Syncovery Support Forum

Is it safe to turn off antivirus when the drives were previously scanned by antivirus program?

i.e. When Syncovery is verifying the content of a file, is the file being opened in a way that a virus in it could be run? My impression is that anti-virus scanners don't "open" every file but when Syncovery does a binary comparison, it will. Does this create a risk if no anti-virus software is running during the Syncovery operation?

Why: Antivirus significantly slows down the copying of files. (by 3x)
Copying a 230GB folder from nvme Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB to nvme Lexar NM790 4TB:
260GB 268,000 files 14,000 folders

Windows Explorer: 8 minutes
Syncovery with Windows Defender active: 18 minutes
Syncovery with Windows Defender inactive: 6 minutes

My plan: Overnight, I disconnect the network/internet and perform an hours-long virus scan of all drives. In the morning, I turn off the antivirus and then can work on deduplcating and consolidating the drives without being slowed down by the antivirus.

(Note: Between each test I delete the Syncovery profile so that no data is kept. The 230GB folder is synced to an empty one. When AV is active, it uses a lot of CPU and disk activity as seen in Performance Monitor.)

Hello,
yes, it is safe. Syncovery only reads and writes contents of a file, but does not open it in any way that could cause a virus to become active.

Thank you for confirming this!
SOLVED: Add the Process Exclusion: C:\Program Files\Syncovery\*
in Win 10/11 Windows Defender:
Virus & Threat Protection > Manage Settings > Exclusions > Add or remove exclusions > Process >

I now see that on one computer I already have an exclusion for C:\Program Files\FreeFileSync\Bin\* that must have been automatically added or approved by me because I didn't do it manually. (I use Syncovery for syncing but was looking to visually compare folders side by side.)

Now Syncovery only took only 3:41 to copy 230GB from 4TB Lexar to 2TB Evo. Wow!

(I'm burning up my SSD lifetime but understanding this will save me a lot of time! Despite the Lexar being dramless, it's performing very well and not getting as hot as the Evo but the temperature reading just became flaky (bouncing around).

Test folder: 230GB 268,000 files 14,000 folders

Duplicate Cleaner - create virtual folder using MD5:
with Windows Defender active: 35 minutes
with Windows Defender inactive: 11 minutes

Windows Explorer - copy folder from nvme drive 1 to nvme drive 2: 8 minutes

Syncovery - copy folder from nvme drive 1 to nvme drive 2:
with Windows Defender active: 18 minutes
with Windows Defender inactive by manually turning off: 6 minutes
with Windows Defender inactive by excluding process: 4 minutes

Hp EliteDesk 800 G4 TWR WKS i7-8700 Win 11
nvme drives: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB & Lexar NM790 4TB

Thanks for sharing! I think that you SSD lifetime will be fine.