one sync source and two sync destinations

[danmugooo]

Hello all,

I am new to FFS. I try to sync a folder, e.g.
C:\Users\fpcuser\Documents\data2sync to two external harddrives (d:\data2sync)
in a round robin fashion. That means I work on the PC and change data in
C:\Users\fpcuser\Documents\data2sync. End of week 1 I want to sync the data to
hhd1 (d:\data2sync). End of week 2 I want to sync the data to hhd2
(d:\data2sync). End of week 3 I want to sync the data to hhd1 (d:\data2sync)
and so on. Summarized , I want to keep multiple versions as backup.

I want to ask you if this is possible with FFS. And how I have to configure it
correctly. I tried by with no success:
Beginning of week1 I sync C:\Users\fpcuser\Documents\data2sync to both hdds.
If I rename data under C:\Users\fpcuser\Documents\data2sync or move it furth
doenwards under C:\Users\fpcuser\Documents\data2sync\subfolder. I run into
problems. Syncing week1's data to hdd1 is ok (the original filenames are
removed from hdd1 and the changed are added to hdd1). But when I want to sync
week2's data to hdd2 (which has the inital status before the sync at end of
the week 2) problems occur. FFS wants to copy the original filenames back from
hdd2 to the pc instead of removeing them from hdd2.

Is such a usage performable with FFS? As I have seen there is only one sync
database in C:\Users\fpcuser\Documents\data2sync (sync.ffs_db). Is this the
problem? That means, Could that be, that the sync of week1 (hdd1) changes the
database in a way that the sync of week2 (hdd2) can not performed correctly?
Or in other words, can I tell FFS to use 2 databases, one for each
syncdestination?

Thank you for your help in advance.

Best regadrs,
Dan

[Zenju]

> FFS wants to copy the original filenames back from hdd2


This looks like FFS cannot find the database file (or entry) on one side and
defaults to a simple two-way sync without detection of deletion.


> Is such a usage performable with FFS?


Generally I don't see why this shouldn't work. Try first to make a few test
with a sample folder and if you still can't get it to work, describe your
testcase so that I can reproduce it and I'll have a closer look.

[danmugooo]

Hi thanks for the answer,

I tried to reproduce this problem with a simple example. But in this case FFS
works the way I expect.
I do not see any difference in the small example and in my backup case.
Just for my understanding to find the origin of the problem. How does the
database behave in case I have these two sync destinations. Could you explain
me the principle, please? For a first abstarct look I would say the need to be
2 dedicated databases.

Thank you in advance.

Best regards,
Dan

[Zenju]

You can think of one database entry per folder pair, which is distributed
accross two physical files located in left and right folder of a single pair.
The most common pitfall is to forget to do an initial full sync with all
folder pairs first so that all database entries are created. Only beginning
with the second sync will changes be detected and propagated.

[danmugooo]

Update: I tried to apply a sync on my real backup data and got an error:

Fehler beim Löschen der Datei:
"D:\1backup_sync\sync.ffs_db"

Windows Fehlercode 5: Zugriff verweigert
-> english:
access denied.

probably there is an access right issue.

I tried to start FFS with run as administrator. In this case it worked.

But again this solves not the existing problem I described above (deletes and
renames are not considered)

Thank you for your help in advance!

Best regards,
Dan

[danmugooo]

ok thanks for the explanation. I think I have done this initial sync with both
hdds.
But perhaps something went wrong with the user rights. I think I will try an
initial sync of both hdds again.
one another question:
if there is an entry per folder pair, how is it distinguished?
e.g. for both hdds the entry would be: src:
C:\Users\fpcuser\Documents\data2sync\test.txt dest: d:\data2sync\test.txt

Thank you for your help in advance!
Best regards, Dan

[Zenju]

> probably there is an access right issue.


Before FFS deletes the old database file it creates a new temporary one with a
.ffs_tmp extension, which seemed to work in your case. Maybe you changed the
default NTFS permissions on this folder to allow file creation but deny
deletes for a normal user. This would explain why it works when you start FFS
with admin rights.


> if there is an entry per folder pair, how is it distinguished?


Different folder pairs get different (unnamed) entries in the database, so
there is no risk of FFS accidentally confusing different datasources, even if
they have identical folder structures.