Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
SyncBackSE vs. SuperFlexible
f0dder:
DBC: thanks for mentioning that app, not many backup/sync apps seem to have realtime driver-based mode, which is what I'm interested in.
tranglos:
there seems to be little further program development going on AFAIK, but I have found the real-time mode very useful. I may be wrong about this, but I think Caddais BOD may operate somewhat differently from programs like FileHamster that seem to require a file to be actually saved before a version is made. OTOH, neither program makes it completely clear what they mean by "real time" backing up...
-DBC (November 11, 2007, 07:53 PM)
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Likewise Derek, thank you. Caddais seems to be closer to MirrorFolder than the more "traditional" backup programs, since it uses a driver, so it does true real-time mirroring. It seems the program was last updated in 2005, but then, in 2005 it may have been ahead of its time :)
Meanwhile, two more interesting backup solutions:
EMC Retrospect for Windows ($119)
http://www.emcinsignia.com/products/smb/retroforwin/
I'm approaching this one with mixed feelings. It seems to be one of the most powerful backup apps, and it's geared towards enterprise rather than home use. It's either extremely advanced, or it's a pedestrian backup program dressed up in plenty of five-dollar words, I cannot tell which. The authors are fond of picking out-of-the-way terms for otherwise simple things: a backup job is a "backup set"; when you mirror a drive to a folder on another drive, you're creating a "subvolume", etc.
On the one hand, it's hard to get a detailed feature list - you have to download a PDF datasheet, and even that is less informative than most shareware sites these days. On the other hand, the website does have a lot of support information, including a good number of articles in the knowledge base and a working users' forum. It seems though EMC Retrospect uses a proprietary backup format, not standard compression format like Zip. I've used a program like that before (FileBack PC), but never liked the idea that without this specific application I was locked out of my backups. Hefty pricetag, too!
IBM Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files ($42)
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/continuous-data-protection/
Now this one is very interesting. IBM Tivoli is a line of storage products that come with plenty of trailing zeros on the pricetag; this one apparently goes for forty-something dollars. (And knowing IBM, it's probably written in Java, but I'm only guessing). If it shares more than the name with other Tivoli products, it should be highly reliable. It puts an icon in the tray, but otherwise it has no interface of its own, it's configured via a browser interface. One special feature is the ability to "fork" a backup: one copy goes to a local drive, and another copy to a network drive, a NAS device, etc. Looking at the screenshots, it may not offer all the full/differential/incremental/zipped/encrypted options we are used to, but just mirrors folders in the target location, with optional versioning. It does not need the network device to be always on - acording to the description, it will wait and run the backup once the device becomes available. That's a nice touch. If it is not too resource-hungry, it could be an excellent fire-and-forget solution indeed.
The question is, can you buy it. Click "Buy now" and you're taken to a list of countries. Poland is not listed (and neither is Germany, France and most of Europe anyway), so I don't know if they are limiting sales to customers from the liksted countries only. It seems though you can pick US, then click View Pricing, and finally you can add it to cart.
(On edit: Once you add it to cart, IBM wants you to create an account. That ends in a server error. Yesterday I couldn't even get to the ordering page, which was out of service for some reason. I decided not to istall the trial until I know if IBM will let me but the darn thing :)
It seems you can also buy it through digitalriver: http://tinyurl.com/2cq2js
But the price there is $35, so they may be selling an earlier version, there's no way to tell on that page.
.marek
tomos:
IBM Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files ($42)[/b]
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/continuous-data-protection/
.... it may not offer all the full/differential/incremental/zipped/encrypted options we are used to
-tranglos (November 12, 2007, 03:10 PM)
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ahhh,
I posted/quoted about that in the other synching thread - there's always another similar themed thread isnt there ;)
IBM's Tivoli Continuous Data Protection http://www-306.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/continuous-data-protection/.
...
Be it Tivoli or Diskstation software....they both use the same approach....a real time data copy based on a set of rules. So I tell it what files to copy (be it filename matches, filetype matches or folder matches) and as soon as I save a file which meets the criteria, it copies it to a backup. It also can save multiple versions and target files require no special software to open.....meaning the files are not imaged but real file copies. I prefer this real-time backup as opposed to a scheduled backup -johnfdeluca (May 11, 2007, 09:53 AM)
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tranglos:
ahhh,
I posted/quoted about that in the other synching thread - there's always another similar themed thread isnt there ;)
-tomos (November 12, 2007, 03:37 PM)
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Yes, and I have great hopes for this one one! Including the hope that it works better than IBM's ordering page :)
J-Mac:
I just got "bit" by the scheduling feature in SFFS. I thought it was scheduled for earlier this afternoon but a reboot of my PC naturally had shut down SFFS and it is not set to auto-start, so - nothing happened.
Every other program I have used that has an internal scheduler automatically places the auto-scheduler feature in the startup folder. Not SFFS. You must manually start the scheduler, and if you don't manually create a link in the startup folder it will not start upon reboot and the files will not be synchronized.
This is about as non-intuitive as I have seen in an application - especially one as important as a backup program. I do realize that this is a file-syncing program and not actually a backup program, but using synced files and folders as backups is exactly how they characterize SFFS.
This is one of the poorest UI's I have seen in a while. It does sync fast and true, but I now know that I have to be exceedingly careful about every setting and test them all in every conceivable situation, as the developers have not put the customers' ease of use anywhere near the top of the feature list!
I should have evaluated it for the full period allowed! Maybe this will teach me.
Thanks.
Jim
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