5 Free Backup and Sync Software
1, Synkron

Synkron is an open source folder sync program developed by Matus Tomlein, it’s cross-platform and easy to operate.

Features

Synkron is straightforward and simple, it does not support Volume Shadow Copy, file verification after synchronization, file comparison after analysation and file versioning. But you can check out the freeware which have these features in the related articles section below.

Synkron works on all Win32 platforms, all BSD platforms and all POSIX platforms, such as Windows 7, Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux.

Synkron is a 5.32MB download available from SourceForge.net.

2, Create Synchronicity

Create Synchronicity is a free, compact, multi-language and open source folder backup and synchronization software for Windows developed by Create ( ClĂ©ment Pit–Claudel ) who is only a 19 year-old boy student from Paris.

Features

Create Synchronicity works on all 32-bit Windows systems including Windows 7 and Windows XP.

Create Synchronicity is a 257KB download available from SourceForge.net and CNET.com.

3, Directory Compare

Directory Compare is a light, portable and easy operating utility developed by Juan M. Aguirregabiria, it offers you the ability to compare and sync files between two directories with a few clicks.

Features

Directory Compare works on Windows 7, Windows XP and Vista.

Directory Compare is a 1.23MB download available from the developer’s website and Softpedia.

4, CopyTo Synchronizer

I used to think that Cobian Backup Boletus and FreeFileSync are the best free backup and sync program, now it seems that I am wrong. The world is changing everyday, a commercial software has been released as freeware recently, this makes it become the best free folder synchronization application. I have never thought of replacing SyncBackPro with Cobian Backup Boletus or FreeFileSync, because the later two ones lacks 3 very important features which is available in SyncBackPro, but now things are different.

CopyTo Synchronizer is the one I mentioned above, I have been using SyncBackPro for over 3 years, now I can say that you could use CopyTo Synchronizer as alternative to SyncBackPro or SyncBackSE. The 3 most important features are listed below:

1, Preview

CopyTo Synchronizer allows you preview which files and folders will be copied / replaced, you can uncheck those files that you do not want to backup / sync, or compare them to see the difference.

I often download some 1080p high definition movies from the Web, but I think that it’s not necessary to backup these files to external hard drive, so I can ignore these files before copying files with CopyTo Synchronizer easily.

2, Compare

CopyTo Synchronizer allows you do a binary comparison between two folders and list the different ones. Furthermore, and where it really shines is, you can specify external application for comparing / merging, press Ctrl+O in the preview window, and navigate to the “External Applications” tab, now hit the New button and select an external program, for example, WinMergeU.exe. CopyTo Synchronizer will automatically fill in the command line for you: “C:\Program Files\WinMerge\WinMergeU.exe” “%1″ “%2″, you can set the menu title to “Compare with WinMerge”.

Now you can right click any item in the preview window and select “Compare with WinMerge” from the context menu, CopyTo Synchronizer will launch WinMerge and compare the source and destination file side by side for you.

WinMerge is the best text comparison tool, it allows you compare / merge text files easily, you can also use it to compare Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF files with the xdocdiff WinMerge Plugin.

3, Versioning

Incremental backup is a very nice feature, but if your files on the local hard drive is incorrectly, it will overwrite you backup files without your notice, and you even can not recover the correct ones with data recovery software, because they’re overwritten, not deleted. CopyTo Synchronizer gives you the ability to versioning your files: if a file is modified in the source folder, the correspond one on the destination folder will be renamed first( for example, from “MyTextFile.txt” to “MyTextFile-12032010-1939-001.txt” ) before the source one is copied to the destination.

Now you have two version of “MyTextFile.txt” in your backup device: “MyTextFile-12032010-1939-001.txt” and “MyTextFile.txt”, you can restore the one on your local hard disk to any version easily. If you have ever used Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (VSS) or SVN, you will find that versioning is a very useful and important feature, the beautiful thing is that you do not have to check in / check out files for editing with CopyTo Synchronizer.

You can enable the versioning feature under the Revisions tab in the Project Properties dialog.

4, Other features

CopyTo Synchronizer supports Windows 7 and Windows XP / Vista / 2000.

Download it from CNET.

5, SyncBack Freeware

SyncBack Freeware is a superb sync and backup freeware released by 2brightsparks. It allows you backup or synchronise your important files and folders easily and efficiently.

Feature List

SyncBack Freeware does not support copying locked files, however it supports prompting you that the file is locked and can not be copied. It means that it does not support Volume Shadow Copy, but FreeFileSync and Cobian Backup Boletus has this feature.

SyncBack Freeware works on Windows 7, Windows XP.

Download it from the developer’s website or CNET.

Download the pdf help file.

Product Homepage: http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/.