I've been using SugarSync for a few months now to keep my documents synchronized between my laptop, tablet and desktop. SugarSync offers near real time change-detection and replication between computers, using a centralized server. They also claim to provide an automatic, continuous backup of your files.
Set up SugarSync once and your files are continuously backed up to your secure, personal SugarSync website. Edit these files on your computer, and your changes are automatically backed up. If your computer is stolen or damaged, you can recover your files painlessly. It’s easy – no CDs, DVDs or storage drives required.
This is only partially true. Your files are continuously backed up to their servers as long as you are connected. A few days ago Walt Mossberg wrote an article about SugarSync and they had nearly a full day of downtime.
Half-assed backup
Also while the files are continuously backed up, there is no versioning and no sanity check that says "If a container I'm synchronizing doesn't exist when the application starts, don't delete it across all computers." If you select a directory to sync, odds are high that you're not planning on deleting it. Recently I lost the hard drive on a laptop, and when I restored SugarSync launched and wiped out all my files, across all of my computers.
Versioning is very important as well. If I'm working in a document on Tuesday and it is corrupt when I try and open it on Wednesday, I'm out of luck. Most real backup services offer versioning. SugarSync says this on their roadmap.
Deleted Files Organization & Recovery
After thrashing all of my documents, tech support advised that I look in my Deleted Files folder. Hey, that's great! All of my files are there! Literally, all of them. In one single directory. There's no way of telling where a file came from since every almost every file was removed from it's parent directory, and my Deleted Files folder contains all of those and a pile of empty directories.
To make matters worse the Deleted Files folder allows duplicate file names, so I've got 15 files with the name ~$andard Consulting Agreement.doc. I've got no idea what it was originally called.
Oh, and the SugarSync Manager chokes when attempting to restore files from the Deleted Items folder:
Could not copy '…\Local Settings\Application Data\SugarSync/small_file/sc/10342/12852_10460.!12852_985' to 'C:/sugarsync recovery/Deleted Files/~$andard Consulting Agreement.doc'
I did open a ticket for this a few days ago and was pointed to a document that helpfully informed me that you can't download items in bulk from the Deleted Files folder from the web interface. The web interface being very different from the Windows application the ticket is for. That document – which is on their public support site – mysteriously contains an email from another frustrated customer containing their name, email address and phone number.
Allowing you to restore a deleted file to it's original location is on their roadmap.
Managing Multiple Computers
One of the use cases of SugarSync is to quickly recover your files if your computer is stolen. OK, now how do I unauthorize that computer so the thief won't continue to receive the latest version of Corey's_Tender_Sentiments.doc? Oh, I can't? What about the evaluation laptop I had, can I remove it from my account so it's not cluttering the web interface and desktop client? No again? Ah, it's on the roadmap, excellent.
Quality of Support
I've opened three tickets, and on average it's been at least a day before I heard a response. Once the ticket has been assigned I may receive a reply in an hour, or it may be another day. While that's frustrating, I can overlook it. Presumably they're just understaffed following their public launch.
Here's something very important though. If you're going to call customers, it shouldn't sound like you're on a bandwidth-starved VOIP line. Crackling, volume changes, cutting in and out – none of these things help expedite a call, nor do they inspire confidence.
It's on the roadmap
There's a common theme to every issue that I've experienced – the solution is on their roadmap. How wonderful, anything I can throw at SugarSync, they've already got plans to address! In fact there's barely a question in their forums that isn't on the roadmap, including:
- Network drive support
- More granular sync control
- Versioning
- Expose files to local directory tools
- Ignoring deletions (one-way sync, eg photos)
- Emailing a link to a file
- Shared Folders
- Collaboration
- Dropbox
- Throttling upload speeds
- Importing CSV files to the address book
- Calendar syncing
- Backup SMS and contacts from a mobile phone
- Filter sync files
- Sync hidden and system files
- Allow users to provide their own encryption keys
- Public API
- Let users use their own S3 account
- More granular control of the photo gallery
- Show status of sync
- Sync external drives
- Share a top-level photo folder
- Outlook sync
The thing about a roadmap is that you're setting a level of expectation. Once you imply there are plans to add a feature, people will expect to see it. Soon. Currently the desktop client is fairly minimal; it lets you select folders to sync, and then it syncs them. And it's far from perfect if my problems are any indication. The list of items on the roadmap seems to grow every day and it represents a huge amount of development time. SugarSync now needs to add these features in addition to continuing to manage users expectations and handling growth.
So I'm torn – do I invest more time with SugarSync – which failed me – and hope they are able to resolve some of the issues and grow gracefully? I'm hesitant, especially with the very slick looking Dropbox in private beta. Dropbox already has versioning, deleted file recovery and a refined Mac client. Speaking of Dropbox, if you've got a spare invite please drop me a line or send it to dropboxinvite@coreygilmore.com.
Update: Drew – the voice of the screencast on getdropbox.com – saw this post and hooked me up with an invitation. I'm already very pleased with the feel of the local interface and site, less than 30 minutes in.
Tags: Software
April 8th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
I tried the product after reading Pogue's review. Had some problem the first day when I started initial upload (maybe too much load these guys were not prepared for), but since then I have really enjoyed this product and have not had any glitch. I love to have all my stuff with me at all times. Now I understand how much I was missing this.
April 9th, 2008 at 7:33 am
Effortless synchronization is definitely a wonderful thing once you experience it. I started with a BlackBerry on a BES, backed by Exchange which gave me wireless sync of contacts, mail, notes, calendar and tasks. As I started using OneNote I set up a WebDAV server for that to keep notebooks synchronized. Files were the last piece I needed, and I was very happy with SugarSync until I had problems. At that point it was just the limitations of the product (no versioning, poor deleted files management) that started to drive me away.
Dropbox has a much simpler interface, but it maintains file versions and shows you deleted files in their original directories.
April 26th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Glad to see dropbox is working for you. SugarSync isn't cutting it for me either. Would you happen to have an invite to dropbox?
June 12th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Does dropbox have one-way file sync? I'd love to just put a file into dropbox on my work comptuer, and have it show up in a folder at home.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:10 am
@evbart – Not yet, but improved sync options is on the list (with no time frame). You'd want the contents of the dropbox to be hidden on your work computer, but visible at home? I sent you an invite, definitely make a request for this in the dropbox forums.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I'd like to test dropbox too before I shell out my company's 250$ but there seems to be no way to get into this very private beta. well I stll have a couple of days left on my sugarsync trial. Maybe it's just the unavailability that makes dropbox nicer? -))
July 21st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
oh damn, I just wrote this comment , closed the tab, opened hotmail and there's a dropbox invite for me (blush) … maybe I buy both haha
October 1st, 2009 at 9:47 am
They won't even send me a verification email. When I click on resend, nothing. Try to sbmit support request doesn't work. Of course no phone number.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:10 am
Hi all,
I've had an absolute disaster attempting to get Magic Briefcase to do exactly what they say it does – simply sync folders across PCs. I've lost my files once, had my folder structure completely trashed once and and am still nowhere near a solution.
Their tech support only seem capable of responding once every few days making the whole thing incredibly tedious, read the tale of woes:
http://www.freshmango.com/support/kb/networking-protocols-wifi/protocols-firewalls/sugarsync-magic-briefcase-sync-problems/
If anyone has any suggestions on how to escalate this to higher level support I'd love to hear it, thanks!
B
January 21st, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Hi Corey,
given that this blog entry dates to 2008 with no sign of the roadmap update in the comments, does the current 2010 version of sugarsync cover the issues you raised? I particularly want to have something that I can securly back up files to so that my home PC, home laptop, smartphone and work PC can sync to, particularly for one-note
any advice?
yours
Mal
May 18th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
I've been using sugarsync since the mossberg wsj review. works beautifully 95% of the time, but causes big problems when it does not (and one does not realize it is not working properly). I have 3 computers that it keeps wonderfully, effortlessly, mindlessly synched (95% of the time). Periodically (last few days), it doesn't, with no warning or indication except that the file you need was not updated from a different machine, even though ss indicates everything is up to date I'd switch, but have not found anything as good (95% of the time). No support that I can tell. Originally I was a foldershare user.
May 27th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
I'm a trustee of a $16,000,000 estate and used SugarSync to sync and backup across 10 computers. For almost a year, all was well till their last release. It trashed 3,000+ momentous files, changed names into uppercase characters and truncated some crucial files. Then synchronization never ends. They're asking $99/year for voice support when clearly this is their fiasco and poor software quality control. Response time is excruciatingly slow and the solution they provided to date is unacceptable.
I will never trust Sugarsync with my important files again. I'm going to try SpiderOak.
Robert
September 14th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
I just lost 30 years worth of accumulated medical article files….scanned one-by-one and saved as PDFs.
Personal Taxes since 1976. Business tax records x 18 years. Kayak instructional materials, trip records and photos for 12 years. Basically, life as I know it.
I don't know why. Paid for support and they are feebly acting like they are helping…finding some orphans in the cloud and so on. As was pointed out about….what I do find, any directory tree is lost and needs to be manually rebuild. Without explanation….most file folders were gutted and left empty, many gone totally.
My bad for putting all my eggs in one basket.
November 21st, 2010 at 5:49 pm
very helpfull
a two tier system is my plan
a home harddrive and a on line reservoir
Murray
January 8th, 2011 at 1:56 am
I lost tons of files. Half of them were not even in the "Deleted Files" folder. Got multiple copies repeatedly of the exact same file. Tech support is terrible (chat and email)New files were only intermittently synced. What good is a sync program if it loses your files, doesn’t sync your new files, and makes multiple, redundant copies of your existing files that require a lot of time to fix.
January 14th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
I've been with SugarSync for a year, have gone through several releases. I'm afraid it's still not ready for prime time, and I'm just about to go back to iBackup, which may not have the bells and whistles, but doesn't lose data.
The intial problem was the client on my primary (most data) PC kept crashing instead of syncing.
I've reported the same issue three times, and provided diagnostics to support. The next time it happens, I get asked the same questions, I delete and re-sync all my data (40GB) but it does not resolve the issue.
And this time around, it's actually deleted files – my tax files amongst others! Luckily they were in the "Deleted Files" folder (and being a cautious type I had manually copied them elsewhere).
So although SugarSync looked very promising, I'm giving it a rest until I hear these problems have been fixed.
February 5th, 2011 at 9:18 am
I have used SugarSync for about 2 years now, and was very satisfied with the product. However, since 6 months or so I'm experiencing that files are being randomly deleted by SugarSync Manager and frighteningly this seems to be more common than I thought. This has significantly affected my work negatively and is really the last thing you expect form a backup software.
Now, I just want to get rid of SugarSync but am afraid of loosing files that are not on my computer but are backed up on SugarSync servers. I'm able to successively restore the files SugarSync deleted, but they are being deleted again after some time. So, how can I make sure to have all my files on my computer at the same time and then uninstall SugarSync? Has anyone gone through this, too?