SyncBack: Backup Software

Post details of freeware that are found to be not portable here. Posts in the submissions forum relating to freeware found to be not portable should also be moved here.
Post Reply
Message
Author
leebert
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:38 am
Location: Austin
Contact:

recanted: SyncBack Freeware( & Portable Drive Letters to

#1 Post by leebert »

http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware

This is yet another file synchronization util that also works with FTP sites.
After deeper review I found that unfortunately SyncBack not only depends on the registry, but the whole profile system is rather clumbsy (IMO). It can be made to work OK but I'm going to take a second look @ Unison (I was bothered by some of its apparent complexity while the simplicity of FTP had appeal...).

I'll still use SyncBack for personal use, but it's not going to meet my school's criteria for portability since it introduces problems w/ it's profile mgm't.

As for the %varname% "hack", I recommend it highly for other portable uses where relative paths pose a problem with recalcitrant software.
SyncBack is not 100% compatible w/ portable environments however, because its profiles want a complete path ( <drive letter>:\dir\dir\dir\ ) and it won't take a relative root like "\apps\blah." However it will take environment variable substitutions using %VARNAME%.

With that realization I found a work-around that should be compatible with at least Win2k, using a DOS command script employing the "FOR" command (I'm not sure about Win98 or ME's 'FOR' implementation).

::========================
::Use this DOS script ( .bat or .cmd )
::========================

:: traverse as high to your thumb drive's "root" dir as necessary
:: in my case the path looks like this: \apps\util-syncback, so I need
:: to call ".." twice to go up-folder 2x.
pushd ..\..\

:: parse off the current drive letter & "root path"
:: (nice for testing where you don't have the same directory tree
:: as on the deployed/live Thumb Drive)
:: the path will not include a trailing "\" but that could be
:: concatenated at the end with a \

for /F %%i in ('cd') do set usbbasepath=%%i

:: return to orig. folder/directory
popd

start syncback

::===============
:END
::===============

SyncBack will use the environment created by the DOS script, and a user can now create profiles that use the %usbbasepath% environment var that'll have a portable, but fully qualified, <drive letter>:\<path> parameters.
After reading more about the use of rsync, my caution about NSTI conformance seems even more prudent...

But really, there does need to be a simple file sync util. written that can use ftp, that can, independently of good time synchronization, determine the time offset between hosts and then CRC/MD5/SHA the files to determine deltas. Another thing I'm going to look at next is lightweight bittorrent clients and seeing if there's a way to push deltas via a functionally private bittorrent sharing a TrueCrypt volume.

Where there's a whip, there's a way!
One last comment, as perhaps an ounce of excessive caution, it's good to have some kind of UTC time synchronization utility handy on both the Thumb Drive & remote computer so that both computers reasonably agree upon the time of file creation, etc. Were I to script it myself I'd send a test file to the FTP server & then check my time against the server's file time and then check for time offset. I don't know how SyncBack handles problems like this, however, so it's good to know both machines agree on the time & date. If you've ever had Windoze munge up a person's roaming profile b/c of this then you know what I mean.
/lee

User avatar
Checker
Posts: 1628
Joined: Wed Jun 20, 2007 1:00 pm
Location: Ingolstadt [DE]

SyncBack Portable - Version 4.3

#2 Post by Checker »

SyncBack Portable synchronizes folder and creates backups on hard disks, CDs, or even on an Internet server via FTP.

http://www.net-und-web.de/backup_detail ... rtable.php

User avatar
Andrew Lee
Posts: 3048
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 9:19 am
Contact:

SyncBack

#3 Post by Andrew Lee »

Application name: SyncBack

Website: http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/syncback-hub.html

Date tested: 2006-05-13

Status: Not portable

Reason: Writes settings to registry, including profile information.

1337Shade
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2012 9:10 pm

SyncBack: Backup Software

#4 Post by 1337Shade »

My first post to the forum, after monitoring the website for a long time.
I hope I've done anything right.

SyncBack Freeware
http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/index.html
SyncBack is our freeware program that helps you easily backup and synchronize your files to: the same drive; a different drive or medium (CDRW, CompactFlash, etc); an FTP server; a Network; or a Zip archive.

Image

Downloadlink: http://www.2brightsparks.com/download-syncback.html
Direct Portable Downloadlink: http://www.2brightsparks.com/assets/sof ... ack_NI.zip

Tested. Portable.

User avatar
tproli
Posts: 1172
Joined: Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:14 am
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: SyncBack: Backup Software

#5 Post by tproli »

Welcome to the forum.

Unfortunately the free version of SyncBack is still not portable, saves settings and associations to registry (just checked again):

Code: Select all

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.sps
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\spsfile
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MJLSoftware\SyncBack

User avatar
tproli
Posts: 1172
Joined: Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:14 am
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: SyncBack: Backup Software

#6 Post by tproli »

Gave another shot to the latest free version (6.3.21.0) and still got these reg keys and directories:

Code: Select all

%LocalAppData%\2BrightSparks\SyncBackFree
%Appdata%\2BrightSparks\SyncBackFree

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\syncbackfree
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.sps
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\spsfile
After copying Settings.ini and DSettings.ini from "%LocalAppData%\2BrightSparks\SyncBackFree" to the application dir it started to read settings from there. Unfortunately the above two directories were still created and left there empty.

However, I couldn't add relative paths to my backup profiles within the application. With the v3 version I could add a dummy "dummy" subdir in the application folder and use "dummy\..\" in paths but this didn't worked this time. I used %THISPATH% (from the Help file) but I couldn't specify paths outside the current application directory, e.g. %THISPATH%\..\. The %THISDRIVE% variable would probably work but that would require hard-coding the subdirectory structure which I wouldn't like.

Reverting to v3.


TP109
Posts: 571
Joined: Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:12 pm
Location: Midwestern US

Re: SyncBack: Backup Software

#8 Post by TP109 »

Midas wrote:Old topic update: SyncBack comes highly recommended in a review posted at
Dang, I came across same review the other day while researching emcopy and noted how highly SyncBack was rated. SyncBack v3 works quite well with the yaP launcher btw.

User avatar
smaragdus
Posts: 2120
Joined: Sat Jun 22, 2013 3:24 am
Location: Aeaea

Re: SyncBackFree

#9 Post by smaragdus »

All tproli's findings are still valid for SyncBackFree version 7.6.18.0- it can be forced to load program settings and profiles settings from program folder:

Image

but it still creates empty folders in AppData and still writes to registry.

Several screen-shots of SyncBackFree in action:

Image

Image

Image

Although not very portable I think that SyncBackFree can be useful for those seeking for alternatives to FreeFileSync.

User avatar
webfork
Posts: 10818
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:06 pm
Location: US, Texas
Contact:

Re: SyncBack: Backup Software

#10 Post by webfork »

"SyncBackFree" is still seeing a lot of improvements:
http://www.softpedia.com/progChangelog/ ... -8388.html

Analysis of free vs. pro:
http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/compare.html

User avatar
webfork
Posts: 10818
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:06 pm
Location: US, Texas
Contact:

Re: SyncBack: Backup Software

#11 Post by webfork »

Old thread update:

This program is still in development and is still adding features, but wanted to point out something available in the free version I haven't seen elsewhere: Ransomeware detection:
... in some cases, especially when backups are run unattended (e.g. scheduled backups, periodic backups), the infected files from your source may overwrite backup files (including version files or multiple backup copies) without the user’s notice, resulting in a complete loss of your data. https://www.2brightsparks.com/resources ... cback.html
Cool idea.

Post Reply