Synk 6 supports back to Tiger; Synk 5 supports back to Panther

Let's get the obvious out of the way first. Time Machine can only be used with Leopard, which many users may not wish to purchase or use for a while. Both Synk 5 and Synk 6 offer an archive of all of the old copies of your files, just like Time Machine, and Synk 6 uses the same technology underlying Spotlight and Time Machine to make your backups go lightning fast.

Synk does more than just backups (hence the name)

Synk 6 Standard/Pro (and Synk 5) can do two-way synchronizations, not just backups. Synk Pro even supports full N-way synchronization, above and beyond the traditional 2-way synchronization supported by traditional synchronization tools. For example, you can use Synk to keep a set of files in synch between your laptop, desktop, and server.

Synchronizations support the same advanced features present when doing backups with Synk, such as powerful rule support and old file archiving.

Synk can make bootable backups

It's Murphy's law—your system is going to fail at the worst possible moment, when the deadline is in an hour and the boss is breathing down your neck. With a Time Machine backup, you have to pull out your Leopard DVD and reinstall the system, copying everything back from your backup. Sometimes, you just don't have time for that.

Enter bootable backups. You can use Synk to create a backup such that when your system fails, you simply plug in your backup drive and boot directly from that. You are up and running immediately, with your system in exactly the state it was when you last backed it up. You can do a full restore at your convenience, and still get stuff done in the mean time.

Synk offers much more control over the process

While Time Machine allows you to exclude particular folders, you have to select the exact folders you want excluded. And all of your backups go to one place—a potentially hazardous situation for a backup.

Synk Standard/Pro (and Synk 5) offer a powerful set of rules to include and exclude files based on a wide variety of attributes, from file size and modification date to the HFS creator and type codes. Synk Pro can even use these rules to only archive old versions of selected files, so you always have the backup copy, but the archive doesn't get filled up with unwanted chaff.

Different Synk scripts can also operate on different data, and back up/synchronize it with different locations. So you can keep both local and offsite backups, or back up personal data to a different location than work data.

Synk is much more broadly compatible

Time Machine pulls what is technically called "hairy mojo" in building its backup store. As such, it requires some form of HFS+ to operate.

Synk generally doesn't care where or how your data is stored, so long as the system knows how to access it. You want to back up to Windows, Linux, BSD, whatever? No problem. Using NTFS, FAT, EXT3, ZFS, or something else entirely? You got it. Connecting with AFP, SMB, CIFS, NFS, or FUBAR? Well, except that the last one is fake, not a problem. As long as the system understands it, and everything involved is civilized and maintains modification dates and such, Synk's happy to work with it.

With Synk, you get a direct mirror image of your data. No hairy mojo. No crazy multi-linked directory structures. Just a nice, clean, compatible copy of your data.

The "personal touch"

Stay with me, here. At the end, we can have a big group hug if you want.

Apple makes some great products that all of us Mac users love. And it's a great time to be a Mac user. But darned if it isn't sometimes extremely frustrating that Apple is a crazy-secretive company who doesn't talk to anyone, and most people seem to agree they don't really listen to anyone either.

We're not a faceless corporation. We're just these guys, you know? And we love to talk with you about our products, and do our best to be there for you anytime you have trouble. If there's a feature you're interested in seeing, we're happy to chat about it, and can either work to get it in for you in a future release, or at the very least give you an explanation why not. Good luck working with Apple to explain why a feature is necessary to your workflow, or getting a bug fixed. Or getting a prerelease/custom build over the weekend because you've had a catastrophic failure of some sort.

It's the "personal touch," and it's something that's been woefully missing in a lot of computing lately. We do what we can to keep it from becoming extinct.