By Terry Currier
With computers backing-up can never be stressed enough. It’s
not if a computer will crash, it’s when. Just because it has not happened, does
not mean it won’t and we all need to be
prepared. I know that for real. When my computer crashed I did not lose any
data, because I backup every night. Good Sync helps the user to synchronize the
data from one computer to another. So you can take the files you worked on at
the job, and transfer them to your home computer to get more work done. More
than that it can be used to backup your important data from any computer and
save yourself from disaster. 
I backup my data to an external drive. So, if something does happen to my computer such as an electrical short (which got my main computer) it won’t touch the backups. Good Sync is really fast, but what I really like about it is that it is a straight copy. If something does happen to a file I don’t have load up another program to get a replacement. I can just go to where the backup is stored and copy it directly over.
After downloading in and installing Good Sync it opens up Internet Explorer and gives you basic instructions on how to use it (which for the most part is all you need). Upon first opening Good Sync it walks you through the same thing so it is easy to use even for beginners. At least in its basic mode. Setting up filters does take some figuring out.
Starting up Good Sync it again walks you through the steps
to make the basic backup (synchronization). Click on the left browse button to
tell Good Sync which
folder you want to synchronize. Click on the right to say
where you want to put it. It will also show you how much space you have, so you
will know if you have enough room.
Once you have selected what you want backed up/synchronize, click on the Analyze button and Good Sync will look to see what you have on the source side and compare it to the destination. The first time of course it just copies everything over. After that it will check to see what has change and copy over any new or changed file(s) as well as delete those files deleted from the source folder.
This is where Good Sync really shines the analysis is done very fast letting you know how many files are new, and which they are deleted. It lets you know any file no longer on the source drive, but still in the backed up folder. It gives the message “Does not exist.” Good Sync will not automatically delete the files on the target folder. This is good since you don’t want to delete some file you may want later. If you’re sure you don’t need them you have to tell Good Sync to delete them.
One thing I did
learn was to create a folder at the destination first. For example to
synchronize a folder C:\Top Test to another drive. In this case that drive is
F. IfI just tell Good Sync C:\Top Test as the source and direct it to F (root)
thinking Good Sync would create the folder for me – I would be wrong. I would get a message saying the folder on F drive does
not exist. If I tell it to go ahead and synchronize anyway, be no files copied.
GoodSync can be used to synchronize data between your home
and office computer, using removable devices (USB flash drive, CD disc), over a
local network or the Internet. You can also have it synchronize with more than
one device at the same time. Clicking on Change you can add another
destination. That way you can back it up, and synchronize your work data at the
same time.
The default is for Good Sync to only synchronize only when told to do so. You can change that under View - Options- the Job name you gave it. You can tell it to synchronize
Also under Options, you can add a filter to the
synchronization job. The filter can be Inclusion - to only take files that
match the filter, such as only take the files
with a DOC extension. It can also
be Exclusion – to not take those files matching the filter. An example here
would be to exclude copying mpeg files since they could be large, or you don’t
need them backed up.
Good Sync is free for moderate personal use only. Good Sync Free has certain limitations, these limitations allow Customer to synchronize no more than 20,000 files per 30-day period. Heavy users or users in a commercial, business or government setting need to purchase a Good Sync Pro license. The Pro version is $19.95.
Get it at http://www.goodsync.com/
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