25 replies to this topic

[donwieber]

Do you believe in coincidences??? About two weeks ago I installed AlwaySync on my WHS2011 machine to keep all my shared media synced with a removable USB drive for backup purposes. Since the first setup use till last night everything worked flawlessly, then last night I used the program and I got a pop-up stating that I used the program too much and to "Please consider purchasing the Pro license". Since it states in the licensing agreement that it is free for personal use (with no mention of how often you use it) and a pro version for business use. So I went ahead and used it anyway after dismissing the pop-up, then it found a lot of mismatch errors in my directories that I had to get through those pop-ups and then it started to syncing process. Well after a few minutes of watching the progress meter on the bottom of the window I started reading what it was doing and I noticed that it was deleting all my shares on my WHS machine, after that total shock and freaking out, I raced to my WHS machine an yanked the power plug out. So luckily after an all night restore from my USB backup I am back in business and all my stuff is there.
So, do you believe in coincidences???

Don

[HSS-Dave]

Wow. I can't imagine any company that would reverse a process after the threshold has been reached. I can understand them stopping the sync process but not un-doing it.

Here is the portion of the license agreement that has been discussed before.

Customer agrees that Allway Sync Free has certain limitations and that these limitations may change over time without notice or obligation on the part of Developer. Currently, the limitations may not allow Customer to process more than 40,000 files in any consecutive 30-days. However, these limitations do not apply when synchronizing local files with an OffsiteBox online data storage account (including free OffsiteBox accounts).

Do you think you went over this limit? Remember that even if a file is not copied it still gets processed by the software and that counts towards the 40k limit.

[Joe_Miner]

Do you believe in coincidences??? About two weeks ago I installed AlwaySync on my WHS2011 machine to keep all my shared media synced with a removable USB drive for backup purposes. Since the first setup use till last night everything worked flawlessly, then last night I used the program and I got a pop-up stating that I used the program too much and to "Please consider purchasing the Pro license". Since it states in the licensing agreement that it is free for personal use (with no mention of how often you use it) and a pro version for business use. So I went ahead and used it anyway after dismissing the pop-up, then it found a lot of mismatch errors in my directories that I had to get through those pop-ups and then it started to syncing process. Well after a few minutes of watching the progress meter on the bottom of the window I started reading what it was doing and I noticed that it was deleting all my shares on my WHS machine, after that total shock and freaking out, I raced to my WHS machine an yanked the power plug out. So luckily after an all night restore from my USB backup I am back in business and all my stuff is there.
So, do you believe in coincidences???

Don

It was deleting you Shares Folders? That's scary!

I hit their nag screen a couple of times but that (folder deletion) didn't happen to me -- I had set it up as an exclusive one-way sync though.

[ikon]

It sure wouldn't be hard to go over 40,000 files. Nevertheless, I still can't believe they would do that. That is enough for me to never consider using the program, and to warn others to not use it. I think, from now on, we should refer to it as "that syncing program that shall not be named"

[mattd390]

Crap, I was planning on using that program to keep my WHS 2011 shares synced up to my HP Microserver.. I am going to have to do some research before I put my 1's and 0's in harms way!

[HSS-Dave]

We probably should hear back from the OP before we go and lynch this thing. Can this be recreated with some test data?

I know of a few folks using it and it seems to work fine. That's the registered version though. I have tried to contact the vendor to see if they have a comment. Not heard back yet.

[ikon]

We probably should hear back from the OP before we go and lynch this thing. Can this be recreated with some test data?

I know of a few folks using it and it seems to work fine. That's the registered version though. I have tried to contact the vendor to see if they have a comment. Not heard back yet.

I hope they respond.

[HSS-Dave]

If you need something now I would look at Cloudberry. Trial it.

Crap, I was planning on using that program to keep my WHS 2011 shares synced up to my HP Microserver.. I am going to have to do some research before I put my 1's and 0's in harms way!

[mattd390]

If you need something now I would look at Cloudberry. Trial it.

LOL, I actually bought that program after I heard about the deal they were having a few podcasts ago. I haven't really had a chance to try it yet though. I will look into it now having read your reply. Thanks for the recommendation Dave!

[Joe_Miner]

LOL, I actually bought that program after I heard about the deal they were having a few podcasts ago. I haven't really had a chance to try it yet though. I will look into it now having read your reply. Thanks for the recommendation Dave!

FWIW, I've been using first the free version and then the pro version on 4 of my machines with no issues (i'm still using the free version on 2 machines and the pro version on 2 other machines).

I could see a potential problem if you set it up with bi-directional mirroring based on file date with destructive updating set. Note: I only said Potential. There may well have been warnings embedded in the mismatched errors that he unfortunately pushed through.

I've only used Allway Sync to mirror in 1 direction to either backup data from my desktop or backup data from my V1 Server.

[jmwills]

Yes, you can get yourself into a lot of trouble with bi-directional syncing. I used both the free and registered versions and have yet to see an issue. Any deletion would most likely have been caused by deleting on one end and not realizing that same deletion is now going to occur on the origin too.

[pcdoc]

There is a bit more to this story then is known. Couple of things to point out. First the program will not delete your files in transition to from free to pro. That said, as stated earlier it is possible to mess yourself up with two way syncing which is why there are two additional options in the program you need to be aware of. The first is to propagate deletions. Second and most important, is directional syncing ( which I use in every occurrence). Translated it only syncs one way. I sync from WHS to a second server only. Never from the second server to WHS. If I a change a file on WHS it gets synced to the second server. If I delete a file on WHS it does NOT get deleted on the secondary server as I disable the propagate deletions options as well as one way sync. If you set these up correctly you will not have any issues nor will you get into trouble if things get out of sync. I have been using Allwaysync for about 36 years and it other than learning about these features the hard way, it has never let me down. I would suggest you review your setup and try again, I think if you disable two way syncing you will have much better luck.

[ikon]

I have been using Allwaysync for about 36 years .

36 years?! Wow, those guys were way ahead of their time

[ImTheTypeOfGuy]

We probably should hear back from the OP before we go and lynch this thing.

Thanks from bringing sanity to they lynching.

[jmwills]

36 years? On what platform?

[krom]

Cassette tape on the C-64.

[Joe_Miner]

PDP-11 Mini with paper tape reader. Awwww the good ol' days of EE lab.

[pcdoc]

Funny, that's what you get for typing too fast. How about 3 years.

[ikon]

Funny, that's what you get for typing too fast. How about 3 years.

[jmwills]

I go back about 10 years with Xcopy and ran that batch file as a scheduled task. I'm getting older (actually a lot older) and like GUI's.