• Sync Content between Drives?

    Answers Given

    Answers Favorited

  • I've got a NAS and a portable HD. I want to protect/copy/duplicate the music files between them as my collection grows. What seems to me a simple proposition is a big PITA...

    I've been using TreeComp to compare the two collections and handle the updates directory by directory, but I'm hoping for something that can just handle the whole thing mostly unattended.

    I'm not concerned with time/date stamps, size or anything else beyond simple file presence. Anyone know of a tool cool enough to handle this simple job?

    Thanks!

    3 0
    Question by wayne ruffner
    07/08/2014

For many years I have used a product called SyncBack. In addition to more traditional backups, it can mirror (copy changes from A to B) or synchronize (copy changes from A to B and from B to A). You can set it to run on a schedule or manually.

They have three versions available, SyncBackFree, which should be adequate for your needs, and two paid versions, SyncBackSE and SyncBackPro which add features like backing up to DVD, Google Drive or FTP.

You can get the free version from http://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/freeware-hub.html

Answer by Captain Packrat
07/09/2014

If you're comfortable with the command line and can install tools with MacPorts or homebrew, I'd recommend rsync. (Versions exist for windows using the cygwin tools, and linux, of course).

Then sync things from your local maching to the remote, and vice-versa

rsync --archive --update mydir remote:mydir

rsync --archive --update remote:mydir mydir

You can put these into the mac/unix scheduler, crontab, and run them every few hours. It's extremely efficient at transferring once you've established a copy. I use it to keep 2 TB synced from home over my internet connection to an offsite backup at work.

There's a lot to tinker with, though, to get this right.

Answer by randy fischer
07/28/2014

For Windows, I've found AllwaySync http://allwaysync.com/ a good solution.

Simple graphical interface for basic syncing, but a powerful set of options for fully customizing multiple different sync jobs.

And there's even a portable version that you can install on your external drive and have available on any PC you plug into.

Answer by mick
08/09/2014
« Back to Previous Page
Cool tools really work.

A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted.

Tell us what you love.