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DropBox, Google Drive, Box.net, OneDrive, Rackspace All Supported

Posted on March 17, 2014 by in News

The latest Windows version 6.55 supports these new cloud services:

DropBox, Google Drive, Box.net, OneDrive, Rackspace

Services we have been supporting for a longer while include:
Amazon S3, Amazon Glacier, Microsoft Azure, Google Docs

In addition, any cloud service that can be accessed via WebDAV, FTP, or SSH/SFTP can be used.

Google Drive is essentially a replacement for Google Docs. It will basically see the same files, so you could simply switch an existing profile over from Google Docs to Google Drive. However, there are differences regarding native Google Docs documents and document conversions. Google Drive has no conversion options. An advantage of Google Drive is that it can retain the Last Modified timestamps of files that you upload with Syncovery. Google Drive also implements the choice of using the Recycle Bin for deleted files or not.

Because Google Drive works differently with converted documents, it may not be able to replace the Google Docs API in some cases. Both options are still available in the protocol selection. When you switch protocols, please check if everything works correctly with manual runs of your jobs before automating them.

Licenses are perpetual – software updates free for two years.

Posted on February 24, 2014 by in FAQ, Uncategorized

FAQ: is the Syncovery license perpetual or per year?

It is a perpetual license. There are no yearly recurring fees. You can also use the registration code again after replacing a computer, without any additional fees. When replacing a computer, simply uninstall the software and use your registration code again on the new one.

Updates and upgrades of the software are included for two years. After that, you can still use the last version you got, or if you decide to upgrade to the newer version that we may be offering, 50% of your original payment will be credited against the new order, so in most cases, the new licenses costs 50% of the regular price.

Confirmations missing, deletions disabled and similar warnings

Posted on February 20, 2014 by in Best Practices, FAQ

When a job runs in unattended mode, there can be some conditions which have to be confirmed when the profile is configured. For example, file deletions have to be confirmed specially, in addition to configuring the sync operating mode to include deletions.

To give the confirmations, please edit your profile in Advanced Mode, go to the Safety section at the bottom and choose the tab sheet “Unattended Mode”.

For an Exact Mirror profile, you would usually make sure that the top four checkmarks are chosen and that the last one is not chosen (Special Safety Checks). The first four checkmarks allow things like replacing files and deleting files. The last checkmark would impose additional safety checks which can prevent file deletions, so you’ll want to remove that checkmark.

In addition, you should specify a percentage of files which may be deleted during a profile run. You should not set this to 100% unless you expect that nearly all files are regularly going to be deleted. This is a safety percentage. If more files than allowed need to be deleted, the program realizes that something is wrong and disables the deletions completely. This will protect you against rare error conditions like disk errors or network communication errors, which can sometimes cause empty folders to be reported on the source side. Due to the percentage limit, the program will not delete everything from the destination if suddenly the source seems to be empty, or nearly empty.

However, even if you do specify 100% for deletions, the program will never delete all files in order to protect your data. If the source side is empty, it will throw an error and refuse to delete everything from the destination. This should be a good safety measure for most use cases. Some customers, on the other hand, have use cases where deleting all files is a regular, normal requirement. These customers can disable the 100% deletion protection by adding the following line to the [Main] section of the INI file:

UnattendedDeleteAllIsOK_IfDelPercIs100=YES

(Add this only if you need to delete 100% of files in a destination folder in unattended mode!)

Keeping 5-7 Full Backup Copies of Your Data in Separate Folders

Posted on February 19, 2014 by in Best Practices, FAQ

There are different ways to keep several versions of your files on your backup storage. Firstly, in the profile under Versioning, you can specify to keep a number of
older versions for each file. Each file will be versioned independently, and the Restore Wizard can restore your newest data, or restore according to a specified target date in the past.

However, some customers prefer to have 5 to 7 complete and independent copies of their data. To achieve this, you can use the variable $WEEKDAY in the destination path. In that case, you would not use anything from the Versioning tab sheet.

This will keep seven days of complete folder copies, if the profile runs on every day of the week. It will cause your backup folders to be named Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. and the next week’s backup is simply going to re-use the same folder from the week before.

For example, your destination path could be like this:
D:\Daily Backups\$WEEKDAY

Use Exact Mirror Mode to make sure that the backup is always identical even though the folder is re-used. Under Safety->Unattende Mode, allow file deletions as well as overwriting newer files with older ones (which will hardly ever be necessary, but should be chosen).

See also: Variables to use in your sync paths

Copying NTFS File Security (Permissions)

Posted on January 16, 2014 by in FAQ, Windows Tips

Syncovery can copy NTFS security along with files.

On the tab sheet Special in the profiles, you will find a checkmark called “Process Security and Shares”. On the dialog that pops up, you need at least three checkmarks on the left-hand side (Copy Owner/Group/Permissions).

In addition, the program needs to be running “As Administrator”. To ensure it runs as admin, you need to right-click its icon and choose
“Run As Administrator”, unless you have Windows versions older than Vista, or you have disabled UAC.

If using the scheduler, it probably needs to run as a service. Please see
Installing the scheduler as a service

v6.40 (Windows) adds support for SkyDrive

Posted on November 19, 2013 by in News

Starting with version 6.40, the Windows version of Syncovery supports SkyDrive from Microsoft.

SkyDrive offers some free online storage, which has made it popular. You need to sign up for it with Microsoft under skydrive.live.com. If you already have a SkyDrive account, you can also see your files on that web site.

To sync with SkyDrive using Syncovery, please choose your local folders on the left-hand side, and click on the Internet button for the right-hand side. Then, choose SkyDrive as Internet Protocol and specify the folder where the data should be stored. You should also specify your SkyDrive username and password here.

Even though your data is uploaded via secure https with SSL, you may want to use zipping and encryption for your files. To keep a constantly updated mirror of your data, we recommend using the option “Zip Each File Individually”.

With SkyDrive, the “Last Modified” and “Created” timestamps of files can be preserved, so Filename Encoding is not necessary.

Additional cloud services will be added in the near future. Feel free to send your suggestions to info@syncovery.com!

System Requirements

Posted on October 25, 2013 by in FAQ, Mac Tips, Windows Tips

Syncovery runs on:

Windows
All versions of Windows since Windows 2000 are fully supported. It runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems. The software itself is mostly 32-bit code, but includes some 64-bit code to enable Volume Shadowing on 64-bit Windows.

Macintosh
Syncovery runs on all Intel Macs, and on all Mac OS X versions since 10.4 “Tiger” up to including the latest version (currently 10.9 “Mavericks”).

To install it, you may need to go to the Mac OS System Preferences, Security & Privacy, and specify that you want to allow apps downloaded from: Anywhere.

An older version 5.73 is also available if you need to run it on older PowerPC Macs. This version also requires at least Mac OS 10.4 “Tiger”.

Linux
A version of Super Flexible File Synchronizer is available for Linux. It may or may not run on your Linux distribution. See the Linux download page for more details.

Works on OS X 10.9 (Mavericks)

Posted on October 25, 2013 by in Mac Tips, News

Syncovery works fine on Apple’s new operating system, OS X 10.9 (Mavericks).

To install it, you need to go to the Mac OS System Preferences, Security & Privacy, and specify that you want to allow apps downloaded from: Anywhere.

How to deal with changing USB drive letters easily

Posted on October 17, 2013 by in Best Practices, Documentation, FAQ

A lot of customers ask how they can define a job so that it always copies to or from a USB drive, even if that drive’s letter changes. For example, on one day, your external hard drive might be drive F: and on another day, Windows changes it to drive G:.

The solution is to change the “Base Path” for the external drive in the profile. Instead of the drive letter, type the volume label (volume name). For example, if your drive is named MyUSBDrive, then you would type MyUSBDrive:\FolderA instead of F:\FolderA.

v6.35 (Windows) adds support for Rackspace Cloud Files

Posted on October 9, 2013 by in News

Syncovery for Windows now supports synchronizing your files with Rackspace Cloud Files. This is the first of a series of new cloud services that will be supported in the near future.

Cloud storage allows you to upload as much data as you need, paying only for the storage that you are actually using. It is a highly recommended storage location for your online backups. You need to sign up with the cloud storage provider, and then set up a profile to upload your data. Choose your local folders on the left-hand side, and click on the Internet button for the right-hand side. Then, choose the protocol you want to use (for example: Rackspace), and specify a container and folder where the data should be stored. You should also specify your Rackspace username and password (access key) here.

Even though your data is uploaded via secure https with SSL, you may want to use zipping and encryption for your files. To keep a constantly updated mirror of your data, we recommend using the option “Zip Each File Individually”.

Due to the nature of Rackspace Cloud Files, the “Last Modified” timestamp of your documents cannot be preserved. Therefore, we recomend to use the “Filename Encoding” feature of Syncovery. This adds the timestamps to the file names when uploading, and restores the original names and timestamps when restoring. You will find this checkmark on the Versioning tab sheet, as well as on the Internet dialog.

Additional cloud services will be added in the near future. Feel free to send your suggestions to info@syncovery.com!

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