The FlexTk file management toolkit provides advanced file synchronization capabilities allowing
one to synchronize files between directories, local disks and network shares. The FlexTk's
built-in file synchronization engine offers numerous one-way and two-way file synchronization modes,
rule-based file matching capabilities and advanced performance tuning options.
Frequently used file synchronization operations may be pre-configured as user-defined commands
and executed in a single mouse click. Moreover, FlexTk allows one to create desktop shortcuts
for user-defined file synchronization commands and execute them directly from the Windows
desktop without the need to start the main FlexTk GUI application.
Power users and IT professionals are provided with advanced multi-streaming file synchronization
capabilities especially optimized to synchronize millions of files very fast, effectively and using
only a minimal amount of system memory. The FlexTk's file synchronization engine has been especially
designed to take advantage of modern multi-core and multi-CPU servers, disk RAIDs and enterprise
storage systems. The product is capable of synchronizing security attributes, ownership information
and ACLs allowing one to synchronize files in an enterprise storage environment.
In order to synchronize a pair of disks or directories, press the 'Sync' button located on the main
GUI toolbar. On the synchronization dialog, enter the source directory name, the destination directory
name and press the 'Preview' button. FlexTk will scan the source and the destination directories
and show all the files that need to be synchronized. Press the 'Sync' button to perform the
synchronization process.
Using the preview mode, the user can see the files that will be synchronized and have the ability to
unselect files that should be excluded from the synchronization process. File synchronization with
preview is suitable when you need to synchronize hundreds or thousands of files, but it is very hard
to imagine someone trying to manually select or unselect specific files while synchronizing millions
of files between two computers or enterprise storage systems.
When synchronizing large amounts of files, the stream synchronization mode is more preferable.
In the stream file synchronization mode, FlexTk performs synchronization on-the-fly without generating
lists of files that should be synchronized and therefore the file synchronization process is performed
considerable faster using significantly less system memory. Selection of specific files for
synchronization may be done automatically by using file matching rules and logical conditions
that may be defined on the advanced options dialog.
The advanced synchronization options dialog provides the user with multiple file synchronization modes,
rule-based file matching capabilities and performance tuning options. Press the 'Advanced Options' button
to see the advanced options dialog. FlexTk's built-in file synchronization engine provides three one-way
file synchronization modes and two two-way file synchronization modes.
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Synchronize Destination Directory (one-way) - All changes made in the source directory will be propagated
to the destination directory. Files deleted from the source directory will be deleted from the destination
directory. All files changed or deleted in the destination directory will be restored using files from
the source directory. No changes will be made in the source directory. After the file synchronization
process is complete both locations will be identical.
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Update Destination Directory (one-way) - Newly created and modified source files will be copied to
the destination directory. Files deleted from the source directory will be deleted from the destination directory.
Files deleted from the destination directory will be restored using files from the source directory. Newly created
and modified destination files will be kept in place. No changes will be made in the source directory.
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Accumulate and Update Files in Destination (one-way) - Newly created and modified source files will be copied
to the destination directory. Files deleted from the destination directory will be restored using files from
the source directory. Newly created and modified destination files will be kept in place. No files will be deleted
from the destination directory. No changes will be made in the source directory.
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Two-Way File Synchronization - Newly created and modified files will be synchronized in both directions.
Files deleted from the source directory will be deleted from the destination directory. Files deleted from the
destination directory will be restored from the source directory. Changes may be made in both locations.
After the file synchronization process is complete both locations will be identical.
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Two-Way Accumulation and Update - Newly created and modified files will be updated in both directions.
Files deleted from one location will be restored from the second location. Changes may be made in both locations.
After the file synchronization process is complete both locations will be identical.
The 'General' tab provides the ability to set the required file synchronization mode and control a number of advanced
file synchronization options. In order to change the file synchronization mode, use the synchronization mode combo box
located in the top-right corner of the 'General' tab. A short description explaining the currently selected file
synchronization mode is displayed just under the synchronization mode combo box.
The 'Sync Attributes' options instructs the FlexTk file synchronization engine to synchronize file attributes when
copying files from one location to another. The 'Sync ACLs' options instructs to synchronize Access Control Lists
(ACLs) and the 'Sync User/Group' options instructs to synchronize file ownership information when copying files
from one location to another.
The 'Rules' tab allows one to define one or more file matching rules specifying files that should be synchronized.
By default, if no file matching rules are defined, FlexTk synchronizes all files. If one or more file matching
rules are defined, FlexTk synchronizes files matching the specified conditions only. For example, in order to
synchronize documents that were modified during the last month, add two file matching rules – the first one that
will match all documents and the second one that will match files modified during the last month.
For more information about how to define file matching rules refer to the
File Classification page.
The 'Performance' tab provides the ability to tune the speed and the overhead of the file synchronization process.
The 'Stream Count' option specifies the number of file copy streams that should be used during the file synchronization
process. Multi-stream file synchronization may be considerable faster when synchronizing large amounts of files over
Gigabit network, between disk RAIDs or between enterprise storage systems capable of performing multiple operations at a time.
Single file synchronization stream is good enough when synchronizing files between two directories located on the same physical disk.
Two to four simultaneous file synchronization streams will bring considerable performance improvement when synchronizing a large amount
of files between two computers over the Gigabit network. Powerful disk RAIDs and enterprise storage systems may require
up to 8 parallel file synchronization streams in order to reach the maximum performance level.
A high-speed file synchronization process imposes significant overhead on the source and destination disks, the computer's
memory and I/O subsystem. There is no problem when nothing else is running on the computer and you need to finish the file
synchronization process as fast as possible. But if you need to synchronize a server with running applications, a full-speed
file synchronization process may significantly reduce the performance of all applications running on the server.
FlexTk provides the user with the ability to control the speed of the file synchronization process, thus allowing one to
safely synchronize servers and enterprise storage systems with running mission-critical applications.
The 'Performance' tab provides the ability to select one of four performance profiles. By default, FlexTk uses the 'Full Speed'
performance profile and performs the file synchronization process at the maximum speed. Select the 'Medium Speed' performance
profile to perform file synchronization reasonably fast while leaving some resources for other applications. Select the 'Low Speed'
performance profile to perform the file synchronization process slowly without disturbing other applications running on the system.
Select the 'Manual' performance profile to control all performance options manually.
The 'Exclude' tab provides the user with the ability to specify one or more sub-directories that should be excluded from the file
synchronization process. Press the 'Add' button to add a directory to the exclude list. Select a previously added directory and
press the 'Del' button to remove the selected directory from the exclude list. All directories listed in the 'Exclude' tab,
including all files and subdirectories, will be completely omitted from the file synchronization process.
