Consider a scenario where you have to backup large files (over 10 GB) to a remote machine over a network. Regardless of which transport mechanism you use (Syncrify, FTP or any other similar programs), transferring large amount of data across the network can take hours.
Often a faster approach is to copy the files to external USB drive, take it to the physical machine and copy it to the appropriate folder. Since Syncrify just copies the changes in a file, the next backup task won't transfer the entire data again and therefore, will run much faster.
This method is called initial seeding.
This step is optional and is only recommended if Synchronize Timezone is NOT checked, which causes the files on the server to be stored in GMT timezone. By clicking Initialize Seeding under Tools menu, you can change the last modified date of every file on the server so that it matches with the client plus/minus GMT.
Encryption add an extra twist to seeding. When users decides to use encryption, every file residing on the server is encrypted but same files are on the client are not. Therefore, before taking your files to the server, you need to encrypt them on your local machine and then take those encrypted files to the server.
Use the following steps to encrypt files before manually moving them over to the server machine.
The most common problem that occurs during seeding is that files are NOT copied to the expected folder path. If Syncrify expects the seeded files in folder A but the actual files reside in folder B, Syncrify server won't know about the files and it will try to copy the entire file set when a backup is run.
To ensure files are copied to the correct folder, try connecting from the web interface using the actual users login id and password. See Browsing Files for instructions if needed. If seeding is done correctly, you should be able to see the files you have just copied manually. If you don't see the files, that means they have been copied to the wrong folder.