Block-Level Synchronization

Siber Systems has released version 9 of GoodSync that allows for P2P (peer-to-peer) connection between two computers. It enables two computers to connect directly with each other to synchronize or backup files directly with no need to store files intermediately at a central location (e.g., a web server). Different connection methods are implemented for computers located on the same LAN and computers that need to connect to each other across the Internet. Now that two computers running GoodSync can talk to each other, block-level transfer/synchronization is finally possible. This technology extremely reduces network traffic while synchronizing large files that do not significantly change between synchronizations. Examples for such files are: databases, logs and email archives. Block-Level Synchronization is especially important for our large enterprise customers, but may be very useful for consumers as well.

Block-level transfer is an optimized method of file transfer that focuses on providing high performance transfers across our GSTP protocol. With block-level transfers, only the parts of a file are transferred that differ. When GoodSync identifies a file that has been updated or changed it calculates the exact binary data within that file and sends only the changed information. This way each file transfer only passes the data required to update the destination file. A normal file transfer would send the entire file, even if only small parts of the file have changed.

Let's say we have a 1GB log file. A new action occurs and a single line is appended to our log file. A normal file sync operation would recognize that the file has changed and would then transfer the entire 1GB file to the destination. This is quite an extensive operation especially when you consider that only a few bytes have been added to the file. Now with block-level transfer, GoodSync will identify the exact bytes that changed (our new line in this example), and only send that data. A transfer that would have taken almost an hour to complete has now been reduced to just seconds!