Backup strategies


1. Full backup with versioning of old files

In synchronization settings select and specify a "User-defined directory" for deletion handling. FreeFileSync will place files that have been deleted or overwritten with newer versions into corresponding time-stamped sub directories. This provides a space-optimized way to retain all older versions of files while the most recent ones are available in main source and target directories.



2. Full backup to different target directories

All directory input fields may contain environment variables and special macros that are expanded during synchronization. This allows for complete backups into different target directories.


Example:

A directory "C:\Source" requires a daily backup into a time-stamped target directory like "C:\Target_2009-10-08". Base directories are set up accordingly:

Source folder: "C:\Source"
Target folder: "C:\Target_%date%"



Latter will be interactively replaced with the current date during synchronization. In order to further automate this process, you can create a *.ffs_batch file with this configuration and choose "ignore errors" to avoid the warning that target directory is not (yet) existing.