In today’s market the typical hard drive buyer typically picks up a 200+ GB drive. And with high speed internet downloads, rising work loads and the constant need to share photos with relatives, it doesn’t take long to fill your hard drive with valuable information. But how to keep that information safe? The answer of course is a backup, and because this column is the Freeware Frenzy, I have found an excellent freeware program to make and schedule backups easily. Read on to learn about SyncBack v3.2.1.

When you first open SyncBack, you need to create a profile. You can create and save as many profiles as you would like for specific backup tasks. You can choose between Backup and Synchronization profiles. I chose to create a Backup. Then the setup window opens so you can customize your backup.

At the top of the setup window choose your Source and Destination folders. Then choose what you need to do from the aptly named “I would like to…” options. The default choice is to include all subdirectories, the folders within your source folder. If you want to specify certain subdirectories, simply go to the Sub-Directory tab to specify any and every directory you wish to include or exclude from your backup. There does not appear to be a way you could organize your backup which SyncBack could not handle.

You can move into more advanced options using the tabs. The Advanced tab offers synchronization options for what to do when Sync is backing up. Should it overwrite duplicate files, move destination files to source, prompt the user, etc. The plethora of options is impressive, especially for a freeware application.

The Copy/Delete tab allows you to turn off Windows copying actions. It is off by default, meaning SyncBack will follow the rules you have set and not show the usual prompts from Windows about confirming overwrites and deletes, etc.

The Filter Tab lets you use wildcards to create filters for the folders you are backing up. So if your folder contains both MP3s and JPGs, you can choose to move only music with a “*.mp3” filter under “Files to Copy” and a “*.jpg” under “Files NOT to Copy”.

Once all of your options are setup, you can check what you have selected under “Description of this profile”. When you are satisfied that all is correct, hit OK. The Confirm box will ask you to perform a Simulated Run which will show what will happen according to your setup, but will not actually move files. This is handy to be sure that SyncBack is performing the task correctly. When the simulation is finished, you can view a log file to confirm that the correct files would have been skipped or copied.

While the Profile Setup seems to be an entire program, it is indeed just setup for SyncBack. The actual SyncBack main window shows all of your profiles, and details such as when they last ran and when they are scheduled to run later. You can modify the profiles, view log files, start and stop backups and synchronizations manually and access the Help. I found the included help files very adequate to explain the myriad of options that SyncBack offers. SyncBack also works with the Windows Scheduler to setup times for automatic backups. This way your computer will automatically send your documents to another drive anytime you wish. You can rest easy knowing your data is protected.

So there you have it. I won’t bore anyone with all the options and custom settings that SyncBack offers. I will say that anyone looking for a powerful backup application look no further then SyncBack. The ease of use and plentiful options makes it an easy choice for backup software. You can download SyncBack Freeware here: http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html The zip file is only 1.63MB.