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Synk vs GoodSync vs Syncovery vs Chronosync. Comparison between syncing programs.

As mentioned in a prior blog, backing up is very important to us.  Over the years we’ve been tracking a handful of  NON-cloud Mac Syncing programs and have listed their positives and negatives for each program.  We will not go through each individual features, but will focus primary on the syncing speed and the ability for it to sync across all computers (more then two) quickly.  Block level syncing has also become important to us and that was actually why we have decided to try other syncing programs outside of Synk, which was our preferred syncing program for the last few years.  Block level syncing only syncs the portion of the file that changed rather then re-copying the whole file back over after a change.

Synk
Good:

  • N-way sync, it’ll sync to more then two computers at the same time.
  • Any changes are almost immediately synced across all computers,
  • Takes just 3 seconds to copy an newly created untitled folder across all computers

Bad:

  • No block level syncing.
  • If you change a large file, the whole file get copied over again
  • Also if you rename a file, the whole file or folder gets copied over then the only one gets deleted
  • Occasionally, it appears that a file will get delete thus causing a conflict in which I have to tell it what to do.  It appears that it’ll delete a large file (15mb) then copy the new file over.  It will seem that it should copy the new file over first, then remove the old file, but instead remove the old file then copy the new one over (what happens if the laptops looses network connection? which appears to have happened right after it deleted a file and then it lost connection) I have written the company about this bug.

GoodSync:
Good:

  • block level synk
  • when you modify a large file, just the parts that changed get copied over
  • when you rename a file, it actually renames it on remote computers
  • When file changes it starts scanning almost immediately.

Bad:

  • If you have more then one job, it will run each job sequentially.  That means if you have a large scan on job 1, then it’ll take forever to get to job 5.  that can make for file conflicts.
  • once it is set to automatically analyze, there is not way to stop it except force quite it.
  • takes up to a minute to simply copy an untitled folder (it must go thru a whole scan first, so the more files the longer)
  • no N-way sync, only can sync to two computer at a time, if you want to sync more then two, then you’ll need to set up individual jobs for each computer
Syncovery:
Good:

  • block level sync
  • A lot of features!, but can become very confusing to the average user
  • When file changes it copies right away

Bad:

  • Uses standard afp which requires you to mount the afp volume.  If it gets disconnected you’ll be prompted with apple disconnected message (which can be annoying) especially if you have multiple volumes to sync.
  • Along the same line, syncovery does not use a specialized communication protocol to prevent permissions problem like Synk, GoodSync, and Chronosync.  It has a listeners on the serving computers that listens for requests from Syncovery to do stuff for it, i.e. instead of Syncovery scanning the remote computer, it’ll send a request to the remote computer (known as Syncovery Remote Service) to scan the directories in it’s place, then pass the info back to Syncovery to perform the needed task.
  • Doesn’t copy all the files like it should.  I did various renaming of files and it missed one file and no matter how many times I ‘scanned’ it, it never picked it up.
  • No n-way sync.
Good:
  • A lot of features.
  • Uses a communication protocal known as chronos Agent to help with permissions
Bad:
  • does know not know when to start scanning/copying when  file changes, relies on setting a timer to start syncing again and again.
  • no block level sync.
  • initial sync seems to take a long time perhaps it’s because it’s only 32-bit?

Bottom Line:  Even though Goodsync has block level syncing, a 15mb file with just a minor change will take about 5 seconds to sync up, but it has to go thru a whole directly scan before it’ll do the update. What this means is that the total time it takes to start up, scan, then start syncing can take awhile, depending on the size of your scan.  In my case, it seemed like over 5 mins to do a complete sync.  And since this is not N-way, it take another additional 5 mins to scan add’l directories(if you want to sync the same folder across more then 2 computers) or sync jobs, for total of 15mins?  Syncovery appears to allow parallel syncing of jobs, but we were quickly turned off by it seemly not copying all the files like it should.  This is a big no-no, because of this, our eval of it was almost not worth it, so we stopped looking further.

Synk on the other hand would recopy the whole 15mb file, but it does not need to do a complete scan of all your directories first.  It appears to know immediately that a file has changed and then immediately start copying the new files over to the other computers.  So copying a single 15mb file took about a minute to complete.  Lets not forget Synk has N-way syncing, so if you have 3 computers all 3 are updated at the nearly same time, so all three can be synced up on about 1 min.  No sequential jobs to worry about.

So maybe we’re a bit biased with using Synk to begin with, but we’re still going to stay with Synk.  I really wish the guys as Decimus will update Synk with block level syncing and smarter renaming of file and folders, and we’re concerned about the future of the app because the founder of the company left and appears to be working at Google now.

☎️ For more information and inquiries:

🌐 Website: https://mikegyver.com
📕 Blog: https://mikegyver.com/blog
✉️ Email: [email protected]

11 Comments

  • jimmjamm

    ,
    May 21, 2013 @ 10:37 am

    Its good to see someone reviewing a lot of the syncing software packages!

    I too have gone through more syncing apps than i can remember. I'm always on the lookout for more.

    'tis a shame Synk isn't PC compatible 🙂

    Currently, I'm using goodsync to sync all my folders over ssh (sftp). Its ok… but I OFTEN find myself having to take over control of the application because something has come up (date/timestamp conflicts, etc…) so goodsync isn't as "set-it-forget-it" as i would like.

    If goodsync introduced n-way syncing it would be great.

  • Paul Charlesworth

    ,
    June 20, 2013 @ 1:04 pm

    I'm curious to hear if you have looked at Synchronize by Qdea, or Folder Synchronizer as a comparison. For the longest time I used Synchronize by Qdea and found it was the most reliable synching program available, but it seems to have started being less reliable lately and no longer works at all on our university network. I have no idea what the university did, but it just stopped recognizing the remote CIFS server. Works fine between my office and home macs. So, I started using Folder Synchronizer because it came in a bundle and I find it is nice and compact and works well for just about everything. You do not get a lot of feedback during the sync process, which can take a VERY long time over a network. So, recently, MacUpdate was offering a Synchovery deal so thought I would give that a try and see. It seems to be working pretty well, and I like the idea that any overwritten or deleted files can be saved to a separate location just in case. I'm always on the lookout for the perfect backup/synch solution to keep my Home and Office Macs and University home drive in synch.

  • Fraser Long

    ,
    July 3, 2013 @ 11:43 am

    Thanks for the notes on n-way sync, and goodway's queueing.
    If you do any future reviews, Inteligent move/rename would be a great test on top of delta sync.

  • Mike Lee

    ,
    July 3, 2013 @ 1:08 pm

    We have been trying out BitTorrent Sync:
    labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html‎

    So far we've been very happy.
    smart rename, n-way sync, and block level sync (not the whole file)

    Stay tuned…

    Mikegyver.com

  • Fraser Long

    ,
    July 3, 2013 @ 3:10 pm

    Bittorent Sync is very interesting for an individual with multiple machines / vps to sync, but so much for a company (lack of versioning though it is planned, auditing / access controls)

  • Mike Lee

    ,
    July 3, 2013 @ 3:17 pm

    Yes versioning is the only drawback… however we put timemachine on each of our computers so that should help…

  • Mikegyver CT

    ,
    February 5, 2014 @ 8:25 pm

    Bittorrent Sync now has versioning. We've been using this for months now and have almost totally switched over to Bittorrent Sync. New post to come!

  • Wayne Phipps

    ,
    June 23, 2014 @ 2:32 pm

    BTSync is almost ideal except I need something which can run as a Service on Windows and unfortunately BTSync only runs as an application.

    Another new to market competitor is http://syncthing.net/ which unlike BTSync is open source and looks very interesting. Unfortunately also looks like there is no simple way to make this run as a service so I keep on searching.

  • Mikegyver CT

    ,
    June 23, 2014 @ 2:47 pm

    Yes, saw it… I have since gotten a little soured by BTsync. It does not sync as fast as I wished it did. But then again, non of the prior syncing programs I'ved tried was not that great and reason why I am trying BTSync.

    Hope this one does better!

  • Cliff

    ,
    June 15, 2016 @ 1:25 am

    I am having a hard time finding a clear winner. Have you tried any new sync programs lately? What are you using now?

    I love Syncback on Windows. Too bad they don't have a Mac version.

  • Mikegyver Computer

    ,
    June 15, 2016 @ 1:57 am

    Hi Cliff,

    Yes I was actually going to follow up on this blog with a new one. But I've been trying Cubby.com and Bittorrent sync extensively.

    Preview: Tried Bittorrent sync, then switched away totally away and used cubby.com… when bittorrent sync matured, to version 2, I switched back. So far I think think it's satisfying me needs.

    However, Apple just release their icloud sync for the desktop and documents folder…. which might throw a wrinkle.

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