Running Multiple Instances of FFS Simultaneously

[Lady Fitzgerald]

To cut down on the amount of time it takes to run my backups using FreeFileSync, I'm trying to run two instances at the same time (I would like to be able to run three or four in the future but, right now, I have only two 2.5" hot swap bays available). For example:

E:/ to H:/
F:/ to I:/

I was able to get it to work alright as long as I do not insert a drive into a hot swap until both of the first two backups I started finished. I can then close both instances of FFS, insert the next two drives into the hot swap bays, then start up the next two instances.

The problem I'm still having is with my music player, Media Monkey, will no longer play. It doesn't matter if it was playing or not playing but still running. I've tried closing MM, then restarting it but it just sets there and laughs at me. The only way I have found to get it working it again, so far, is to restart the computer.

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening and/or what I can do to fix the problem?

I'm using the latest version of FFS running in Win7 Ultimate 64 bit on an Asus P9X79 WS with an I-7 5930k and 32GB RAM (the CPU and RAM aren't even breaking a slight sweat). All the drives being backed up and their backup drives are 4TB Samsung 850 EVOs. The boot drive is a 128GB Samsung 840 PRO.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Today, I tried doing two simultaneous updates without Media Monkey running in the background. I got the "ding" when the first update finished. However, there was no "ding" after the second update finished. When I opened up media Monkey after I shut down the last instance of FFS, there was no sound when the UAC popup popped up and, once Media Monkey was up, again it wouldn't play. Again, I had to do a reboot to get the sound and player working again.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

It appears the problem may have been hardware related. I swapped out one of the 2.5" hot swap bays I had been using with a new one that has two 2.5" hot swap bays, opened two instances of FFS, then plugged in two backup drives and ran both backups. I didn't loose my audio. Leaving the two instances of FFS open, I removed the two backup drives, inserted the other two that still needed backing up, then ran both backups again. Again, I did not lose my audio. After removing the drives and closing both instances of FFS, I still had audio. I have a third 2.5" hot swap bay still installed in the computer (different from the one I removed) but I have no more drives needing backing up right now (I used the two other drives to test the new hot swap bays) but in the next day or two, I'm going to try to see if I can run three backups simultaneously. If this continues to work, it will be a huge time and hassle saver, especially after I do my monthly swap with my onsite backup drives and my offsite backup drives and have a lot of updating to do, since, besides three running at the same time instead of consecutively instead of sequentially being faster, I can start three backups and just forget about them until all three are finished, then run the other three.

I did change my procedure a bit. Same as I had to do on older versions of FFS, I had been inserting a drive, waiting until Windows could find and index it, the open up FFS and run the backup. When finished, I would close both FFS windows and remove the drive, then repeat for the next drive. I also remember that an earlier version had a refresh button I had to use if I changed drives while FFS but I couldn't find it on the latest version so, this time, I tried leaving FFS opened and I was pleasantly surprised when it refreshed itself when I swapped out drives (nice!). I don't know for sure if closing this version and reopening it would make a difference or not since I haven't had a chance to test it yet but I doubt it would since I didn't lose my audio when I shut down the two instances of FFS when I finished doing two pairs of backups.