We use for backup mainly software that can synchronize folder structures to other physical disks. On the PC we always used FileBack PC. Once we switched using a Quad Mac we faced the problem to find a new synchronization software that could match the power of FileBack PC on the Mac. We checked out quite a few solutions and most of them did not make us happy.

Finally we found this inexpensive software ChronoSync by Econ Technologies and we did not look back.

ChronoSync

ChronoSync is:

• easy to use
• still powerful

Here is the main interface:

Main Window

All you actually need to do is drag/drop source and target folders into a new ChronoSync main window.

One of the most problematic issues with synchronization software is the situation what to do if in the target folder there is a file in the target directory that has no equivalent in the source folder. The options are many:

• Delete file from target folder (can be very dangerous if you don't know what you are doing here)
• Move to trash (as problematic)
• Move to a different location as a special backup

Chronosync is the first application that offers all these well needed options.

Note: ChronoSync also offers bidirectional synchronization. We avoid bidirectional synchronization as it got us more than once into trouble in the past (we never even tried it with ChronoSync).

There are also many other options available to control your synchronization:

One of the options dialogs

We hardly ever need these options (maybe only to handle date roll-backs in the Mac file system).

Of course ChronoSync also allows to schedule tasks:

Scheduler

Even so far Chronosync does all what we ask for. But there is one more feature that seems so obvious (once you use it) but we have not seen it with any other synchronization software (PC and Mac).

Containers

You can group synchronization tasks inside a container and then perform all these synchronization tasks from the container.

Task container

This way you can break down your synchronization to different tasks and then run them all via the container.

Conclusion

We have used ChronoSync for now about 6 months and use it for many different tasks:

• Mirror folders to a permanently attached 600GB Firewire disk
• Mirror to many of our external USB or firewire disks (100GB, 250GB or 500GB)
• Mirror via network from and to our many notebooks (Mac and PC)

We have had no problem with this software for our use.

Highly Recommended