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I've stayed with SyncToy v1.4 as I found v2.0 too slow to be of any use. For example when run again immediately after a sync, on a folder pair without any changes, it would start from scratch unnecessarily scanning all the files and sub-folders for differences.

It looks like the new SyncToy v2.1 (released 11 Oct 2009) is much improved over v1.4 but is it much faster than v2.0?

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    +1 Didn't know that SyncToy 2.1 had been released.
    – Steve Rowe
    Nov 17, 2009 at 5:47

3 Answers 3

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Yes, I know I've noticed a performance increase. SyncToy 2.1 uses the latest sync engine from the Microsoft Sync Framework 2.0, which is actively developed (latest SDK release in October 18th 2009).

One of the main features they outline in this version is the performance increase:

  • Better Performance: The speed of file copy operations is significantly increased across the board.

Give it a try, you won't be disappointed!

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  • Sweet, I didn't even know there was a 2.1. It's definitely much faster than 2.0. Nov 16, 2009 at 20:35
  • I've tried it out, have been disappointed with the results and had to go back to v1.4
    – Rob Kam
    Nov 26, 2009 at 13:12
  • I've tried it out, and was glad about the improvement. First pass is slow, but from this moment, it's notably faster, in my opinion.
    – Gnoupi
    Nov 26, 2009 at 13:29
  • First pass in my case would be having to wait while it unnecessarily overwrites many hundreds of files over already identical copies. First pass with v1.4 took under 15 minutes.
    – Rob Kam
    Nov 26, 2009 at 13:35
  • By default, SyncToy 2+ bases its synchronization on the timestamps, not on content. Maybe that's the reason why you had such time, simply.
    – Gnoupi
    Nov 26, 2009 at 14:07
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Again I've stayed with SyncToy v1.4, as I found v2.1 to be also too slow to be of any use.

First I ran v1.4 to make sure everything was already synched and echoed, and then I installed v2.1 over v1.4 (which kept its settings and upgraded it).

Then I previewed two known-to-be-identical folders, each 7.16Gb (containing 53,817 Files and 2,594 Folders). SyncToy v2.1 took 11 minutes and said that it would need to overwrite 46,650 files (and that 60,972 files did not require action). This was too slow and was incorrect about having to overwrite any files.

So I uninstalled v2.1 and reinstalled v1.4, and did the same test. This time it took 2 minutes to compare the same folder pair and no files needed copying (except for a few SyncToy_*.dat files left by v2.1).

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  • Actually, this doesn't really answer the question, this question being "is SyncToy 2.1 faster than 2.0 ?" ;)
    – Gnoupi
    Nov 26, 2009 at 13:17
  • Detail aside, I'm not sure this way of testing is really efficient, as it could depend on a "first pass" from each version (or maybe one version and not the other).
    – Gnoupi
    Nov 26, 2009 at 13:21
  • From here it seems that 2.1 is just as slow as 2.0, neither are as quick and efficient as 1.4
    – Rob Kam
    Nov 26, 2009 at 14:52
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Syntoy 2.1 doesn't decrypt encrypted files and folders whereas Synctoy 2.0 won't copy file attributes such as for encryption.

When using version 2.0 all my encrypted files and folders are decrypted.

This occurs when copying between two NTFS formatted drives. If copying between an NTFS and FAT drive encryption and NTFS file attributes should be automatically removed.


I'm uncertain about ver. 1.4. Previous download links are broken and MS replaced the 1.4 download link with version 2.0.


If you have many encrypted files to copy to a removable drive, you don't necessarily want backup files and folders to be encrypted when attached to other PCs.

I remember Synctoy 2.1 being somewhat faster than ver. 2.0 but haven't actually performed any testing, 2.1 seems to be faster.

I have both 2.0 and 2.1 (x64) installed. Perhaps MS should have added some sort of option(s), but wanted to keep Synctoy simple as possible.

If you have many encrypted files that need to be decrypted. When using ver. 2.1 you would need to add additional time for decrypting hundreds to thousands of files vs the amount of time it takes version 2.0.

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