GSCopyPro is a Robocopy Tool to sync the file.

Robocopy

Data server migrations for unstructured data have been around for as long as servers existed. It was always viewed as an easy task until data growth exponentially with the beginning of the new millennium.  Data that comprised 50GB used to be considered on the larger side of the spectrum. Nowadays, data sets of 200GB can be considered a walk in the park for many system administrators. This is attributed to the fact that higher reliance on computers and the use rich media prompted files to grow. For instance, an email attachment of a word document used to be 2MB to be considered of a decent size. Currently, a 10MB word document is considered within the reasonable size. Let alone PowerPoint presentations.

With unstructured data growing at such a high pace, disk space and system resources on servers are quickly reaching their limits on older servers. This is forcing system administrators to quickly consider moving to newer systems equipped with larger space (either SAN attached or DAS), massive amount of resource, and newer operating systems that can better optimize the use of those computing resources.

The only task remains is migration of the unstructured data from the legacy system to the new state of the art server. Many system administrators ended up using the same migration tool used for years known as Robocopy. It always did the job properly and did it without any issues in the past. However, as data occupied much more space and more users are actively connected to the files, robocopy started to fall behind in terms of getting the job done right. Below are some of the shortcomings of robocopy that are now surfacing these days:

1) Locked files:  As users working longer shifts or keep their computers on when they leave, files are getting locked which prevents robocopy from copying those locked files. With several locked files all over the place, system administrators are forced to rerun robocopy jobs over and over until they copy all the locked files let alone every time they rerun the job, other files could be getting locked.

2) Logs: Robocopy has the ability to create and maintain a log as it runs. This log however contains a lot of data of every file that is copied. Such logs can be challenging when trying to identify which files copied and which ones produced an error. Let alone knowing what the cause of that error was. The log in itself is very informative, but more informative than needed. There were many instances where those jobs grew to be really massive in size that filled up the entire system drive causing the server to go down.

3) Overly complex: With every new release of Microsoft Windows, Microsoft released additional switches in robocopy at which point it became very difficult for system administrators to come up with the right robocopy switches.  This is when several independent software developers decided to venture off and create Robocopy GUI tools to simplify that the creation of robocopy jobs. Unfortunately, most if not all of the Robocopy GUI tools ended up being buggy or temperamental causing sysadmins to spend more time troubleshooting the Robocopy GUI tools in addition to the robocopy jobs.  The robocopy GUI tools proved to be a good concept but faced serious issues due to the lack of proper integration between the tool and the robocopy command and the fact that the software developers did not have a good understanding of how robocopy works.

This prompted for the birth of GSCopyPro which does the job similarly but in a much simpler fashion. GSCopyPro which is created by GuruSquad offers the following features:

1) VSS integration: GSCopypro has the ability to copy open files out of the box with no issues. It uses windows VSS when needed to preserve data integrity of the locked files.

2) Readable logs: GSCopyPro offers users several levels of logs. Each level is designed to provide the administrators the exact information they are looking for. It could be as simple as log errors only to as much as verbose. Logs are broken into smaller sections so that the administrator can quickly jump to the right section and obtain the information they need.

3) Given many IT administrators do not want to go through learning all the different switches, GuruSquad created a GUI for GSCopyPro that enables the administrator to open up a GUI and select source, destination, and check the features they would like to include in the job and then it would generate the proper command for them to execute. Given the GSCopyPro and the GUI are created by the same software publisher, it guarantees full integration.

4) Email notification: GSCopypro can send an email when the job is complete to notify the administrator. This way administrators do not have to login every 30 minutes or so to see if the job is still running or if it completed.

5) Superior support: While Robocopy is made by Microsoft, support for Robocopy is not free nor available from Microsoft. If an administrator has an issue with a Robocopy job not running, they must spend countless hours on the internet trying to find how to fix it and takes several trial and error to get it done right (if it is done right).  With GSCopyPro, access to support professionals is available by phone, email, and even remote session if required). This increases the level of a successful migration and provides peace of mind for any system administrator that is looking to perform data server migrations.