scientific by any means - but it can give you a quick idea of where these two utilities might sit in your arsenal.  The freeware version of SyncBack is billed as a backup utility on many download sites, but it truly is a fully capable syncronization utility.  SyncToy Beta 1 is a Microsoft XP Powertoy that was recently released by Microsoft.

Comparison:

Test were done from a P4 2 Ghz Laptop (7200 RPM Drive) to a P3 1 Ghz laptop (5400 RPM Drive) across a 100 Mbps, switched network.

Item	SyncBack	SyncToy
Check Sync Status on 14,727 Files in 136 Folders totalling 15.1 GB	43 sec	2 min 18 sec
Time to replicate 1,122 Files in 8 Folders Totallying 1.73 GB)	4 min 28 sec	4 min 23 sec
Packaged with Windows Installer (GPO Deployment)	No	Yes
Human Languages in User Interface	Many	English Only?
Scheduling Supported	Yes - Internal	Yes - Manual
Logging	HTML Report	Event Log
User Interface	Expert	Beginner
Multiple Sync Profiles (File Sync Sets)	Yes	Yes
File Inclusion Filtering (w/ Wildcards)	Yes	Yes
File Exclusion Filtering (w/ Wildcards)	Yes	No
Sub-Directory Inclusion / Exclusion	Yes	Yes
UNCs Supported as Source and Destination	Yes	Yes
Hidden Shares Supported	Yes	Yes
Overwritten Files Go To Recycle Bin	No	Yes
Detect Renames	No	Yes
Tray Icon While Running (Helps with Background Scheduled Syncs)	Yes	No
Zip Destination (Backup)	Yes	No
Kill Processes Before Starting	Yes	No
FTP Desination	Yes	No
Network Passwords for Source and Desination	Yes	No
Run in Background	Yes	No
Run Before and Run After Programs	Yes	No

One of Microsoft's major target users for SyncToy appears to be people who are managing large quantities of digital photographs.  Moving them on and off media, replicating them and backing them up are all possible with SyncToy.  File synchronization is actually a fairly complex task to setup in an automated fashion - the sync utility must know what to do with a variety of possible changes in files and folders in either of the two locations being managed.  SyncToy reduces the choices to a managable five choices it calls "Actions".

SyncToy Advantages: Logs to the event log, Simple UI - can be used by end users directly, saves destination info to shorten sync time and detect renames and deletes, overwritten files go to recycle bin, packaged with Windows Installer (for GPO deployment)

SyncToy Disadvantages: Scheduler configuration is manual, very few IT administrator type options, No exclusion Filters, no master slave (deleting files on destination results in NO action on next sync - two way sync would ask to delete files from source)

SyncBack has much more of a corporate IT administrator perspective.  It allows passwords to be specified for both source and destination and runs in the background if needed.  It also supports exclusion filtering for files.  With SyncToy you can only control what files are included - which can be a significant limitation if only a few file types must be excluded.  Even though SyncBack uses the built-in XP scheduler, it allows easy scheduler configuration via a single click while viewing a synchronization profile.

One thing I distinctly did not like about SyncBack is that it presents dialogs for file operations that you have asked it not to do.  It does not do the operations, but the "results of file comparisons" dialogs still display.  So if the Sync Profile is configured for "Do NOT copy files from destination to source" you still see a dialog that shows all the files that are different on the target and the dialog DOES NOT indicate that SyncBack is just showing the differences and will not perform operations to sync these files.  I think showing the filtered operations is helpful because many times your sync operation may have unintended consequences (especially if you are new to it) - but it should be clearly and boldly noted what operations are actually going to occur.

SyncBack Advantages: Many enterprise options such as network passwords, background execution, process termination, exclusion filtering, verification of copy, etc.

SyncBack Disadvantages: No event log support, UI is overwhelming for novice users, presents dialogs for sync operations that will not actually be performed, Not packaged with Windows Installer (although this tool may only be going on Admins desktops or servers anyway).

Conclusions: SyncToy provides a good solution for situations where end users must configure synchronization themselves - when briefcase has run out of steam or large file sets such as digital photos must be managed.  SyncBack is much more focused on enterprise IT administrator type users - with many advanced features.

Visit SyncBack Site   Visit SyncToy Site

Topic: "Engineers Toolbox"