DiskBoss provides advanced file synchronization capabilities allowing one to synchronize files between directories, local disks and network shares. The DiskBoss' built-in file synchronization engine offers numerous one-way and two-way file synchronization modes, the ability to sync specific file types, file compression capabilities and advanced performance tuning options.

Frequently used file synchronization operations may be pre-configured for custom hardware and storage configurations, saved as user-defined commands and executed in a single mouse click. Moreover, DiskBoss allows one to create direct desktop shortcuts for user-defined file synchronization commands and execute them directly from the Windows desktop without starting the main DiskBoss GUI application. Finally, power computer users and IT professionals are provided with a command line utility, which is capable of executing file synchronization commands from shell scripts and batch files.

By default, file synchronization commands are executed in the preview mode, which provides the user with the ability to review and manually confirm each specific file synchronization action. Once a sync command is tested and verified, the user can configure the command to run in a fully automatic, unattended stream file synchronization mode. The stream file synchronization mode performs all file synchronization actions on-the-fly, without showing the preview dialog and therefore it is much faster and uses significantly less system memory when executed on large file systems.

Depending on specific needs, it may be required to perform different types of file synchronization operations. For example, sometimes users may be interested in keeping all files in the destination directory even when some of them were deleted from the source directory. Another option is to perform two-way accumulation and update keeping both directories completely identical. DiskBoss provides eight different one-way and two-way file synchronization modes allowing one to perform different types of file synchronization operations according to user-specific needs and requirements.

In order to change the file synchronization mode for a file synchronization command, open the file synchronization command dialog, select the 'General' tab and select one of the following file synchronization modes:

• Synchronize Destination Directory (one-way) - All changes made in the source directory will be propagated to the destination directory. Files deleted from the source directory will be deleted from the destination directory. All files changed or deleted in the destination directory will be restored using files from the source directory. No changes will be made in the source directory. After the file synchronization process is complete both locations will be identical.
• Update Destination Directory (one-way) - Newly created and modified source files will be copied to the destination directory. Files deleted from the source directory will be deleted from the destination directory. Files deleted from the destination directory will be restored using files from the source directory. Newly created and modified destination files will be kept in place. No changes will be made in the source directory.
• Accumulate and Update Files in Destination (one-way) - Newly created and modified source files will be copied to the destination directory. Files deleted from the destination directory will be restored using files from the source directory. Newly created and modified destination files will be kept in place. No files will be deleted from the destination directory. No changes will be made in the source directory.
• Two-Way File Synchronization - Newly created and modified files will be synchronized in both directions. Files deleted from the source directory will be deleted from the destination directory. Files deleted from the destination directory will be restored from the source directory. Changes may be made in both locations. After the file synchronization process is complete both locations will be identical.
• Two-Way Accumulation and Update - Newly created and modified files will be updated in both directions. Files deleted from one location will be restored from the second location. Changes may be made in both locations. After the file synchronization process is complete both locations will be identical.

DiskBoss Ultimate and DiskBoss Server provide power computer users and IT administrators with the ability to synchronize specific file types or file categories using one or more flexible file matching rules. For example, the user may specify to synchronize documents and digital images with the file size more than 2 MB.

In order to add one or more file matching rules, open the file synchronization command dialog, select the 'Rules' tab and press the 'Add' button. On the 'Rules' dialog select an appropriate rule type and specify all the required parameters. During file synchronization, DiskBoss will scan the entered source and destination directories and apply the specified file matching rules to all the existing files. Files not matching the specified rules will be just skipped from the file synchronization process.

Sometimes, it may be required to exclude one or more subdirectories from the file synchronization process. For example, if you need to synchronize two directories excluding one or two special subdirectories, you may specify the top level directories as the source and destination directories and add the subdirectories that should be skipped to the exclude list.

In order to increase file synchronization performance, DiskBoss provides advanced computer users and IT professionals with the ability to synchronize files using multiple file synchronization streams. Multi-Stream file synchronization significantly improves file synchronization performance when synchronizing large amounts of files between multiple disks, NAS storage devices or enterprise storage systems.

In order to enable multi-stream file synchronization for a sync command, open the command dialog, select the 'Performance' tab and set an appropriate number of file synchronization streams. Take into account that multi-stream file synchronization is optimized for multi-disk, RAID and networked configurations and it is not recommended to use it when synchronizing directories located on the same physical disk.

In addition, users required to synchronize files on running, production systems are provided with the ability to execute file synchronization commands slowly thus minimizing the performance impact on running applications. In order to change the speed of a file synchronization command, select an appropriate performance mode in the 'Performance Mode' combo box.

DiskBoss provides the user with the ability to pre-configure custom file synchronization operations as user-defined commands and execute such commands in a single mouse click using the DiskBoss GUI application or direct desktop shortcuts. User-defined commands may be managed and executed through the commands dialog or the commands tool pane. In order to add a new command through the commands pane, press the right mouse button over the pane and select the 'Add New - File Synchronization Command' menu item. In order to execute a previously saved command, just click on the command item in the commands tool pane or create a direct desktop shortcut on the desktop.

Sometimes, it may be required to execute a file synchronization operation periodically at specific time intervals. The first option to do that is to configure a periodic job in the DiskBoss GUI application and select the required file synchronization command to be executed periodically. Another option is to use DiskBoss Server, which runs as a service in the background and may be used to periodically execute file synchronization operations in a fully automatic, unattended mode.

DiskBoss Ultimate and DiskBoss Server provide the ability to monitor one or more disks or directories and automatically execute a file synchronization operation after a user-specified number of changes is detected. In order to execute a file synchronization command using the DiskBoss' disk change monitor, create a new disk change monitoring command, specify one or more disks or directories that should be monitored, select the 'Actions' tab, specify the number of disk changes that should trigger the file synchronization command and selected the name of the file synchronization command that should be executed once the disk change monitor reaches the specified number of changes.