for mentioning it.
-
AutoVer[/url] does, thanks for mentioning it.
-urlwolf
Oops, you are correct; AutoVer does do that...However, I think I remember seeing somewhere that it isn't being actively supported or developed anymore. In checking their forums, they haven't had any traffic in well over a year.
-
Indeed AutoVer's development has stalled for quite a while. The author admits as much (http://beanland.net.au/):
30-01-2009 AutoVer development had stopped for a while. I have started on the next version, more features, some fixes etc. No ETA yet.
And it wasn't as stable as FileHamster on my system when I tried it (1.2.2).
-
Hi,
Maybe an (private) Freeware "alternative" (?) - not tested - but looks fine - and is -> ".NET free"! :)
PureSync - File synchronizer and backup tool (by Christoph Güntner)
http://www.jumpingbytes.com/puresync.html
http://www.jumpingbytes.com/en/puresync.html
http://www.jumpingbytes.com/en/PureSync_Automatic_Backup_Synchronization.html
Automated backup and synchronization:
- A scheduler starts a synchronization every x hours, days, weeks, months
- Start a synchronization or backup automatically when e.g. a USB drive has been plugged in
- Synchronize or backup automatically when a file (that shall be backuped or synchronized) has been modified.
cheers
-@thehop
The installer does not work unfortunately
-
I made a post about Using FileHamster to keep track of status of a job (via files) (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=21954.0).
I wasn't (and amn't) looking for an alternative, but for those who are, this post cmpm made there may be of interest:
A possible alternative to FileHamster-
http://www.exendo.org/
$40 though...
-cmpm
-
I'm using this (http://codessentials.com/products.html). May not appeal to power users, but is good enough for the average home user
Yadis! Backup
It's an easy-to-use backup-tool, which will save you a lot of troubles. It guards your personal data by making real-time copies (whenever you make changes to your documents) to almost any destination you choose.
When you use a backup-tool, it's often a hard job to learn to know all of the features. And when you've finally managed to understand every possibility of that tool, you realize it's not just that what you wanted.
That's why we've created Yadis! Backup. Take a look around and discover all of it's advantages...
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You can fully decide what to backup
It copies one on one your files to allmost any destination you want
You don't need Yadis! Backup to access the backed-up files
The marked folders are backed-up real-time (no scheduling needed!). You make a change? Yadis! Backup makes a backup
When your backup destination isn't available, Yadis! remembers the changes you have made. Whenever the location becomes available Yadis! starts backing up the changes.
Download today!
Don't hesitate any longer. Download Yadis! Backup right now, and enjoy the simplicity of making backup's!
-
Regarding Exendo's History Explorer - it's been on BDJ twice in the past year for $6 and if I remember right it's been on sale on the Exendo site (http://www.exendo.se) for as little as $4 in the past year. However, that's from when the list price was $20 and there's certainly no saying that past sales are indications of future deals.
But if you're somewhat interested though not chomping at the bit for History Explorer, it might pay to keep an eye on whether they offer a special at some point.
-
AutoVer[/url] does, thanks for mentioning it.
-urlwolf
Oops, you are correct; AutoVer does do that...However, I think I remember seeing somewhere that it isn't being actively supported or developed anymore. In checking their forums, they haven't had any traffic in well over a year.
-Mogware Support
Is FH being actively developed nowadays? I have been an ardent user in the past. The Gui never improved much really, felt clunky and non user friendly. For example the file and folder exclusion menu is a joke to me and they have never given enough attention to improving that area. I have even complained and bugged in the beta forums. There are other slight usage issues as well.
It is a good product (the functionality) but the Gui needs some serious regrounding.
-
Updates are constantly being pushed automatically for FH and the plugins. They certainly respond positively to any issues reported.
-
Updates are constantly being pushed automatically for FH and the plugins. They certainly respond positively to any issues reported.
-Carol Haynes
yes,
a few updates already this year. I've been successfully asking for improvements to the Report window (minor bugs & also GUI)
(I was looking for a version history the other day but couldnt find an uptodate one)
I think it would be great for the programme if they improved the GUI - it is very far from user friendly. You might not need the GUI very often but when you do, well it's often a struggle to figure the thing out...
Talking generally:
GUI work seems to be the least favourite improvement made to software in general - but I always find it's top of the list for me (presuming the app basically does what you want). Maybe developers think along the lines of we need new features for an upgrade, but if the app is made more user friendly I would recommend it / plug it a lot more
-
The only equivalent I ever saw for FH's funtionality was a product called TrackMyFiles put out by internum GmbH. ( www.trackmyfiles.com ). I have a client who swears by it.
I bopped over to internum's website. From the looks of it, this program isn't being actively developed since there's no mention of Windows 7 anywhere. Their FAQ specifies WinXP and Vista as the only supported OS versions so I'm also guessing server use is not in the cards.
I loaded up a copy. Looks nice. Relatively small memory footprint (10Mb). Very clean interface. Seems to work as expected, although I've only had it running for a couple of days before I wrote this.
I emailed the developers some questions and also invited them to join in on this discussion.
Hopefully we'll be hearing from them. 8)
-
@Carol
They do respond everything well except the Gui issues. I have never seen any real improvement to the gui all those years. Everything else has been well and steadily improved to certain degree.
Tomos`s remarks also support my dissatisfaction of the Gui issues. It looks like I was not alone in the complainer`s camp
@40hz
My main problem with many back up and versioning apss is the network support. Many of those apps work alright in the local machine but they seem to drop watching once in if the watch folders happen to be on a network drive or folder. I can undestand why but the thing is that this just makes it unreliable, you cannot trust the app because you never know when the watching might have been stopped. In some cases I need to open the network folder manually in explorer to force some kind of network recognition. I cannot tell what the issue is but even file explorers fall in to this trap. They cannot refresh a network drive unless explorer itself has refreshed or connected the drive or folder properly.
I have been using SyncbackSe for versioning and realtime back up and that one seemed to drop network watch once in a while. No idea
-
@Carol
They do respond everything well except the Gui issues. I have never seen any real improvement to the gui all those years. Everything else has been well and steadily improved to certain degree.
Tomos`s remarks also support my dissatisfaction of the Gui issues. It looks like I was not alone in the complainer`s camp
-kartal
I intend to post about it in their forums, but as I say I've been concentrating on Report window problems (http://support.mogware.net/index.php?topic=1050.msg4527#msg4527) (and requests) - when I do post re GUI I'll mention it here (the more people that ask for it, the more chance of a change...)
-
My main problem with many back up and versioning apss is the network support. Many of those apps work alright in the local machine but they seem to drop watching once in if the watch folders happen to be on a network drive or folder.
-kartal
This FAQ may explain why it isn't supported on TrackMyFiles:
Can I track folders on shared network drive?
Currently iternum TrackMyFiles does not support tracking of network drives. The main reason is that it is currently not possible to resolve possible conflicts that might arise when more than one user attempts to track a network share or when user make concurrent modifications to a shared file or folder.
I can't really see an effective way to get around the issue since the alternative would be to constantly invoke a shadow copy every time a document got saved. Probably wouldn't be that big a deal if it were only one person doing it to their own folders. But the minute you go up on a network you almost have to assume there will be multiple users and shared folders.
Most "time machine" type apps get around the multi-user problem by doing snapshots via the ShadowCopy mechanism. Others use some variant of a filebase/incremental 'delta' backup. Genie Timeline by GenieSoft is a good example of a 'continuous' backup product that does the filebase/incremental thing. But it still works off a timer. And that's not the same as what FileHamster does since FH's doing version tracking based on changes to the file rather than at timed intervals.
I guess that's one fundamental difference between backup and version control systems: how the "commit to archive" operation gets invoked. Time = backup. File change = version control.
:)
-
@Carol
They do respond everything well except the Gui issues. I have never seen any real improvement to the gui all those years. Everything else has been well and steadily improved to certain degree.
Tomos`s remarks also support my dissatisfaction of the Gui issues. It looks like I was not alone in the complainer`s camp
-kartal
I intend to post about it in their forums, but as I say I've been concentrating on Report window problems (http://support.mogware.net/index.php?topic=1050.msg4527#msg4527) (and requests) - when I do post re GUI I'll mention it here (the more people that ask for it, the more chance of a change...)
-tomos
New thread in FileHamster Feature Requests forum requesting Ease of Use, GUI, UI, Improvements (http://support.mogware.net/index.php?topic=1102.0)
Please comment/contribute :Thmbsup:
-
Tomos thanks for the post. I will try to follow up.
40hz, do you know any versioning that supports manual and automated committing? Something like git+auto watch(for file versioning for now). So for certain projects or folders I can do manual, for some others I can do automated? I know it sounds against the idea o Git since it is designed mainly for maintaining code base. I have tried tortoise svn in the past for manual stuff. it almost worked well but lack of automated watch makes it hard for certain projects. At the moment I use Git for my small code stuff. I need file evrsioning for non-code multimedia projects.
-
40hz, do you know any versioning that supports manual and automated committing?
-kartal
Unfortunately, no I don't. But that sounds like a really great combination. Basically you have two categories in the version archive. One category automatically "versions" on save. The other category alerts on changes, but doesn't commit a "version save" unless explicitly told to do so.
Almost like a combination of smart sync and version control. Hmmm...
Might make a nice project for one of DC's community of coders to take a crack at.
(Hint? ;) )
-
Hm, automated git committing?
Doesn't sound like a super good idea to me. Either it has to simply watch for changes, and commit when that happens - which could check in files that are only partially updated. Otherwise, you need integration with the specific tools used, which you likely won't be able to get everywhere you want. And even that probably won't work out too well if you have the habit of saving often (I hit ctrl+s pretty much after every sentence when editing text).
-
another possible....
Oops!Backup
http://www.altaro.com/
-
Hm, automated git committing?
...
Doesn't sound like a super good idea to me.
-f0dder
I was thinking more along the lines of an enterprise document editing and collaboration where you'd want private or semi-private document automatic versioning, but still have the provision for a more structured check in/out and commit cycle for more formal documents.
An example would be for something like a creative team who is responsible for AV scripts. Each writer has a set of assignments that he or she would like to keep versions of during the initial development phase. They would appreciate automatic version tracking. But once the script went into production, subsequent revisions and changes would require formal review from someone other than the writer before that revision got approved. So at this phase, it would be necessary to manually commit the changed script version. And so it would go as additional revisions were requested and approved.
I could see a combination system being quite useful for formal corporate communications and PR work; large creative team projects; or in the preparation of legal contracts.
But I agree that it's probably a not a good idea for computer code.
-
Something like that could very well be useful, but I see that as a relatively specialized application, rather than automatically monitoring for changes and automatically committing?
For document authoring, a system with GIT integration could actually be pretty cool - but I'd still want the commits (and pushes) to be controlled rather than automated.
-
I think that an automated versioning can be great if the author is working in a certain branch with Git. For example a master branch would not be auto committed, but a branch named for example autocommit can have auto watch feature and would be interesting because there might be times when the author might want to try many different things in short amount of time ( without wanting branching) until a satisfactory result is achieved, then the branch could be merged into the head easily.
Branching is a great feature of common revision control apps. Most standard file versioning-backup applications do not have any kind of branching as far as I know, including Filehamster, which is not a negative thing at all. But branching is very interesting and useful concept.
-
I'm not sure if you guys knew this but you can hook up scripts in 'FileHamster Advanced' that can be executed automatically or optionally; the optional setting places a 'run script' button in the FileHamster revision bubble so the user can simply choose when to execute the script by clicking on the button at revision time; FileHamster can use just about anything as a script but I've mostly just used common Windows batch files.
I thought this post relevent to the recent thread about having a tool that could either auto commit or optionally commit because you could hook up a commandline script to trigger your control commits. Using enviroment variables, you can customize the script to work dynamically and commit the recently modified file into your primary version control solution.
FileHamster's Script feature is quite extensive; In addition to just triggering a script, a user can actually pause, enable or even configure FileHamster through command files:
Here's a link with more information on the script commandline interface:
http://wiki.mogware.net/index.php?title=FileHamster_ScriptPlugin_Commandline_Interface
*The environment variables that can be used within a script are listed at the bottom of this web page.
We've used this kind of control in past projects to disable FileHamster ( by simply copying a 'disable command file' to the root of a project's directory prior to a sync or get latest ) so we could prevent FileHamster from revisioning the files as they were being being updated.
-
@kartal - Looks like Mogware just came through with your solution! :Thmbsup:
-
Hi Folks,
another possible.... Oops!Backup http://www.altaro.com/ -cmpm
Half-price on Bits today. Some interesting comments back-and-forth. There is a real forum with moderate activity, always an excellent sign, and the developer handled the critical comments quite well on Bits. History Explorer (Sweden) has an ad for Oops on their website, perhaps they see the programs as complementary or have a connection.
May be worth a spin. They are from Malta and have an emphasis with community forums and such. Maybe a bit simple for most Donationcoder users at this time, only been around since December last year. I'm considering a trial.
Incidentally, the filehamster site was rated red on WOT, so I put in a little thread that should fix that.
Shalom,
Steven Avery
-
Incidentally, the filehamster site was rated red on WOT, so I put in a little thread that should fix that.
-Steven Avery
I read your post on WOT; thanks for noticing that and thanks again for making that post in our defense...Is there anything we can do as the developer or is this better handled by the users???
Strangely enough, we've had a few other sites do similar things but usually after an email they always lift the warnings; We are not sure where this is originating from but your comment about a potential competitor certainly got my gears churning...I’ll have to pay better attention to these issues in the future!
Hey guys, here's a special 50% off FileHamster link for all your support!
50% OFF FileHamster Coupon Link (http://www.filehamster.com/index.php?page=coupon&action=purchase&affil=DonationCoder&code=FH50price!&email=)
-
Hi Folks,
You can simply put in a post saying "hi .. thanks for noticing .. we can answer any questions" etc. The folks there are pretty savvy and what usually happens is that one or two folks check the site a couple of ways, makes sure all is fine, and then a bunch give a good rating and it becomes green.
There are lots of possible causes, when a site only has a few comments, it could simply be someone playing games, so unless there are many negative comments of absurdity, I would not be too concerned. Of course you might want to increase your awareness level of such situations, as you say.
The thread is at:
filehamster by mogware
http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/5860-filehamster-by-mogware
And has a link to the WOT-page. Technically I put it in the wrong section, but that should make little difference, the mods can move it if they want. There has already been significant improvement, so check it again in a few hours.
Shalom,
Steven Avery
-
Maybe it's red on WOT because of the Spam accusation (http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/filehamster.com/comment-3625046) on URIBL (URI Blacklist).
-
Hi Folks,
You can't even find the supposed accusation, as this post points out.
http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/filehamster.com/comment-6068170#comment-6068170
Plus that would not explain having all the categories red, even if somebody thought it true.
Properly, that would only be privacy.
Note that the site is now green, although it should hopefully get more-green shortly.
Afaik, it will hinder any surfing in the current state.
Shalom,
Steven
-
Hi Folks,
another possible.... Oops!Backup http://www.altaro.com/ -cmpm
Half-price on Bits today. Some interesting comments back-and-forth. There is a real forum with moderate activity, ...May be worth a spin. ...Maybe a bit simple for most Donationcoder users at this time, only been around since December last year. I'm considering a trial.-Steven Avery
Found a BleepingComputer review.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/reviews/oops!backup
Oops!Backup Review
Reviewed by Lawrence Abrams on February 26, 2010
I would put that in the "nice, can do the job for some, but not really ready for prime-time category" .
Shalom,
Steven
-
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/reviews/oops!backup (http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/reviews/oops!backup)
-Steven Avery
I fixed your link. :Thmbsup:
-
Autover (http://www.beanland.net.au/AutoVer/) has been updated, btw. Version 1.4 was released on 28-04-2010, still free.
I put FH aside for a while and I'm trying to live with AutoVer only. So far so good.
-
This discussion has been very helpful to me -- I tested most of the software here and finally decided to buy File Hamster Advanced (thanks for the discount link).
A brief summary of what brought me to buy File Hamster is as follows:
Long ago I wrote a "power user backup guide (https://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Archive/BackUpGuide/index.html)" extolling the virtues of having a two-tier backup system. The first tier is making full disk images, perhaps once a month. And the second is for making versioned backups of your documents much more frequently, perhaps once a day.
I stand by that advice, and there are quite a few good programs for doing this on demand. But recently I've become interested in having a versioning backup tool that works instantaneously every time a file is modified, without having to wait for me to run the backup tool manually or on schedule every X hours.
After trying every one of these tools I could find, I concluded that there is no perfect software for this. None that I could use to backup everything automatically as soon as it was changed, that was low enough on cpu use AND versatile enough to handle everything that I might need backed up.
The main reason for this "failure" is that there are some files I need backed up regularly that are just too hard for the casual versioning backup tools to manage efficiently (my mail program database files can be 100+ megabytes large and change frequently). There are some clever backup tools to handle these kinds of changes by storing changes at the block level, but these programs are unsatisfactory in other ways.
So anyway, I reached the conclusion that no INSTANT VERSIONING backup tool was going to serve 100% of my non-disk-imaging backup tools, and that I was still going to need a regular (maybe daily) backup tool for some files.
Once that is accepted, we arrive at a new question -- is there a fairly restricted SMALL set of files that I consider high enough priority that I want versions of them backed up instantly -- both for standard backup reasons and to have detailed version history in case i need to roll back stuff, and which can be backed up efficiently by existing solutions.
And the answer for me was a definite yes: My written text/document/office files, and most of all my programming source code files.
And once I settled on that narrow scope of purpose, File Hamster clearly stood out to me as the best solution for instant versioning source code backup.
NOTE: At this time I can't really recommend File Hamster if you have a huge number of files you want to put under version control -- from what i can tell the program is really not designed for that kind of thing.
-
Just a follow up post that i am having a few frustrations with File Hamster (like silently truncating the file filter strings, huge memory use) -- so I would advise people considering it to trial it heavily to make sure it works well for you before you purchase.
-
Thanks for sharing that.
Do you remember why you chose File Hamster over AJC? was it because of the file format?
-
You could have a look at AutoSave Essentials (http://www.avanquest.com/USA/software/autosave-essentials-112304?meta=pc-utilities&cat=windows-backup-software&sub=data-backup-software). I used to use AutoSave 2 (http://eau.v-com.com/product/AutoSave_Home.html) but development seemed rather slow (there have been no new updates in at least 2 years to AutoSave 2) and I moved to FileHamster. Not sure what the difference is between AutoSave 2 and Essentials but it seemed to do what it said on the tin (which includes file versioning backups).
-Carol Haynes
I still use and like AutoSave 2. Avanquest ruined a great program with AutoSave Essentials. With AutoSave one could create a definition that would back up exactly and only what one wanted. With Essentials, if I recall correctly, one had to create a new definition for each type of file. It was designed for people who don't know what they're doing.
-
Since i wrote saying i chose FileHamster, it's only fair that I post a follow up saying that FileHamster just completely f*cked me. It was supposed to be monitoring a set of files, and all the settings seem to show it is, but its randomly ignoring files that changed, grabbing changes sometimes.. ignoring some files revisioning others, etc. Very unhappy. I didn't lose any data but I've wasted a lot of time messing with FileHamster to now discover it seems completely undependable. bad show :down:
-
@mouser - I've heard that same complaint in some other places as well.
Thanks for confirming it's not just talk. :(
-
It was supposed to be monitoring a set of files, and all the settings seem to show it is, but its randomly ignoring files that changed, grabbing changes sometimes.. ignoring some files revisioning others, etc.
-mouser
mouser, what filetype/app was it that had the problems? Generally support for problems is good at their forums.
With file hamster, I always get it to show notification "bubble" (default setting) - that way if there is a problem I would normally notice - it doesnt show if no backup is made.
FH had problems here with an app that saves to "temp0" first and then saves the final file (sometimes it backed it up, sometimes not). There are 'delay' settings you can change that could help, but best ask the developers.
I also had a problem lately where a "Library"/backup just didnt work at all - I find it a total PIA to check the settings (my brain doesnt function with "true" or "false"), so I ended up creating a new backup and copying my backup files over. None of which was very user friendly. Overall though, for the amount I use it (every work day, for a few years now) I'm reasonably happy with it.
-
It was a php file, edited in normal text editor. the settings were set to keep infinite revisions, and make new revisions every 5 seconds. It seems random to me why it missed revisioning the file. I turned off the popup messages after a week of using the program as they became too distracting.
FileHamster seems to do a pretty good job when it does its job right.. The problem is i simply cannot afford to roll the dice and have a 25% chance that the file i counted on it revisioning was simply skipped for random reasons..
-
FileHamster seems to do a pretty good job when it does its job right.. The problem is i simply cannot afford to roll the dice and have a 25% chance that the file i counted on it revisioning was simply skipped for random reasons..
-mouser
agreed
-
This actually raises a really good idea for a feature that FileHamster could add that would be extremely useful.
A report you could generate which showed a list/table of files whose latest copies had not been revisioned.
This would be extremely helpful in diagnosing these kinds of issues, and doing a sanity check to make sure your files are being backed up.
-
Thanks for sharing that.
Do you remember why you chose File Hamster over AJC? was it because of the file format?
-Armando
BTW, I recently learned that AJC internal format is actually zip...
-
t was a php file, edited in normal text editor. the settings were set to keep infinite revisions, and make new revisions every 5 seconds.
-mouser
I can't help wondering if that 5 second revision setting is the cause of the problem - assuming all the other files you're monitoring are imaging correctly.
I guessing, since I'm not privy to the internal details of how FH works. But if there is some internal housekeeping requirement FH needs to complete as part of its process - that 5 second window may be too tight for it to complete what it needs to do. If that's the case, you'd go into an endless loop of starting the process, not having enough time to complete it, but then hit the scheduled interval when you need to begin the process all over again.
If you bumped the interval to something like a minute does the problem still happen?
The reason I mention it is because I recently ran into something similar with a server backup script where the system didn't have enough time to "shadow & stage" the files, and calculate the backup, before it was due to start the next backup. End result was that nothing was being backed up since it was effectively being told to drop the backup it was doing and start doing another one every time it ran.
Just out if curiosity: what's so critical that it needs to be checked every 5 seconds? Are you one of the people who's responsible for the strategic nuclear launch codes or something? ;D
8)
-
^ I missed that backup every 5 seconds first time around -
I thought the way it worked was to back up when you saved a file. I mean I know it works this way by default but maybe there are other settings...
-
Hmm, since I started the thread :) I should report too.
Actually, since I started using wuala, I never felt the need for things such as filehamster. Wuala does this type of backup on all the folder I sync there. Nice side effect :)
-
I thought the way it worked was to back up when you saved a file
yeah i think the 5 second thing isnt how frequently it's checked -- i don't think it makes much of a difference.
FileHamster just seems a bit buggy -- i've also had it crash and hang quite a bit on me. :(
-
The best freeware alternative I've found is AutoVer, I've been using it for quite a while now and it just simply works as I expected it to.
http://beanland.net.au/autover/
Features
Select any number of separate folders or folder trees (including sub folders) to watch for changes - each folder tree has its own independent settings
Select straight backup or one of two versioning modes
Select any folder, drive or FTP to backup to (including memory sticks and network drives)
Option to create an initial backup before the automatic backup starts and ensure it is current on every startup
Backups can be checked automatically, at a set time or manually
Restrict which files and folders to include and exclude (by file mask) & maximum size
Change the versioning date/time stamp format and versioning rate.
Zip or delete old versions after a specified time (or just keep storing the files)
Optionally delete backup files on original file deletion permanently or to the Recycle Bin
Fault tolerance in case your backup folder/drive goes off line or source files are locked. Drives re-sync'ed when they come online
MS Office, Visual Studio plus many others supported (temp file creation, delete then rename is treated as original file change)
Backup file & version explorer included
Open backups or file versions directly (file extensions are preserved) or via inbuilt explorer
Compare file versions (using an external application)
Restore file versions one at a time or all at once via inbuilt explorer or manually
Run a program on each file change so you can encode, resize or do anything to the file - just use AutoVer for the change detection
Runs discretely in the Windows System Tray & and can be 100% portable (AutoVer can be installed on removable media)
x86/x32 (32 bit) and x64 (64 bit) support (Windows 2000 to Windows 7+)
AutoVer is FREEWARE. If you find this product useful, please consider making a small donation to continue its development.
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Hmm, AutoVer is reviewed by gHacks (http://www.ghacks.net/2010/05/09/version-control-and-backup-software-autover/). I might actually try this.
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Tried it. Meh...
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At the risk of repeating myself: make the jump and use a full versioning system like (open source) Git, Mercurial, SVN, CVS or (commercial) Perforce, etc.
You are doing yourself a favor, the mentioned systems do not drain resources from your PC (or brain for that matter) and provide a good base to work more structured at home. Besides it looks good on a CV when you even use such systems at home. Conceptual these systems are not that different, so changing your mindset between work and home does not require days/weeks/months of re-training either.
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I normally use SVN. Yes, I know Git and Mercurial are more sexy, but SVN is simple and adequate for my meager needs. If I were involved in a very large project with multiple developers, I'm sure something else would be in order.
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At the risk of repeating myself: make the jump and use a full versioning system like.. You are doing yourself a favor, the mentioned systems do not drain resources from your PC (or brain for that matter) and provide a good base to work more structured at home.
I agree that coders should be familiar with versioning systems. But I disagree that these are suitable for keeping large volumes of (source and non-source files) versioned instantly, for a couple of reasons.
Versioning software is designed to be run on command when you have some new good changes to commit.
You commit an update when you have made a bunch of changes and you are saying "here is a new state of the system". If it goes wrong you can roll it back.
While that makes a lot of sense for software development. But I believe there is value in a much more frequent silent backup of changed files as you are working on them.
In this scenario, one is interested in saving virtually every change to a file automatically, so that you can do an emergency rollback or comparison if it turns out you broke something at some point, combined with periodic cleaning of old backups.
I don't think version control software is well set up for this use. Not that you couldn't use a version control system to try to simulate it, but think about what that would mean -- having version control scan a multi gigabyte drive/documentfolder for all changes, every 2 minutes and creating a new commit every 2 minutes, etc. That's just not practical with any version control system I know of, and this kind of automatic rapid backup is key to being able to recover from unexpected problems -- you do not simply want to be able to rollback to the last manual commit you remembered to run.
So i'm not against version control systems at all (especially but not solely for muli-user systems).
I'm just saying that there is a use for a separate system that is live-monitoring for any changes to your document files, and doing an instant versioned backup of changed files, for emergency restoration/comparison features.
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I don't think version control software is well set up for this use. Not that you couldn't use a version control system to try to simulate it, but think about what that would mean -- having version control scan a multi gigabyte drive/documentfolder for all changes, every 2 minutes and creating a new commit every 2 minutes, etc. That's just not practical with any version control system I know of, and this kind of automatic rapid backup is key to being able to recover from unexpected problems -- you do not simply want to be able to rollback to the last manual commit you remembered to run.
-mouser
That's one good reason, here's another: I admit I've only tried SVN, but once you commit to it (pun intended), you lock yourself out of your preferred file manager. File renames, file deletes or moves must be done through SVN only. This riles me to no end, particularly at early stages of a code project, where frequent renaming and rearranging files is part of the process.
I found that I cannot live with this, especially as SVN's right-click menu is so much inferior to the ease of use I have in Total Commander... but even Windows Explorer is preferable to **that**.
So my version control consists in manually zipping up a source code folder and naming the zip file with the date and build number. I have a personal rule that says only zip up the folder if the code compiles (known bugs are OK). Using SVN's file management is just too much of a pain.
TC can search and run a comparison on files inside zip archives, so if I do need to compare or merge, which is quite rare, I can still do it with zip files.
I can understand using version control in team scenarios, but at best it would be a necessary pain. No way would I ever voluntarily use such a cramp-inducing environment for anything else.
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Version control systems have gotten a LOT better in dealing with new and moved files/folders.. i remember learning how to handle such things in the original version control system cvs and feeling an instant need to get blackout drunk. I don't think i ever touched cvs after that day. But it's still a big pain, and tranglos' point is valid in terms of why version control is not ideal for some backup scenarios.
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I can understand using version control in team scenarios, but at best it would be a necessary pain. No way would I ever voluntarily use such a cramp-inducing environment for anything else.-tranglos
Unless you're doing some very wacky stuff to your source code folders, the annoyance of having to go through svn (or git or hg or bzr or ...) commandline utils or whatever GUI tools is minimal compared to the benefits you reap. Like mouser, I wouldn't recommend using it for non-development stuff, but for development stuff? It's a no-brainer, really, even when you're not working in a team.
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I can understand using version control in team scenarios, but at best it would be a necessary pain. No way would I ever voluntarily use such a cramp-inducing environment for anything else.-tranglos
Unless you're doing some very wacky stuff to your source code folders, the annoyance of having to go through svn (or git or hg or bzr or ...) commandline utils or whatever GUI tools is minimal compared to the benefits you reap. Like mouser, I wouldn't recommend using it for non-development stuff, but for development stuff? It's a no-brainer, really, even when you're not working in a team.
-f0dder
I guess where we disagree is whether the inconvenience is really minimal viz. the benefits. As a single, hobby developer, I feel I'm getting very little from source control, while renaming files is something I do several times a day, esp. as I progressively get a better understanding of how my classes need to be designed and laid out.
The main area where I would like to see **some** benefits is a common situation where you have several projects all of which use the same core library - all the utility code you develop as you go and expect to use in pretty much everything you write. This is the only scenario where I have been bitten hard: working on a new project B I make changes to the library which break an older project A. And I only find out about that when I try to build project A, months or years later. It's nearly impossible in practice to match a stored state of the library with a stored state of a project. When I realized SVN wasn't helping with that at all, that was when I gave up on it entirely.
(But I've veered quite off the thread here. Obligatory OT: I'm still using FileHamster, haven't noticed it missing any files, but then I have never needed to revert, so far :) It's set to make revisions not more often than every 5 minutes. I think I'm tolerating it only because I almost never need to interact with it...)
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^ "[FileHamster] is set to make revisions not more often than every 5 minutes"
I didnt know you could regulate that in FH, must check it out.
For me, FileHamster is worth using (and worth reporting bugs etc. in their forums) because I can save a comment with each file-version saved so I know what I'm restoring if it comes to that (and it has).
I have comment window set to show for each save, if that doesnt show, I know something is up. Without this setting, you wont notice if something has not backed up, which, as already said, is not on...
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Tranglos,
IMHO you're missing out on the benefits of version control. It's not just about "having a place to stuff previous versions", it's a lot about workflow as well. A bunch of backup zip files don't tell you very much about the state of the project, and makes it difficult to easily and quickly spot exactly what has changed between versions.
Working with a versioning system forces you into the habit of being more organized - instead of scattered changes across your entire project, you learn to apply focused changes to a handful of files, and then commit that changeset along with a meaningful commit log. It's makes it a lot easier managing your projects in the long run, and a lot easier to track down exactly when that nasty regression bug was introduced.
If you work with a decent DVCS with cheap branching support, it also makes it a lot easier to work on feature branches. Currently working on adding some new feature that might take a couple of days to implement, when you realize there's a nasty bug you should really prioritize instead? Simple, make a new feature branch for the bugfix off your latest stable commit, fix the bug there and release - then return to your new-feature branch. Organized, without clutter, without the large risk of errors if you tried to handle this workflow manually.
while renaming files is something I do several times a day, esp. as I progressively get a better understanding of how my classes need to be designed and laid out.-tranglos
Do a bit more of pre-planning ;). It does happen I end up renaming a class, but it definitely isn't very often - not even newly started projects. Adding files happens a lot more often, but that's painless even in SVN.
t's nearly impossible in practice to match a stored state of the library with a stored state of a project. When I realized SVN wasn't helping with that at all, that was when I gave up on it entirely.-tranglos
No tool will help you with that, it requires solid engineering... keeping a decent level of abstraction where implementation changes doesn't affect the clients, and a lot of care and consideration when applying changes. It's not easy, and even if you get it right it can be nearly impossible to go back and build an exact copy of a previous version (which can be necessary if you need to deal with bugs in older versions).
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^ "[FileHamster] is set to make revisions not more often than every 5 minutes"
I didnt know you could regulate that in FH, must check it out.
-tomos
The option is called TimeDelayBetweenRevisions, in the "Document" section of the Options dialog. FH will wait at least this long before making a new revision. Useful if you hit Ctrl+S compulsively but don't want to have revisions made every 20 seconds or so :)
There is of course a potential problem scenario:
1. Save your file (revision is made)
2. Make some more changes in the next minute or so
3. Save the file (revision is not made - file saved too soon after last revision)
4. Close your document.
Result: the last revision FH made is NOT the final version of your file.
As I understand it, FH handles such situations well: after TimeDelayBetweenRevisions has elapsed, it checks the file and creates a revision if it has changed. At least I think it does - a simple experiment will verify.
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I confess I don't always use a version-control system when programming. I know I should, except for the smallest of tasks, but in practice I have only done so for relatively larger projects -- say, those that will take me several hours to code. For smaller stuff, when I take a break after polishing a particular function or whatever, I zip the dev directory and back it up to an external drive and to my SkyDrive account.
"But that takes longer than a quick commit with SVN!" I hear you argue. True, but setting up a SVN-local-repo-to-online-repo pair is a bit more annoying for me personally than using the above slightly more clunky system.
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Regarding AutoVer, I'm definitely going to try it soon, but posts about version 2 beta on their forum made me feel like i should wait a bit.
Right now i've uninstalled FileHamster and I'm using the new file monitoring and versioning ability added to Super Flexible File Synchronizer, an excellent backup/synchronization tool which has been written about before. It seems to be working well, and is convenient since I already use SFFS for normal backing up (mirroring) other folders on my system.
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Right ... I'm using the new file monitoring and versioning ability added to Super Flexible File Synchronizer, an excellent backup/synchronization tool which has been written about before. It seems to be working well, and is convenient since I already use SFFS for normal backing up (mirroring) other folders on my system.
-mouser
I hadn't seen that before, thanks for the tip.
SFFS is my main backup tool, I've always used versioning (not mirroring). It also has what it calls "Synthetic Backups" a combination of partial-file-updating, zipping & versioning which would be useful for large files.
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Regarding AutoVer, I'm definitely going to try it soon, but posts about version 2 beta on their forum made me feel like i should wait a bit.
I tried it and felt it needed a bit more work.
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Right ... I'm using the new file monitoring and versioning ability added to Super Flexible File Synchronizer, an excellent backup/synchronization tool which has been written about before. It seems to be working well, and is convenient since I already use SFFS for normal backing up (mirroring) other folders on my system.
-mouser
I hadn't seen that before, thanks for the tip.
-tomos
SFFS monitoring/versioning working very well here too :up:
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Right now, I'm using WD's 1 TB MyBook Essential's built-in backup software. It seems fairly sophisticated/capable. I also do manual backups less often to a different external drive using FBackup4 free edition, and I upload some of those to SkyDrive.
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:) :D Thanks to 40Hz in « Reply #53 on: March 06, 2010, 11:49:42 AM » (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=19834.msg197533#msg197533).
TrackMyFiles put out by internum GmbH (www.trackmyfiles.com)
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My question would be, "Why has Track My Files reached End of Life?
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Stopped (passively) using Filehamster today.
TBH I wasn't using it for new jobs the last couple of years, but still had it running and covering a couple older jobs that were very occasionally revisited.
I tried adding a job to it lately, but find Filehamster is basically no longer working properly (Windows 7 x64)
So looking for alternatives again -- specifically where I can comment on a file when it is saved.
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bvckup v2 ?
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Absolutely, Bvckup!
http://www.bvckup2.com/
(The old v1, which was free in beta and which I am still using, can still be downloaded from http://www.bvckup.com/ )
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bvckup v2 ?
-MerleOne
Absolutely, Bvckup!
http://www.bvckup2.com/
-tranglos
Filehamster was all about versioning (and what was very important for me was the ability to write a comment/note that would be saved with that version).
Bvckup2 doesnt do versioning: the author did at one stage write about possibly trying versioning in another software, I asked him today about it here (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=36388.msg404655#msg404655)
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True, no versioning.
The way I'm dealing with it is that I use Bvckup for real-time backups of files I am working on during the day, which I want to be protected but don't need to have in dozens or hundreds of versions (I save compulsively). Then I have a daily backup using Backup4All Pro, which maintains (and recycles) versions. The primary way this could bite me is if I messed up a critical file beyond recognition and saved it, but in my work this is a negligible scenario (and it has never happened).
There's only 1 issue with the old, beta version of Bvckup1, and that when an app takes a longer time to save a file (a multi-MB xml doc, for instance), bvckup doesn't know to wait until the save operation is done, so it fails (the file is still being written to) and gives up. I hope this has been improved in v2, but other than this, it's perfect (and perfectly transparent while it works).
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For handling versioning, you have AJC Backup which is great too.
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Git, Mercurial or even SVN should be used when versioning is necessary. For SVN you have TurtoiseSVN, that hooks into Windows explorer. By simply right-clicking on a file you can add/remove/update/commit (with comment) into the (project) repository. If memory serves me right it also allows you to do diffs between versions as well.
SVN is an old system, Git and Mercurial are much more modern and more actively developed. All of these systems are free.
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Git, Mercurial or even SVN should be used when versioning is necessary.-Shades
For source control style versioning, sure.
But for backup-style versioning? Nope, nope and nope. What you need in that situation is very different from the history-from-the-beginning-of-time versioning style that source version control systems offer.
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AutoVer
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I am wondering if anyone has any current thoughts on filehamster or alternatives for non-techy computer user. I believe the feature that sets FH apart from other alternatives presented in this thread is dialogue prompt to enter a comment when saving a file version. The network support through "teams plugin" is also nice as it allows a small group to lock and unlock changes as well as review other person's notes. I do not think this is an enterprise solution, but it seems like it would work for a small group, or even a family on a home network.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-uKbTzC7k0)
It seems like File Hamster has been updated recently. There is an overview of the new features here on youtube from 3 years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2of7QY5A_Pm2i2JV1FiM4w
It does not look like their support forum exists anymore. Support now links to facebook page with very little activity.
Ideally I am looking for ways to automatically track what was done with prompted user input. I have often thought that this could be a part of a "tracking" application that intelligently logs a user's activity (files opened and reviewed, emails (subjects), browser's tab titles) in order to create a history to help a user reacquaint themselves with what was done on a task/project after leaving it for a period of time. It would be great to be able to see a timeline view of files that were edited within a certain timeframe. File Hamster has a reports feature (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTznCeMLg78), which would be helpful.
File Hamster is more than a file sync and file backup utility. It provides a way to keep track of files, with contextual notes, and that is what I am looking for in the absence of a broader tool to help track/log projects and tasks automatically.
Anyone still using Filehamster? Any alternatives?
File Hamster 's notes feature
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Just for the record:
seems like File Hamster has been updated recently. There is an overview of the new features here on youtube from 3 years ago.
https://www.youtube....
-sphere
Those videos are all of features that already existed years ago. I wrote elsewhere on dc that some minor bugs were fixed in 2019. Unfortunately without a link. I think they mainly made sure it ran on Windows 10 so as they could keep selling it. I couldn't find the forum.
Filehamster could be an option. It appears to be in development (again). Also requires active input, but iiuc is a lot simpler than full versioning system.
-tomos
Forget that:
after years of no updates, they fixed a couple of minor bugs end of last year, but no support in 2020, so I would avoid.
-tomos
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Just for the record:
seems like File Hamster has been updated recently. There is an overview of the new features here on youtube from 3 years ago.
https://www.youtube....
-sphere
Those videos are all of features that already existed years ago. I wrote elsewhere on dc that some minor bugs were fixed in 2019. Unfortunately without a link. I think they mainly made sure it ran on Windows 10 so as they could keep selling it. I couldn't find the forum.
-tomos
Tomos, thanks for the clarification. That is unfortunate. From reading this thread and a few others (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=21954.0), it seems like your use case is very similar to what I am looking for. At least it was. I believe I read that you are not using it except for some older projects. Do you have it running and installed on a windows 10 machine? What are you using now?
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Do you have it running and installed on a windows 10 machine? What are you using now?
-sphere
I'm no longer doing the work I used it for. No longer even work (professionally) at/with a computer. I do have one project though that I intend to finish next year, for which I could use it, or something like it, so might try install it at some stage again.
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Do you have it running and installed on a windows 10 machine? What are you using now?
-sphere
I'm no longer doing the work I used it for. No longer even work (professionally) at/with a computer. I do have one project though that I intend to finish next year, for which I could use it, or something like it, so might try install it at some stage again.
-tomos
Tomos, I totally understand. I just have a hard time believing that the comment prompt is not more common.
Thanks you