Syncronising for backup

garywood84 · Post by **garywood84** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 10:21 am

I have an external hard drive which I use for backup purposes. I have been evaluating several file sync programs to automate the process of copying my files from my main hard drive to the external one, and like Synchronize It! the best.

However, the problem with running backups in this way is that it's difficult to clear out old data. So, if I delete a file from my main drive (the source of the backup) then I can have Syncronize It! delete the file from my backup (target) drive, or just leave it there.

If I allow Synchronize It! to delete the file, and then it turns out that I'd deleted it inadvertently from my main drive, then I have no backup. If, on the other hand, Synchronize It! leaves the file on the Target, even though it's gone from the source, my backup drive quickly gets clogged up with files I deleted from my main drive intentionally, and it's difficult to ever delete them all.

So, I'd like to propose a feature which works as follows. Synchronize It! should copy the new files from the source to the target drive, and should "flag" (i.e. remember) which files on the target drive have gone from the source (i.e. which have been deleted from the backup source). Then, after a user-specified time period (e.g. 90 days) it should delete these from the backup drive.

In other words, it should be possible to set a time delay before files no longer on the source are deleted from the target.

I hope others will like this idea and see the value implementing it in a future release. In the meantime, if anyone knows of a way I can acheive this with Synchronize It! (or, dare I say, another program), I'd be grateful for advice.

Thanks,

Gary

Post by **grigsoft** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 10:42 am

From first sight I can suggest following: backup is done in 2 steps:
1. plain sync with "Update target" action - it will keep backup copies.
2. Sync of "Orphans only" files with "Backup" rule + date filtering - it will delete obsolete files from backup folder.

Will this help you?

Post by **grigsoft** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 10:48 am

Hmm, possible problem here could arise when you delete file that wasn't modified for this 90 days - as result it will be deleted from backup immediately.

garywood84 · Post by **garywood84** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:55 pm

grigsoft,

Yes, that's exactly the problem. I can't find a way to get it to delete from the backup drive files which are no longer on the source drive but only those that were deleted more than 90 days ago.

I'm sure, though, that other users would find this beneficial, if there's a way for me to put it forward as a suggestion for implementation in the next version.

Gary

Post by **grigsoft** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:04 pm

It's just fine - I have already added it in wish list. What about changing file time for such files, so they can be deleted with plain time-rule later?

garywood84 · Post by **garywood84** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:58 pm

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The timestamp of the files can't tell me how long ago they were deleted. Suppose I have a file created 12 months ago that I've never accessed since and then I decide to delete it. The next time I run the sync to perform a backup, the file would go immediately, because it's more than 90 days old...

Thank you for adding my suggestion to the wishlist. How often are new versions released? I really need this feature and no other software can provide it.

Thanks,

Gary

Post by **grigsoft** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:15 pm

Well, currently I don't know yet how to make this feature without major modification of engine, so it doesn't matter how often releases are out. I have to think it over first.

garywood84 · Post by **garywood84** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:26 pm

OK... is there a mailing list to announce new versions/features, or do I have to just keep checking back here?

Post by **grigsoft** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:33 am

You can subscirbe to RSS feed at http://www.grigsoft.com/grigsoft.xml