Is there any reason to consider Syncback Pro/SE for this?

[jsmply]

Hi Everyone,

We are using Syncback SE/Pro on several machines and are very happy with it. However, today we are working with a charity user who has a limited budget and needs a means to backup free. Right now they are working on a trial of SE on all their machines, but it's a completely volunteer organization and if freeware will work in this case, they would prefer that.

They need to accomplish the following:

1. Run on Windows XP and Windows 7 Desktops (most of the machines are XP)
2. Backup/Mirror the My documents folder as well as the allusers\shared docs folder to backup quickbooks files
3. Be able to schedule the job nightly, preferably in two different jobs.
3. Email a copy of the logs to show when it logged/failed
4. Be rock-solid in reliability as the client is all volunteers and has no tech knowledge . . . basically if it fails we will depend on the "failure notification" via e-mail or we know they will never look at it.

We really don't need the features in SE/Pro for this particular application. We are just curious if it's more stable/etc as the freeware is on version 3 and SE/PRO are on version 5.

Thanks, your answer is helping a good organization!

[Dave Wilkins]

The version numbers are in different series between the freeware and the commercial versions (SE & Pro). They do not directly represent differences in 'modernity', though the freeware is a different program (different capabilities, different interface), and is more or less out of development except for the occasional bug fix (we concentrate our development efforts on the commercial software these days). The latest version numbers are shown here

http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/changes.html

and those are obviously the versions downloadable from the links on our website

http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware
http://www.2brightsparks.com/assets/sof ... _Setup.exe
http://www.2brightsparks.com/assets/sof ... _Setup.exe

The differences are here

http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/compare.html

There doesn't seem to be anything in your list that is not - on the surface - supported in the freeware, but 'stability' is often a matter of opinion, and it depends what you are backing up and where to if it will be suitable (for example, Unicode is not supported). The freeware cannot copy open/locked files (SE & Pro can, all else being equal - this might be happening silently now, and you may get errors when you try the freeware). Note also that freeware users are not eligible for ticketed technical support.

We have not tested the freeware in depth on Windows 7, though many people use it OK

Note that we have discounts for Educational & Non-Profit purchasers, if you need the facilities of the commercial versions

Note that commercial profiles are not compatible with the freeware (e.g. Expert from commercial / Import into freeware will fail)

[jsmply]

Thanks!