SyncBackPro

SyncBackPro, developed by 2BrightSparks, allows you to backup your files to different folders, different drives, and over the network or internet.

Note: At the time of writing, I was using SyncBackPro V5.11.3.0

This is not a comparison of different software for backing up, it’s a review of SyncBack alone.
However, the decision to review SyncBackPro was done after heavy research on the web for different backup software solutions.

If you are looking for an all-in-one backup service, like one that automatically backs up your files to the cloud (and provides the cloud space), SyncBack is probably NOT for you. For that, you should look into Mozy, Carbonite, or one of the other similar offerings. Although less streamlined, you can use Syncback to backup to Amazon’s popular cloud storage, Amazon S3. However, as of right now, you would need a 3rd-party program, like TntDrive or WebDrive, to map the cloud drive as a Windows Drive, and then set SyncBack to backup to the mapped drive.
2BrightSparks informed me that version 6 of the software (currently being beta tested) will natively offer Amazon S3 and Google Storage support.

2BrightSparks provides 3 versions: SyncBack Freeware (FREE), SyncBackSE ($35 – one-time fee), and SyncBackPro ($55 – one-time fee). You can also get SE then upgrade to Pro for the exact difference in price.
Update 6/29: 2BrightSparks has noted they currently have a summer sale – offering SE for $30 and Pro for $50.

The basic features on the Free version might be enough for the most casual users. If you really want better support, SE provides a boatload of useful features (full comparison here), including:

• Running a backup profile as soon as you plug-in a certain drive. Useful if you have a certain drive always for backups. Just plug it in, no clicks needed.
• Backup automatically when files change
• Logs of your Backups
• Start on boot
• Backup to FTP with SSL (Free gives FTP, no SSL. I do not recommend using FTP without SSL if you’re ever on public wireless connections)
• Better Windows 7 and 64-bit Compatibility
• File Versioning (Roll back files to a certain date)
• Copy open/locked (in-use) files
• Technical Support (Actually very useful)

When compared to the SE version, the Free version is completely overshadowed. I’ve never used the Free version, but I can tell you I heavily use many features that are only available in SE/Pro. While SE is leaps and bounds above Free, Pro does not show off as big of a difference, giving: better performance for larger and more numerous files, an additional SFTP option, some different compressions, and a drive failure detector. Again, full comparison here.

If you need to customize every little possible detail of your backup, SBPro has that for you. I have some profiles that backup every three hours to a Synology NAS, some on every file change, some with versioning, all over the network/internet through FTP with TLS. SBP offers uncountable options, and that may be overwhelming for many. I use the Expert view (showing all features), but the Simple view may still be confusing for the less tech savvy. Fortunately, there’s a profile wizard that steps through set up which greatly eases the process. Still this may be a little daunting for some, like those that just use Word and check their email.

Every single feature is documented thoroughly and explained with pictures. The documentation is well indexed and easily searchable. SBP seriously offers some of the best documentation I have ever seen. With so many options available, with some concepts that are probably foreign to you, you would feel lost in the desert without the documentation. The documentation is a MUST for those who really want to fine tune their backup in the expert mode, and it comes through as extremely helpful.

For those backing up over the internet, like you business travelers, you will frequently be disconnected from the internet. Unfortunately, SBP does not have a setting that checks network connectivity before doing FTP backups, so it will fail and annoyingly pop-up a log report for every profile that failed. With 5 profiles, that means 5 browser windows open up telling me about my failed backup. There’s a feature to “silently fail” and that was definitely turned on by the second failure. It would be nice for them to add that feature, however, you can set the profile to try to reconnect to FTP as many times as you want, and can set the seconds between attempts, making it likely that before the last attempt, you’ve managed to connect to the internet.

Fast Backup is a great feature that lets you backup only files that are modified since the last backup. If you have 500 files, each 10 MB, and you are modifying only 1 file, Fast Backup is a feature you can’t live without. SyncBack uses file-level differences, so it will go based on changed files, as opposed to block-level differences that compare changes in file blocks. If you have one big 10 GB file that has a change in just 1 block (probably 4 KB), surely you would prefer block-level over file-level changes. Block-level support would be appreciated, but I presume performance would be substantially hit if SBP had to keep track of block differences.

The tech support is phenomenal. It’s not outsourced to another country, nor is it a team of semi-technically educated people. I hit a couple of road bumps during set-up that needed support, so the included free tech support was very useful. Both tickets (about a year and a half apart) that I opened to interact with support were addressed by the same knowledgeable person. One ticket had 15 replies back-and-forth, the other had 5 replies, and both were responded to promptly and with great patience. The problems were solved in both, and in the older one, an extremely obscure bug was found and quickly fixed.

SyncBack is a backup utility that you can set once and let it do its magic on its own. It doesn’t give you the same sharing features that you would find in Dropbox, but it’s not meant to. If you need a solid, private back-up solution, SyncBack is the answer. Both SE and Pro come with free trials, I suggest installing one of those and seeing if you do in fact need those features above the Free version. Unless you know for a fact that you need Pro, SE would probably be the safe bet, as you can always upgrade to Pro for the difference in price. All downloadable from here (you have to scroll down to find the somewhat hidden Free version).