I don't know much about networks and file sharing stuff, maybe someone of you can give me a hand with this. I need some program to keep my work folder synchronized between my desktop computer and my laptop over a LAN network. I work developing websites, so we're talking about thousands of tiny files. I'm currently using Windows Live Sync, but with my ISP's horrible ping and upload speed, transfering lots of files can take forever. The program must work with 64-bit Windows 7, since both computers are using it. Thanks in advance :thumbsup:
- rsync if you "just want to sync a bunch of random files" - Subversion (or maybe Git, Mercurial, ...) if you want a proper version control system The following might go a little over your head (VCS are a huge topic, I'm just scratching the surface here), if you've got questions just ask away: With rsync you can say something along the lines of "take folder A and push everything over onto machine B", probably pretty much what Live Sync does (haven't used it myself), with modifiers like "only files that have changed", "exclude any files that already exist on the target, even if they're older" etc. A VCS goes a different route. (Regardless of your syncing issues - look into them!) You tell it a certain folder it should handle, and then it tracks changes to it and stashes them away in a repository somewhere (on a specific machine in case of SVN, git does a distributed thing, etc - look into a few different ones before deciding). You can pull out a copy of the latest version of all tracked files (or update the ones you already have, of course), make changes, then push them back into the repository. You can also revert files/folders to earlier versions, do branching (make a copy of a folder eg to experiment with changes in), you get support when resolving conflicts (Say you edit a file on two PCs that need to be in sync - which one is the "correct" one that should be propagated? SVN etc look at what parts of the file contents have changed and most of the time can resolve the conflict themselves). Not to mention you can give other people (controlled) access to your repo if you want to build up a team, need support, etc, without them snooping around on your PCs. They all need to be manually told when you want to sync though (well, you could use the scheduler I guess). Both support compressed transfers, and transfer only those parts that have changed anyways.
The deal with Dropbox is that it's only able to synchronize files over the web, similar to Windows Live Sync Beta (what I'm using right now). What I'd like is some program that can sync files using a home network instead of sending them through my awfully slow internet connection... About rsync, from what I could see about it, it backups the contents of a folder in another folder in the other computer while Live Sync keeps the folder up to date in both computers. Maybe running rsync in both computers can keep both folders up to date, I'll have to give it a try when I have some free time.
I use Windows Live mesh and find it great - Have 2 computers and two laptops connected to it. Have different syncs on all i.e. some folders are only on two laptops etc... Also have access to any of my files via the internet whatever computer I may be using. As an added bonus I can remote desktop any computer turned on and connected to the mesh. Very handy as one of the computers is a few thousand miles away at home in the uk! Think there is about a 2-5Gb cap on data but for me its mostly work word and excel documents so that is not a problem.
If the computers are always connected to the network, wouldn't it be easiest to map a network drive to work on the documents? You could always schedule regular backups (e.g. the end of each day) if you still want a second physical copy in case you lose it.
Then I'm thinking you can just buy one of those external drives that you connect directly to your router, then you just access everything through that.
