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View Full Version : folder sync results in dates that are off by 1-2 sec


buggers
03-Aug-2011, 03:55 PM
3.3.13755 beta, folder mirror from ntfs hard drive to fat32 usb

I noticed when setting tolerance to 0, thinking it was not necessary, that many dates were a bit off, right after a copy. Why wouldn't they be identical?

Craig
03-Aug-2011, 04:26 PM
NTFS stores timestamps with sub-millisecond resolution. FAT32 stores timestamps with a 2 second resolution. When BC copies from NTFS to FAT the timestamp gets rounded, which is why they're different. The timestamp tolerance setting was created, and defaults to 2 seconds, for exactly this case.

Aaron
03-Aug-2011, 04:42 PM
Hello,

That's the accuracy of the fat32 file system, with a potential of up to 2seconds off. If you perform the copy using My Computer/Windows Explorer, you should see similar behavior.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/127830

You can perform a content comparison scan (such as binary) in the Session Settings -> Comparison tab.
http://www.scootersoftware.com/support.php?zz=kb_samebutdifferent
By default, BC3 has a 2 second tolerance enabled to help ignore this behavior, but that can be disabled.