UPDATED: Just as well it's "free"! (ASCOMP Software Ltd Synchredible)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	ASCOMP Software Ltd Synchredible
Date:	19/11/08 (88 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's free ; It's easy to use

Disadvantages: It's "buggy" ; Only really supported if you pay for it

About six months ago I wrote a review on the advisability of regularly backing up the data on your computer. I am enthusiastically paranoid about the security of my data. I don't believe that's a bad thing. In my view it's better to take too many precautions than not enough. I've said it before and I'll say it again; no computer data is truly secure unless it exists in three different places, at least one of which is off-line.

As you will know by now, I prefer to take image copies of my data so that the backup files can be read as-is rather than backing up all the files to single backup dataset that then needs the backup and recovery software that created the backup in order to recover the files for use. What I want is more like data synchronisation. OK, it takes up more room but at least I can access the backup files anywhere, any time.

My previous review was about a piece of software that I had found that I felt did exactly the job that I required. It is called Allways Synch. I won't repeat the details of this utility here. If you are interested in seeing how it compares, read the original review. What I will say is that I no longer use it.

Left me be clear here, Allways Synch is a very good utility. It has very comprehensive functions and capabilities and is very stable. The reason I have stopped using it is not because of this. Allways Synch is "free for moderate personal use" and herein lies the problem. The author's view of what constitutes moderate use turned out to be very different from mine.

It appears that the application keeps a check on the number of bytes of data that it moves and nags you every time you use it if you exceed its internal limits. These nags became very annoying. I concluded that the author didn't really want you to use it free of charge and so, although indicating that it was "free", really it wasn't. If you are prepared to put up with the continual nagging then Allways Synch will, I'm sure, do a very good job for you.

I, however, consider this improper conduct. I have absolutely no problem with a software author making money from the fruits of his labour. What I do object to is someone making out that something is free when they actually don't intend it so to be. I require a little honesty. So, I looked for something new.

I looked at a number of different utilities, mostly freeware, and eventually one in particular attracted my attention. It is called Synchredible and it comes from a German software company, ASCOMP Software GmbH, based in Gerlingen, near Stuttgart. What I wanted was something that was easy to use and would more or less look after itself. Ideally I would have liked a real-time solution, one that backed up a file immediately you saved it to disk.

Synchredible is one of three software solutions manufactured by this company. The other two are a traditional backup product and a secure data eraser. Synchredible is described on the website as "Freeware" and, when installed the main window confirms this as "Freeware for private use". The release I am using is v2.2.

What attracted me to Synchredible was its simple approach. Once installed you then use a wizard to define tasks to backup your data, which includes when you want the synchronisation task to run and then you just leave it to get on with the job. This isn't real-time, that's true, but a regular synchronisation would be the next best thing, certainly acceptable enough that the loss of a small amount of data could be tolerated.

Once installed, Synchredible is launched at Windows boot-up time and sits in the System Tray in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen until its time arrives to start work. Right-clicking on the icon launches a menu offer the options of Show, Minimise, Close and Info.

Show - pops up the main window in the middle of the screen. It is interesting that the window only has a Minimise icon. The task can only be closed completely from the menus. The interesting functions appear just above the central area, three buttons labelled Add, Edit, Delete and Execute. These buttons are for the management of the actual tasks that synchronise the data.

Add - fires off the initial task creation wizard and this starts with the choice of the two directories that will be involved in the synchronisation exercise. You can also opt to synchronise the sub-directories as well. Unlike Allways Synch, only two directories can be involved in the process. The next process it to define synchronisation direction. Synchronisation can be uni-directional or bi-directional. For my purposes I only wanted to synchronise in one direction, from source to target.

Next you select what files you want to synchronise. For instance, you can synchronise all files, which is essentially the same as a copy-and-replace. I use this for my Thunderbird email files since in this case it is important that all files are contemporaneous. It is also important that they are copied with Thunderbird not running. In all other cases, more likely you will want to choose to synchronise only newer files. You can elect to do this based on the Archive bit setting on a file or just use the file date/time information.

You can, at this time, also delete any files or folders that appear in the target destination but not in the source, so removing any deleted files from the backup copy. I choose not to, but then I just want to be sure, to be sure...

Next you can select file and folder filters to include or exclude from synchronisation.. I only use the exclusion capability, so that I can eliminate the need to synchronise certain types of files that will have no relevance to the data I want to preserve. An example would be a directory of photos; I would want to preserve the pictures but not the Thumbs.db database that Windows builds where a Thumbnail view is selected. I also eliminate such as Temp and Recycle directories.

Next you decide when you want the task to run. The options are quite comprehensive and include frequency, time of day/day of week and Windows startup and shutdown. You can even choose another job to run before the synch takes place, so you could run a task to shut down a running application, for instance.

Lastly you give the task a name and it then appears in the main panel, showing when it will next run. You don't have to set the task to run automatically. You can define it and then run it as required by clicking the Execute button.

So, very easy to set up. What's it like to use? Well, when Synchredible is launched at Windows startup, a little icon appears in the System Tray. When Synchredible kicks off on of its defined tasks, this icon starts revolving. If you right-click it and then select Show from the menu, you can find out what's going on. There are a couple of progress bars that show how the task is getting on and how near it is to completing. When it does complete you get a pop-up "advert" in the middle of the screen and which you can make disappear after 15 seconds and then you see the completion report, showing how many files were copied and whether there were any errors.

So, very simple and apparently very effective. However, Synchredible is not without a couple of problems, as I discovered. Firstly, when you shut down your computer, Synchredible doesn't terminate. You get that window in the middle of the screen where you are offered the options to "End now" or "Wait". It happens every time.

The second problem was much more baffling. I had set up one task to copy files from my machine to my network attached storage device. I actually have three tasks set up to do this. One of them suddenly and without warning stopped working. It issued a message saying it was unable to create the destination backup directory.

Now, this was odd because the directory already existed so certainly didn't need to be created. I left it just to see if this was a temporary glitch but no, the same problem occurred the next time as well. Time now to see what the customer support is like.

First I tried the website-advertised Forum but, although there are entries on the forum for problems, when I tried to register to post mine I got the message that the moderator wasn't accepting any new applications. Not a good start!

Next I tried emailing the support email address direct. First I sent an email about the "Not Ending" problem. I got a reply but only to ask what version of Synchredible I was running. After passing back that info I heard no more!

Next I sent an email about the unexpected task termination, explaining the problem. The same person replied and after a few email exchanges he said that in his opinion the problem was caused by the backup device not immediately responding to the initial contact by Synchredible. He indicated that Synchredible expects an immediate answer and assumes the device isn't on-line otherwise. The solution he suggested was to run a pre-synch batch job to poke the backup device, just to make sure it's awake.

This I tried and, as before, for a while it worked. Then it stopped again, just as before. After reporting this back I then got a somewhat petulant "...we do not offer free support..." response and then silence. In other words, "Pay me some money or Tough Titties", or whatever the German for that is (MALU?). I actually interpret this as "I don't have a clue what's going on so I'm calling a halt here and now".

This attitude to support is very short-sighted. If the guy wants you to buy a copy of his product then you are hardly likely to do so if you have identified not one, but two defects and the author is unwilling (or incapable?) of doing anything about it. It is hardly the sort of attitude that instils confidence that the paid-for version will be any better.

As it happens, I figured out the second problem myself, and it is a very odd one I'll admit. Firstly, I couldn't work out why only one of the three tasks stopped working, the same one each time. I looked at how I had defined them and noticed that the only significant difference was that I had defined the backup destination in the one that failed as a Windows Mapped Drive (Drive letter:/directory...) whereas the others were all defined with pure network addresses (\\device\directory...). I changed the failing job to a network address and it started running again, and has ever since, without problem.

One other thing has baffled me, though it's not exactly a fault. Monitoring the data upload and download to the backup device, I have noticed that a significant amount of data is downloaded, much more than I would have expected simply in order to retrieve file property information, such as date last changed and so on.

So, a far from fault-free application. However, I have decided to continue using it (at least for now) as it does do what I want it to do. I can put up with the failure to end at shutdown time. I just remember to specifically close Synchredible first. However, as things stand I am very unlikely to to buy a copy, not with these faults and certainly not at the price the author is asking for the "Pro" version - $33.

UPDATED - Feb 2009
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Recently, new releases of the software have been issued. The current release I am using is 2.3.0.4. With the current release the problem of Synchredible not closing at Windows Shutdown seems to have been resolved. Maybe the author did take notice of my comments after all! Certainly Synchredible does seem more stable. It remains my backup software of choice. One more star added.

Summary: A simple and effective free data synch utility but which has annoying bugs

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