Best way to keep 2 computers in sync

I want to keep my music, documents and pictures in sync between 2 laptops (one vista, one XP).

What's the easiest way to do this (preferably FREE).

I have them all on a home network and have double-ended USB cables.

I tried playing around with MS sync toy and that didn't go too well....

Dropbox
http://www.getdropbox.com/

Year-old demo video:



Sign up via the link below to get an extra 250MB storage space above the usual 2GB that comes free (or for an additional 250MB above the other paid plans):
https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTM1MjUzOQ

Hmmm.....I'm reading the privacy policies and not feeling that comfortable..


I'd prefer some sort of cable sync or just over my wireless network sync.

(this from somebody who worked for a big cloud computing firm)

Ah, on your local area network or directly between pcs, but not web-uh-muhfied.

Something like this, perhaps?

--- deleted ---

Meh. Can't vouch for that one, so I deleted it.

There are local server apps that set up a file server for sharing purposes, but they don't automatically synch like Dropbox does.

Don't have time to check into the plethora of local and LAN sharing apps to see what synchs. Sorry. :P

that looks promising...thanks :-)

I won't get to check it out tonight....maybe this weekend.

Subject: Syncing between two PCs

For just syncing two PCs with a USB cable, I like the freeware program Syncback. I've used it to sync my PC with files on a memory stick, but it can be used with any drive. I found it through CNET.
http://download.cnet.com/SyncBack-Freeware/3000-2242_4-10413802.html

The Editors Ratings and Reader Ratings were great. The company also has a paid version, Syncback Pro, but I found the free one to be sufficient for my purposes.

^that looks good too, Breukelen. Thank you.

Ah, there ya go.

How much data are we talking? Have you considered putting it all on a storage device attached to your router and mounting it as a network drive? Then you wouldn't need to sync anything,

^that would work from a size perspective, but then I could not be mobile and that wouldn't be convenient. I'd like to take my laptop somewhere and have everything on my local HD without having to bring my Passport. Thanks for the suggestion, though

http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2007/02/06/access-your-computer-files-remotely-from-anywhere/

also, a friend once told me about a system he had setup with his raid drives connected to his router and somehow he was able to access all his files through the intertubes. not exactly sure how this worked though.

^ Some NATs / routers allow you to set a particular IP address on your internal network to be a DMZ (demilitarized zone outside the firewall, available to requests from the outside world.) It will then route any outside-world web traffic through to the computer on your local network at that IP address.

Alternatively, there are some Network Attached Storage devices that can be set to do the same. This can come in the form of a router that comes with a hard drive inside it, or a router that comes with a USB port (often...) that allows you to plug in an external USB Hard Drive in there to act as the same thing (a storage device on your network). Either type usually gives the option to open up partitions of those hard drives to external traffic coming from outside world (outside the firewall).

That's at least what I've noticed out there, anyway.

Exactly -- I have access to my home network drives from whereever I am in the world, using dyndns and port forwarding on the router (so long as there isn't a lightning strike that takes out a modem, or a power failure without a full reboot while I'm away).

And there's always a vnc/remote desktop option (for the remote access bit), although this isn't going to let you play media, though I'm sure there's a solution to that, too...

doctorj wrote: Exactly -- I have access to my home network drives from whereever I am in the world, using dyndns and port forwarding on the router (so long as there isn't a lightning strike that takes out a modem, or a power failure without a full reboot while I'm away).

Ditto

er...thanks....but I really want the info ON my heard drive - not in the cloud, not remote access, etc

Flexichick wrote: er...thanks....but I really want the info ON my heard drive - not in the cloud, not remote access, etc

So the way I handle this is to keep what I need on the hard drive as well, and before leaving on a trip, copy what I think I'll need off the NAS onto the hard drive for convenience and back up the hard drive to the NAS for safety. If I forget something while I'm away, I can still fetch it, and if I have a bunch of data I've generated on the laptop while I've been away, I can copy it back home for safe keeping.

Subject: Re: Syncing between two PCs

Breukelen9999 wrote: For just syncing two PCs with a USB cable, I like the freeware program Syncback. I've used it to sync my PC with files on a memory stick, but it can be used with any drive. I found it through CNET.
http://download.cnet.com/SyncBack-Freeware/3000-2242_4-10413802.html

The Editors Ratings and Reader Ratings were great. The company also has a paid version, Syncback Pro, but I found the free one to be sufficient for my purposes.

I'm confused. I installed Syncback on both laptops. I created a profile on each (Laptop A and Laptop .

However, I can choose a source (MyPictures from Laptop A) and yet I don't see the file structure from Laptop B (to select MyPictures and keep both in sync) when using a double USB cable.

HALP!

It seems to be working now over my own wireless (private) network......I think USB to USB would be faster, but for some reason the laptops were not recognized. Any ideas?

All synced now :-)

Thanks, guys

Doc and Jeffrey - so, I currently have a PC case stuffed with hard drives and I'm looking at going the NAS route and offloading those drives - any hardware recommendations? I would mostly be using it for media storage and streaming (DVR, ripped DVDs) and photo storage (LOTS of photos, lots of editing with Adobe LightRoom2, Photoshop CS4, etc) Remote access to files would be nice - my RAW photos are in the 10-12 MB region each, which adds up quickly, and when I need to get them to someone, it can be a chore - it would be nice if I could provide a link to download or some such, instead.

TIA

I have the 1 bay version of this and it's awesome: http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS409/index.php. Or you could get the DS409+ which gets faster cpu, more ram and so has better performance. The + one is about $600.

It has just about every feature you could possibly think of, including a slick remote access web interface and one for photos specifically. It even has an internal application that auto-updates free DNS services like DYNDNS.

You could just stick your current drives in there, or get 4 new 1-2 TB drives and have a raid 5 array.

^^^ cool, thanks - that was one of the brands that I was seeing a lot of but hadn't heard of previously. I do most of my hardware shopping on Newegg, and these guys were being reviewed suspiciously well. I'll probably do something in the next month or so - I'll have to look at this one closely.

Anyone try the DIY option?

If U need professional help, call: TAMSIR.212.202.0241 OR 347.513.1900.
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Best of luck
Fancy

I've done this on the super cheap and crappy (like $60) for a few years with a cisco USB interface and pair of cheap 1tb drives. It's done the job reliably if slowly, but I'll be looking to upgrade to something like Mougar's solution when we outgrow the current setup.

I've been looking into, and have decided upon pursuing, the DIY option.

If you can put together a cheap box (regular x86 PC), you've got some options - FreeNAS is a (no surprise) free operating system that will get you all of the functionality that you'd expect out of a off-the-shelf NAS, but your level of computer knowledge needs to be more than rudimentary and it's a beta, so some hiccups are expected.

I think that the (less tweaky) route I'll take is MS Windows Home Server (~$100 for the OS). RAID isn't available, but redundant storage is. Your files can be made available from the outside world, you can host websites (provided your ISP doesn't notice the bandwidth usage), expansion is more friendly, and it does all of the media server stuff expected. Also backs up all networked PCs in the event a repair is necessary.

I've found a reasonable sized (under 15" high) PC case, with included power supply, that has plenty of room for internal HDDs, microATX board with 6 sata ports (more available with PCI sata card down the road), etc, etc. In all, I'll be able to put this together (hardware) for about $150, not including hard drives, but including a spare dual core CPU that I already have about the house - this should have a significant bump in processing power vs most of the NASs that I've seen.