Keeping files in sync

Windows 1 Minute

Thomas Hawk has a legitimate complaint about Windows Explorer:

When I try to copy the letter from one drive to my back up, inevitibly (on nearly every letter) I get an I/O device error that stops my copy job. No viruses, no spyware (at least according to MSFT’s own new software, Adaware and Spybot combined).

Why not have smarter OS software that says, hey, guess what, I can’t copy this file, should I just skip it and go on or should I abandon the whole copy job altogether.

I use a program called FileSync to work around this issue. My digital music collection is fully backed up on three different computers with no file copy errors. It’s a very inexpensive shareware program ($15, last time I looked) and works exceptionally well.

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Published by Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

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7 thoughts on “Keeping files in sync”

  1. I use Syncback from http://www.2brightsparks.com/ it’s very powerfull, and does a great job for back & sync between drives, computer & ftp, the free version works just fine and the SE one adds some nice feature like the ability to copy protected files (Outlook PST files…), secure http://ftp...

    For simple explorer copy/move, I highly recommend supercopier, it replace the explorer copy/move with a enhanced version that can skip files if there’s a pb etc… it also give you transfert rate and I find it much reliable than the MS one.

    Like your blog BTW, lots of good tips & infos 😉

  2. Hi Ed,

    I do actually use File Sync as well and have for years. The problem with File Sync though is that it is significantly slower than Windows Explorer. To back up a huge library it can be extremely time consuming. I’ve had problems with File Sync before where it freezes up as well or hangs or gets stuck on a file if I try to do an entire drive.

    Most of the time I will start the copy job with Windows Explorer and then when (and with my extensive mp3 collection this happens with virtually every letter) the Explorer copy job fails, I use File Sync to try to get the rest of it. I still get errors from File Sync but at least it gets most of the stuff backed up.

    It still is quite a pain and I have lost significant portions of my library in the past due to not having things backed up properly. I wish it were not such a pain and hope that Longhorn addresses this significant Windows problem.

    Most recently I’ve also still been having problems with external disc drives. Most recently I bought a new 400 gig external Seagate. I will be copying a job and all of a sudden get errors. Then the drive disapears. The only way to get it back is to turn it on and off and have Windows rediscover it. I’m not sure why it just mysteriously disappers so frequently but it is just one of a host of problems that I’ve had trying to manage a large digital library on a bunch of external drives.

  4. Try FolderMatch.
    http://www.foldermatch.com/
    Its 35 bucks but really a great great piece of software.

    I’m guessing that FileSync would be slower than Explorer is because during the transfer, FileSync ensure that Explorer is copying what it says its copying and ensure no errors at a higher level. That’s just a guess. You’d have to run a packet capture utility to see what’s happening on the wire.

    Cheers,
    Chuck

  5. I have used smartsync pro for the past year and have been very pleased with it. I read about it from Walt Mossberg from Wall Street Journal.

    I has some good features for backing up and syncing.

    I believe that I paid something like $30. I have had no problems whatsoever with it.

  6. Thomas, why not use Xcopy with the /E and /C switches? (/E to copy subfolders, /C to continue after errors)

    Sounds to me like you have a hardware problem somewhere. Those errors are not being caused by files but by a USB controller, I suspect.

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