Best Tools To Synchronize Folders Between Computers and Drives

Sometimes you may need to synchronize folders and files between computers and external drives like you want to sync your My Documents folder with the one at work, or sync your music files at home with music folder on another computer. But Every time doing that manually is a time consuming and tiring process.
You may need to automate it by using some software that does the synchronization and manages all the tasks associated automatically.
Read: How to Recover Deleted files from hard disks, USB flash drives,SD cards
These tools allows you to easily make sure the data between drives and folders is synchronized everyday.
Let us get check few of the best tools available free that does exactly the tasks mentioned above.

SyncToy 2.1

SyncToy from microsoft is one of the best free tool available to do files and folders synchronization between computers or storage locations.SyncToy 2.1 is the latest version of the software.SyncToy is one among the most useful tool from the Microsoft PowerToys group.
SyncToy is typically uses include sharing files, such as photos, with other computers and creating backup copies of files and folders.

SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time.It can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another folder. It can keep track of renames to files and will make sure those changes are reflected over to the synchronized folder.

SyncToy defines three different types of operations to synchronize two folders. Synchronize takes the two folders and makes sure they have the exact same files. Echo looks for changes like new files, renames, deletes in the left folder and makes them in the right folder.This is one way sync.
Contribute type operation is like an Echo, but it does not delete any files on the right folder that may have been deleted in the left folder.
SyncToy is written using Microsoft’s .NET framework and uses the Microsoft Sync Framework.

SyncToy 2.1 allows you to synchronize 2 folders across a network, on the same PC, or to USB flash or external drives.
SyncToy works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.One thing to make sure that you download the right version for your OS.There is a separate version for 32 & 64-bit versions of Windows.

You can download and install SyncToy 2.1 from here.
When you install SyncToy it also installs Microsoft Sync Framework 2.0 Core Components, which is their sync platform that enables offline access to apps, services and devices.

SyncBack 3.2.21

SyncBack is another backup and file synchronization software that allows backing up and synchronizing files to the same or different drives, to different media (CD, DVD, Flash, zip), or to a remote server.
SyncBack available in three versions

• SyncBack Freeware
• yncBackSE -shareware
• SyncBackPro -shareware

SyncBack Freeware is free for home and business use. SE and Pro versions are not free and has lot of additional features like SFTP, backup to CD/DVD, 256-bit AES encryption, backup to email servers etc.

You can download Syncback from here.

SyncEXPERT

SyncEXP is freeware for file and folder synchronization software for Windows.They allow synchronizing data between any Windows based folders and hard drives. These folders and storage drives can be on any network node.The synchronization is bidirectional. SyncEXp synchronize data between desktop PCs, laptops, USB drives and it can Sync records between databases using ODBC connection.SyncEXP also Sync data across the Internet using TCP/IP protocol in server-client mode.
It has an extremely easy-to-use interface.
SyncEXPERT offers both freeware SyncEXP and shareware SyncEXPnet synchronization tools. –

Toucan 2.2.1

Toucan is another simple tool from Portableapps.com with which you can synchronize contents between your hard drive and a portable memory device.Toucan allows you to quickly backup, synchronize and secure your data with many options.synchronizing with four different methods (Four synchronization modes copy, update, mirror and equalize.), the program also makes compressed backup copies and allows you to encrypt and decrypt data
Apart from synchronization the tool has the following features.
1. Backup and restore in zip and 7-zip files
2. Encryption using the BURP updated blowfish algorithm
3. Command line support, allows you to create a batch file for repeated jobs
4. Portable variables, point to places on your USB drive no matter what its drive letter is

Supported OS are Windows 98/Windows 98SE/Windows Me/Windows 2000/Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7
You can download Toucan from here.