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GoodSync Cloud Backup Benefits for You

GoodSync Cloud Backup Benefits for You

GoodSync is a file management app that promises to “take the hassle out of file backup & synchronization!” Whether or not that’s true, note that the application is available on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and even Linux – so it covers the majority of desktop and mobile systems.

Because it covers all the major operating systems, you’ll be able to manually or automatically transfer and sync file among all of your devices. 

And that has become a big problem for a lot of people. Today, a single person may have a laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone…and perhaps even more devices! Trying to manually copy files over to a flash drive or copy and paste files from a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device simply isn’t practical.

Enter GoodSync, a utility that can not only sync data among your devices but can even make a connection between two computers to directly transfer data through the network.  

Some of you may already be aware of some competing solutions, which will be discussed in a later section. But for now, let’s kick things off by looking at GoodSync’s pricing model.  

Price 

 Firstly, I’d like to inform any of you who are extremely price conscious that there is good news: GoodSync does have a free version! Obviously it has some intentionally imposed limitations to offer you incentive to purchase the full version, but for basic syncing operations, it will work just fine.  

The discount system is a little complicated, depending on which version of the software you want to buy.

Since I imagine most of you are looking at the standard home use version, let’s look at the discounts for GoodSync 10 for Windows and Mac: 

As you can see, GoodSync isn’t stingy when it comes to offering savings discounts. I was pleased to see that their discounts were actually worth something. I’ve seen a ton of similar stand-alone software products that nickel and dime their customers.

Some solutions only offer a meager 1-2% in savings. But when you consider the 10 user license, the $110.00 discount essentially boils down to the same value of almost four individual single-user licenses.  

It does seem that they have a discount code field for special promotions, too. I imagine they bundle their service with other packages and online software products. Also, note that you have a 30-day money back guarantee if you are dissatisfied with the product.

All in all, I think GoodSync did a fantastic job of putting together an affordable and valuable pricing model. The prices are moderate, the savings are significant, and you get a 30-day money back guarantee. What’s not to love? 

Features 

 

GoodSync has four main categories of features which encapsulate all of the smaller features. Other applications often suffer from scope creep as developers try to throw “extra” features that don’t really fit with the main goal of the application – but not GoodSync. This application has been streamlined to efficiently handle its main task: file synchronization and data transfer.  

However, I do have to honestly admit that I wasn’t overly impressed with the first visual feature: the interface. The interface is actually very busy to the point that it feels a little cluttered. Perhaps that’s just my subjective opinion, but I think that a computer novice (someone’s parents or grandparents) would have difficulties finding all the buttons to use this application.

On the other hand, if you’re even a little technologically literate, you’ll be able to find your way around the interface. 

At any rate, the first and largest feature of GoodSync is basic file syncing between your computer and mobile devices. File syncing simply means that the program will search for duplicate files between two systems.

If it notices that one system is either completely missing a file or has an older version of a file contained on the other computer, it will update it to the latest version. I was pleased to see all the file transfer protocols and storage interfaces that GoodSync pairs with, too. 

It is able to interface with FTP, SFTP, Google Drive, Azure, Amazon S3, and SkyDrive. To be completely honest, there are so many features with this product that it would take a great deal of documentation. However, let’s take a high-level overview of the software’s main benefits and features, and then take a moment to highlight some of the more technical ancillary features. 

In summary, the following outlines the main features of GoodSync: 

  • Basic file syncing between your computer and mobile devices  
  • Direct peer-to-peer syncing from one system to another 
  • Scheduled and real-time syncing, so your files are constantly updated among all of your devices 
  • File backup operations to safeguard your data on local storage 

Ancillary technical features of GoodSync include the following: 

  • End-to-end data encryption, using AES-256 encryption, to protect your files in transit  
  • Block level incremental data transfers for faster P2P backups 
  • Centralized administrative control panel for host management 
  • Bi-directional and one-way synchronization 
  • Line-speed TCP data transfer through the use of multiple TCP/IP sockets (basically means that TCP/IP won’t inhibit a data transfer so that your data backup procedure can fully utilize all the bandwidth of your Internet connection) 
  • Multiple threads  
  • Can sync data to NAS devices, shared LAN folders, between two systems via P2P, local HDD storage, flash drives, cloud storage, and more 
  • File changes are automatically detected in real-time 
  • Encrypts stored files using AES-256 
  • Sync on timer and sync on schedule features  
  • Sends email logs and notifications  
  • Many, many other features  

Cloud Alternatives and Security Concerns 

I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t inform you of other competitors. Some of you may have been reading this and thinking, “Why would I need a stand-alone application to sync files? Aren’t there already cloud storage, cloud backup, and cloud syncing features that already perform these functions?”

The short answer to that question here is yes, there are cloud storage and cloud sync competitors, but there are some tradeoffs.  

Take a cloud service like SugarSync, Google Drive, or Dropbox, for example. If you wanted to use one of these services to sync data between systems, your data would either have to be stored in the cloud or be copied through the cloud to reach the second computer system that needs to be synced.

One of the main advantages of GoodSync over cloud alternatives is the direct P2P file sync. If you wanted to use cloud storage for syncing operations, you would have to use the cloud servers as an intermediate system.  

This has massive security implications. For instance, note that services like Dropbox, which does provide a syncing service via a “shared folder” feature, are notoriously insecure. There have been so many security nightmares with Dropbox that users have left and moved on to more secure platforms.

Even with encryption at the transport level, your data is still accessible by the company who hosts your data, unless they are a zero-knowledge provider or you first encrypt your data locally. 

Otherwise, employees at the cloud services company or hackers could steal your data. GoodSync, on the other hand, can create an encrypted tunnel directly between two computers to cut out the middleman.

That way you don’t have to worry about the security risks associated with using an intermediary cloud server to sync your data. While I do admittedly see a lot of value in cloud services (I use them every day, after all), I really like the fact that GoodSync has a good solution to secure file transfers.  

Final Thoughts

  

All in all, I think GoodSync is a fantastic product and a great value for anyone who needs to sync data among all their various devices. And let’s face it – most of us have run into this problem at one time or another. It’s tough keeping all of our files straight when we access them from multiple devices each and every day.  

Though the cloud offers handy solutions to this problem, it is far from perfect. The cloud is rife with security threats, but GoodSync circumvents these threats and comes loaded with so many features I couldn’t believe it.

The price is good, the security is well-thought out, and the features are exceptional. The only thing I didn’t really like was the interface. With exception to the interface, I can honestly say I’d recommend this to anyone who needs file synchronization and backup function.