Question/Suggestion

[Guest]

When Synchronizing two folders, can BC handle multi-threaded transfers, to speed up the transfer? Is there a way to make the transfers run in the backround, so I can run another sync on two more folders, without having to open another instance of BC?

[Chris]

Re: Question/Suggestion

BC isn't able to do multiple syncs at the same time. Copying files in parallel between a single source and target in an effort to speed up some operations is on our wish list.

If you want to do multiple syncs at the same time you should run a separate session of BC for each sync.

[Guest]

Re: Question/Suggestion

Please add this feature. It makes a big difference on FTP compares. For example, we have an ftp server with thousands of files and we want to compare the changes on our local version with the server version. Right now, I leave it to compare and walk away for a half hour and then come back and see what files have changed. It would help emmensly if this was done using a user defined amount of threads (even if only for comparison sake - rules based - no need to make the transfers themselves multi-threaded for us).

[Guest]

Re: Question/Suggestion

I'll second the call for at least some limited multi-threading in the program. I eval'd BC last night, and was very impressed. I'm no programmer; I use it to synch my music collections between my PC and my mac.

The problem is that the Mac is wireless (in the living room, just for surfing while watching TV), and music files are fairly big. I need to synch the collections manually due to differences in filename lengths between Windows and Macs (is there a way to ignore that?) ... which I can live with, since BC makes it pretty fast regardless. But everytime I find a group of songs that need copying from one computer to another, and hit copy, I have to wait a few minutes while the song files crawl across the wireless connection. If there was a way to "queue" the transfer list, that would work also, but it would be great to at least be able to scroll down farther and continue the comparison while the files copy.

It got so obnoxious that for some larger copies I just opened the folders manually and started the copy, so BC wouldn't hang up.

Any ETA? Next version, I hope? I'm hesitant to purchase it for long term use at this point, even though it's otherwise deal, until I know for sure it's coming soon(ish).

[Chris]

Re: Question/Suggestion

BC is multi-threaded, but BC won't run multiple copies in parallel. Running multiple copies at once is something that we think will be very useful to add to BC, but to be realistic it will probably be a while before we have a chance to add it to BC.

I don't know that there is a way to deal with differences in file name lengths in BC. Depending on how the file names are different you might be able to rename them using BC's multiple file rename to get them to match up. To rename the files, use Actions|Rename in BC.

I'll add queuing file operations to our wish list for a future release of BC.

[Guest]

Re: Question/Suggestion

Queuing would be ideal, of course.

But what I meant by multi-threading is that once I select a single file and click the button to copy it over, the program is fully occupied, and I can't continue to scroll down while the file copies. I'm not talking about initiating other copies, necessarily, but simply interacting with the program is impossible until the file finishes copying. And with 120mb+ files for long concert recordings, that can take a loooong time. Even for smaller 160mbps albums, a full album clocks in a 60mb or so, and takes quite a while to transfer.

I'm not really concerned with the filename truncation. I work with the program interactively, in manual mode, and don't intend to try to fully sync it automatically, so it's not a big concern. It would be cool if it could ignore it and not flag them as a problem, but ultimately it's easy to ignore. Syncing them would cause issues, given the different way iTunes manages it's files on the respective platforms, so that's not a concern I have... unlike the continue-while files-copy issue.

[Chris]

Re: Question/Suggestion

Thank you for clarifying what you're looking for in BC. It does sound like a very useful addition. I've added your additional description to our wish list and we'll review it as we work on new versions of BC.