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#1
Syncing folders that have renamed files and subfolders
This question is about syncing and backing up files in general. Sync Toy and a few other backups tools can not do what I need.
The problem is how to synchronize folders of thousands of photos and music files between my computer and external HD. I am constantly renaming files, adding and deleting child and parent folders, moving photos or folders to new folders etc. on the computer. So I don't see how any sync program could correctly deal with files and subfolders that have been moved to different folders. When any given folder on the original and backup is compared, the program can't tell the difference between a file that is missing on main computer because I wanted to delete it permanently and one that was missing because I moved it to another folder or renamed it - correct?
Yes there are programs that show you comparisons between two folder but that does nothing to solve the problem - you still have to go through everything manually and handle the missing-vs-moved-vs-renamed situations yourself, one by one.
So now imagine this happening for hundreds and hundreds of files and subfolders every week.
It seems the only solution would be delete all 200 Gb of music and photos from the HD and re-copy them every time. Or, use continuous live cloud backup but that is absolutely not an option for me. First of all I tried it and it slowed down the computer outrageously - even though I was only backing up a few hundred Gb of text files and NOT my 200 Gb of photos and music! Secondly it's not acceptable due to security and privacy issues. Either issue alone is enough to rule out cloud storage.