- Create Synchronicity
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Create Synchronicity 
Developer(s) Create Software (Clément Pit--Claudel) Stable release 5.2.1 May 3, 2011 Operating system Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Seven Type Utility License GPL v3.0 Website http://synchronicity.sourceforge.net Create Synchronicity is a portable, multilingual[1] file synchronization and backup tool developed in VB.Net, and released under the GNU General Public License, version 3.0.
Contents
Development
Create Synchronicity was created with the aim of delivering a lightweight[2] backup application for Windows systems. Its development started in June 2009[3], and has been active since then[4]. An experimental port to Linux was published in February 2011[5].
Features
Create Synchronicity has a graphical user interface, and supports command-line use.
The following features are available:
- Customizable backup[6], using distinct backup profiles.
- Full synchronization preview
- Scheduling, with catching up support.
- Inclusion and exclusion of files and folders using regular expressions
- DST correction, loose timing (allows file times between source and destination to differ by a few seconds)
- Precise folder selection
- Native support for UNC and relative paths, as well as implicit paths (such as "MyUsb"\MyFolder")
- Support for environment variables, dynamic destination naming
- Support for Network (NAS) Backup
Create Synchronicity can be downloaded as a zip file or as an installer for Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. It is hosted by Sourceforge, and ranked #32 on December 23, 2010.[7]
Performance
Create Synchronicity uses its own comparison algorithm to speed up the preview step, which reduces disk accesses[8], and has been said to be "Easy to use, lightweight and fast."[9].
However, since it uses the .Net Framework, Create Synchronicity may be slower to launch than native applications[10][11] (written for example in C/C++), but similar to applications written in Java[12]. Provided that disk accesses are the slowest part of the scan and backup process, the impact of choosing VB.Net on performance should be minimal[citation needed].
Being written in VB.Net, Create Synchronicity does take advantage of the file caching functions of the underlying operating system[13], which can speed the preview step[14]. However, this performance gain doesn't exist if synchronizing two external hard drives, and/or if the caching process has not run yet.
Create Synchronicity has been translated to English, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish,Swedish, Dutch, Czech, Indonesian, Hebrew, Danish, Russian, Estonian, Polish, Bulgarian, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), Hungarian, Chinese (Traditional), and Amharic.
See also
References
- ^ Currently available in English, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch, Czech, Indonesian, Hebrew, Danish, Russian, Estonian, Polish, Bulgarian, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), Hungarian, Chinese (Traditional), and Amharic ; see the official website
- ^ Quick review on Carol's Vault - The binary, once zipped, weights approximately 180kB as of February 16, 2011.
- ^ Release Notes on Create Synchronicity SVN server
- ^ Code analysis on Ohloh
- ^ Create Synchronicity latest builds. The port relies on Mono, an open source implementation of the Common Language Runtime.
- ^ Demo video on DownloadTube
- ^ Project ranking on Sourceforge
- ^ Syncing code on Create Synchronicity SVN server
- ^ An article by Johnny Karp, editor of the Freeware Mission website, about Create Synchronicity
- ^ Application Startup Time entry on MSDN
- ^ Improving startup time on MSDN's CLR Inside Out
- ^ A full Java/VB.Net comparison
- ^ File Caching explained on MSDN
- ^ The editor of Software Critics wrote about Create Synchronicity that "Aside from being highly customizable, it’s light-weight having 80kB file size when zipped and 170kB when extracted saving so much disk space to spare. Behind its tiny size, the application is big in performance."
External links
Categories:- Free backup software
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