SyncBackSE

SyncBackSE is a backup and file synchronization tool for Windows from 2BrightSparks. Work is organized into profiles, each of which defines a source, a destination and the way the two should be reconciled. A profile can run as a one-way backup, a mirror that makes the destination an exact copy of the source, a two-way synchronization, or a restore in the opposite direction. Destinations include internal and external drives, USB media, network shares and NAS devices, and FTP or FTPS servers. Cloud storage services are not supported in this edition.

Compared with the vendor's free edition, SyncBackSE mainly adds features that matter when files are in use or when storage space is tight. It can copy open and locked files, so a backup does not skip documents or databases that are held by a running program. It keeps previous versions of changed files, optionally storing only the changed portions rather than whole copies. Backups can be compressed into archives and encrypted, and profiles can be scheduled, chained, or set to launch another program before or after a run. A differences window lets you review what a profile intends to do before anything is written, and a safety check can abort a run when an unusually large number of files have changed, which helps catch ransomware activity before it is mirrored into the backup.

The interface offers an Easy mode with a small set of decisions and an Expert mode that exposes the full option set for filters, comparison rules, retry behavior and logging. Documentation is extensive, which is useful because the number of settings is considerable once you leave Easy mode.

This edition is a reasonable fit for home users, home offices and small businesses that back up to disks and network storage they control, and for anyone who wants precise control over what gets copied and how conflicts are resolved. It is less suitable if you need backups to cloud services, SFTP transfers, mailbox backups or scripting, since those belong to the Pro edition, or if you want disk imaging and bare-metal recovery, which this program does not do at all: it works at the file level, not the partition level.