Staying in sync on a budget…

Oct.15, 2008 in GTD, Geeky, Tech Tips

There is an old Unix utility I used to use all the time called ‘rsync‘. This very useful utility would essentially mirror a directory on you hard drive to a directory elsewhere of your choosing. Several NAS (Network Attached Storage) vendors utilize rsync today to perform backups to and from NAS devices and brand their device as having backup capability. There are two Windows-compatible ports of this software, one is called DeltaCopy and the other is cwRsync. Both of these ports use Cygwin which is essentially an emulator that allows LinuxUn*x applications to run under Windows. It is sort of an ugly hack in my opinion, but without it, Windows does not offer any native solutions – and no, XCopy doesn’t count.

There are some other free solutions that work very well. The first one I will mention is Robocopy. This is a free tool written by Microsoft and has been included in the Windows Resource Kits since the NT4 days. Recently this tool has found its way into Windows Vista and Server 2008 right out of the box! This tool allows an administrator to write a simple batch file to mirror directories along with a host of other file copy operations that go beyond the scope of this posting. While Robocopy does NOT use Volume Shadow Copy Services – which can limit its usefulness as a backup utility where volumes may be in-use. I have seen creative admins utilize VSHADOW and DISKSHADOW to create a Shadow Copy of a volume and subsequently use Robocopy to copy it elsewhere.

The second utility I will mention is a bit more for the non-technical people. Microsoft has recently invested a lot of money in its "Live" services and some of them are particularly interesting. In 2005 Microsoft acquired a company called Byte Taxi and assimilated their directory synchronization software into, what is currently called Windows Live FolderShare. This software is very unique in that first, it is free and second, it requires no firewall configuration. It is basically a client-side application that allows you to sync directories among computers connected to the Internet. All of its configuration is done through a point-and-click interface, making it easy for even novice computer users to configure. You basically visit the FolderShare website, sign-in with your Windows Live account, download the software onto at least two machines and configure a directory that you wish to remain synced among the machines. You could be in Bangladesh, but as long as you are connected to the Internet, your files will be sync-ing with all Internet-connected clients. There are some limitations to this software however – the first which is a biggie for me is that you are limited to 10,000 files per "library". There goes my ability to sync my MP3 collection Also, you cannot have more than 10 libraries. All-in-all this is a great solution for the home user looking to sync files between their desktop and laptop without having to mess with Windows FIleSharing. Eventually this service will be re-branded as Windows Live Sync once it is out of beta stage. This technology will also be used in Windows Live Mesh, Windows Live Skydrive and even Windows Live Messenger Sharing Folders.