New Backup System Needed.

[Colin B]

Question for the computer savvy among us:

For years I have used Sync Toy to back up my photos to an external hard drive. I just run it once a week in "echo" mode to keep everything on the external drive up to date.

Lately it has become very flaky – last time I ran it it wanted to delete a few hundred photos which I had not altered or even looked at for quite a while. I re set the pair and tried again but it still did not update all the files. An online enquiry revealed that it seems to be incompatible with Windows 10.

I tried a free alternative called AOMEI Backupper but this was so slow it is useless.

Does anyone know a (preferably free) replacement for Sync Toy?

[farmmax]

Is the backup system built into Windows, including Win 10 any use? If you have never investigated it before, try this link https://lifehacker.com/how-to-back-up-your-computer-automatically-with-windows-1762867473

[ameerat42]

How come I haven't seen this thread before...? - Oh, I know, I haven't been online...:p
Farmmax's reply sounds reasonable, but have you checked out reasons for the new behaviour
of SyncToy - a MS product after all?

Try a search on "Sync Toy with win 10".

I read that SyncToy 2.1, that came out in 2009, is the latest version and there will be no more.
I read it was discontinued in Jan 2021 (and think that it may become unstable as Win 10 continues to update).


In my browser, where adverts are no longer blocked, there is a plug for yet another free
backup tool - MiniTool ShadowMaker. Its link is:
https://www.minitool.com/backup/thanks-download.html?p=sm&v=sm-pro&r=synctoy-windows-10

I use a couple of MiniTool products (not back-uppery) and think them quite competent.

[bobt]

I quite like Aomei backup, and use it myself. My mainstay for many years has been a program called Second Copy. It's an oldie but a goodie and has worked without issue for many years. It's not free - $46.00. No matter which other programs I try i always come back to it because it just works. There's a free trial.

[arthurking83]

Am asked a similar question some time ago .. I swear by FreeFileSync as one of the best sync software out there.

It's flexibility is too numerous to explain in a single post .. even by my long arduous reply criteria.

I'd just recommend to give it a go, point it to two drives, hit compare let it sync them and take it from there.
If you try it and require some tips on how to use it with more detail, that can easily be arranged at a later time.

On my system: I have multiple drives.
Main photo drives are B:\ where all of 'todays' images are initially stored. A nice fast SSD that makes editing a lot quicker on large raw files. This drive is regularly cleaned up in that I keep about a years worth of images on there depending on space remaining. I also use it as a cache drive as it's SSD quick.
My local storage is what I called a W:\ drive. All my photos are stored at the end of the drive letter spectrum. I have an X: Y: and Z: too.

My primary sync is from the "today's" image store to the W:\ local storage of the entire archive .. ie from B:\ to W:\ both of which contain a Photos directory where images are stored

New images go to B:(faster!) maybe edited always try to tag them too .. but not fully. I sometimes go back to those images and re tag them with more detailed info. helps to find images years later ;)

So in FFS, I have a set operation B to W that will compare those two directories.
In the program window it displays the number of files that will get transferred either way. From B to W and if edited so, from W back to B as well. I see the indicator that shows me the files..
Number of edited files to be updated, number of new files and if any number of reverse sync.

What I sometimes do is to accidentally edit files on the W drive(most likely keywords/tagging) that I didn't do on the B drive.
More common is that I may do this on files that no longer exist on the B drive, so this reverse sync operation isn't always the situation. It's only ever noted if I haven't yet deleted the yearly store of images on the B drive.

What I don't want is to wholesale re sync back ALL the images from the W drive back onto the B drive.. not needed! B drive is only for temporary holding of very recent photos.
The W drive is my local storage pool.

I also then store files onto a NAS. I highly recommend this option to anyone that is paranoid about losing important data.
FFS works really well for doing this too ... so the W drive will get synced to a dedicated Y: drive on the NAS box over the network. This Y: drive is my primary non local storage.
Then I have a disconnected Drive on the NAS that only ever gets connected when I want to sync that drive too. Maybe only once a year.

Unless you are super studious with your storage system, there is pretty much nothing that could prevent a ransomware attack if it were ever to happen. Just having it remote isn't enough!
That is for example your drop box system is remote and theoretically not susceptible to a wholesale attack on the PC itself. But if say for example a ransome ware were to be implemented on your PC and you have auto sync to dropbox, then the auto sync to dropbox is your killer application here!
As the files get encrypted on the local storage on your pc, the auto sync feature via any cloud system means that those remote files, which would otherwise have been protected, are included in the attack too.

My sister got a ransomeware attack via a simple email containing a PDF claiming an invoice .. and suffered a huge consequence for it. As she had a business at the time, invoices came and went all the time via email. \

Hence why I only ever prefer manual syncing as one reason, but also for wholesale syncs I also do integrity checks on the entire image archive store too! .. I got bitten by bad bytes before! :p

So NAS has an always on network attached drive and a drive that is not network attached. That unseen drive is synced via the NAS software once the connected drive is verified.

I'm confident that my processes are idiot proof .. being that I can be an idiot with some things, and I've yet to stuff this system up .. only hard drive failures could break this for me.
Oh, and I don't like RAID systems either .. once again too automatic for my liking.

FreeFileSync has never let me down for all of this :th3:

[Colin B]

And we have a winner.

I have downloaded Free File Sync and it quickly sorted out all the lttle mismatches and problems I had courtesy of Sync Toy - my backup is now an exact copy of the original files on the computer. It is a bit more complex than Sync Toy but appears to have a lot more capabilities which I will explore.

Like Arthur, I have a permanent backup drive and my Dropbox online backup but feel safer with a physically separated hardware backup. Kinda like wearing braces and a belt.

Thank you to all who answered.