repub of
http://www.bitsdujou...ry-pro#comments82213 :
S(yncovery, ex VeryComplicatedAncientNameIDon'tEvenRemember), has been on offer here quite some times; in the past, I refrained from buying, since even half-price was "too much" for me, considering the "competition", which was half-price of that - obviously, that was a big, big mistake of mine, and I'll happily buy today.
Above, that was the executive summary, here's the longer story:
I
Most users do a lot of renaming of folders, and of moving files into other (sub-) folders (renamed beforehand, or not). Then again, they synch (if they are smart; years ago, I was foolish enough to NOT synch, an booh, some day I lost some data I very much cherished, and which I never ever then could replicate).
Now there are quite some synch tools out there, some even for free, and for years, I have been using Vice Versa Free, which, graphically, is the most beautiful, and the most "functional" (= by immediate "acting about things", i.e. by actiong about subsets of files, manually, by right-click menu, and this implies the graphical presentation of folders and files there which is absolutely outstanding), not overall, see below) synch tool I ever encountered, and I trialled them all (= between 0 and some 200$, that is).
Now, why didn't I just BUY VV Prof., for living happily ever after? (= Is 60 bucks for the perfect synch tool too much? OF COURSE NOT!)
Bec that folks simply refuse to implement monitoring renames and moves of files, or renames and moves of folders (which from the programming pov is NOT that difficult to implement; I did some 80,000 lines of code in my amateur-programmer's life, so I've got at least some MINIMAL credentials to speak out here).
Two (or three) effects arise from this refusal:
- wear-out of your hdd's (= of course, it makes a difference if your synch tool is "smart" enough to just rename/reassign 30,000 pics in the target directory, or if it insists on copying/deleting 30,000 files, for hours, as will do my (graphically beloved) VV and 90 p.c. of S' competitors out there
- NO synch tool of my knowledge does verification of source file and target file (i.e. by check sums et al), so when S just really synchs perhaps 200 really new files, instead of doing idiotic "synching" of 30,000 files of which in fact 28,800 are already there in the target directory, your risk of getting broken files, in your "safe" repository, with S, will be divided by 1,000 (or by several hundred, to be exact ;-) )
- As I say here, I've done a lot of manual work within VV Free - why? Simply bec of my wanting to minimize those two aforementioned probs with synching - but anytime I do so, I'll do, for multiple minutes, completely unnecessary, manual work, by having VV Free on one screen, and my file manager on the other, in order to replicate, at least, all possible folder renames in my target (parent) folder/target hdd/stick/whatever, in order to then minimize the real synching: THIS IS CRAZY LABOUR! And which S will from now on spare me if it functions well!
II
Similar effects (i.e. for points 1 and 2, no means to avoid point 3 above) arise from VV's (and most other competitors') refusal to do delta copying, i.e. if you've got a 1 giga OL (Outlook) db file, it WILL make a difference if the synch tool of your choice just replicates the changed parts of that file (= which is "delta copying"), or if it will replace that 1 giga file, as a whole, again and again and again.
And yes, S DOES delta copying... and very few competitors out there do (a partial/"easy" synonym for delta copying would be "incremental synching, but a correct use of that term would apply to backup tools only).
III
And now it's time to share my experience with "GoodSync", bought here, some time ago, half-price. Well, I don't want to do diffamation, so I'm obliged to tell you that it was "GoodSync2Go" (i.e. so there's a chance the original "GoodSync" is any better), BUT I had installed "GS2Go" on my main usb stick from which I run my 6,000 (or is it now 7,000?) lines of code of AHK macroing, without that stick never ever failing me: So why it fails my, every other minute, with "GS2Go"?!
In fact, I paid "GS2Go" here 15$ plus VAT, which is "nothing", BUT I *GOT* NOTHING, too!
In fact, GS is another one of those, very rare, synching offerings that claim to monitor file/folder renames/moves, for synching.
Well, sue me, "GoodSync", but I call you "BadSync" now - in fact, here and there (i.e. less than 10 p.c. of such files), such a folder rename/move was tracked indeed by "GS2G", and my files to be synched got a mention "renamed to xyz" when then I started the GS synch (and were then, I suppose, properly processed), but about 90 p.c. or more of my "moved" files - most of the time, not really moved, but just within a renamed/moved folder/sub-folder - were faithfully copied anew by GS, and which then were faithfully deleted in their respective folder of origin (as said, about 29,800 out of 30,000, or make it 10 p.c., i.e. 27.000 - all this abysmal).
And for such a "result", I had been prepared to live with with GS's gui, which is, from my humble pov, the worst I ever encountered (not just graphically: also, have a look at their not "opening" any other folder (= not even by option), above just 1,000 files listed, and which could you cause much probs, incl. data loss and all, within their source files' listing)...
And yes, I tried to discuss those probs with that people... without any success... they did not even answer me anymore...
And that explains why, being "proud" (in fact, ashamed: I'd been a fool by buying!) owner of GS, I had reverted to VV Free, and then I did all my necessary synch work, about 1 times a month (whilst it should be done every 2 or 3 days, let alone advocates of doing it daily, which of course is best!), within VV Free, for hours each time...
IV
So why didn't I buy S not full-price, between bits offerings? Bec, after my experience with "GoodSync", I lost my faith, partially, in developers' claims: Better lose 30€ (= 30$ plus VAT) with anything, than 60€, with some other offering that possibly doesn't live up to those claims, right?
This being said, I rate the risk, with S, to not fulfill its claims at about 5-10 p.c., not more, and I'll happily:
- buy upgrades then, full price (i.e. about same price as half-price here, today, for the full product), and
- will tell you that S will have entirely lived up to its feature claims, next time it will appear here on bits,
if, and that's my 90-95% very strong expectation, S is capable of faithfully monitor my folder renames and all that.
And yes, I just would be entirely happy if S tried to optimize its GUI... just have a look at VV in order to get brilliant ideas. ;-)
Btw, aforementioned VV probs are replicated with SyncBack, another commercial (and otherwise "renowned") synch tool, but which is worthless for me bec of these probs it comes with.
V
There's another aspect to consider in synching, which is "versioning". Well, of course, real versioning is quite another task, but some sort of "simili-versioning" should be possible with every paid, good synch tool: Not just "overwriting" of previous "saves", but replicating those, either by an automatic numbering system within the original target folder, or by automatic shifting of those previously "saved files" into an automatically created sub-folder within the target folder.
No need to say that this is the core difference between most free synch sw tools, and the paid ones, and it seems that S executes this task in the very possible optimized way (i.e. sub-folders, upon request). Such a feature only is really important for really important files (and will "eat" lots of unnecessary hdd space on your target medium of it's done "either-or, globally", so my wish for S, to become really perfect, would indeed be, allow users to specify, within a synch job, to specify which ones of your multiple folders/sub-folders will be replicated-with-replication-of-the-previous-saves, and which ones will just overwrite the previous savings - if S introduced such a individualisation of target folder treatment within the same synch job, it would be something really perfect - outstanding from the "competitors' crowd" it is even today (if, by all chance, it processes renames/moves correctly)).
So you see, Syncovery will be the very best "individual" synch tool there is (i.e. in the non-corporate range, for individual users and with affordable prices) if both its delta copying and its renames/moves monitoring will function as advertized, and so 30 bucks for this will be an absolute treat.
In every sw category out there, we've got a "winner", and we've got all chances that Tobias' offering here is very well the winner in t(his) categoy.
As said, I'll buy this presumably in-a-class-of-its-own tool today (and my given name "Schleifer" stands for burying bad sw), and I'll be eager to give S a rave review whenever it just does what it pretends to to, next time it'll appear here! ;-)
(And yes, I understand that for some users, compatibility with this online storage offering of that might be important, too, but then, CORE functionality and its perfect realization is my subject, and it very well appears that Syncovery Pro is the leader of the pack, for that core functionality every paid synch tool should have in the year of 2014 - bec in the year of 2525, we'll all be dead, and we've got a right NOW to profit from what's have been technically possible even years ago... and Syncovery Pro seems to be the only offering out there that really delivers. So what's 30$... even plus VAT? ;-) )
