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Do you keep two computers synchronized? i.e. work + home. If so, how?

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urlwolf:
Do you keep two computers synchronized?

I think this is a common situation nowadays; a modern OS should consider it as an usage case and make provision for it. But alas, no OS does!

I want to have my entire 'data' partition synchronized at work + home.
Ideally more than 2 computerx should be possible.

The idea I have in mind is to have a central server that contains the latest copy of everything, and then clients that grab stuff from the server on a timely basis (e.g., hourly).

I'm planning on using SFFS, it's ... flexible; but it's a pain! You have to estimate which areas are the most active and should be copied to the server... and which areas are inactive and not worth monitoring.

Of course, everything can go horribly wrong and you may have an older copy overwrite a newer one. This takes careful planning, and to tell you the truth, I'll never be sure.

I'd love to get to push one button, and make sure all computers are synchronized, but the reality of it is that it's really dangerous and hard to achieve.

Anyone having such a setup working?
How did you do it?

Thanks!

justice:
http://DropBox. Only 2GB at the moment, but in the very near future 50GB. It just doesn't get easier than this, they solved the problem. You don't have to push a button.

Darwin:
Great topic - I'm just wandering into this morass myself...

For now, I'm using a USB backup drive and Super Flexible File Synchronizer (fortunately for me, I'm synching two notebooks), but I'm keen to read about other ways in which this is tackled. As discussed elsewhere, the biggie for me is e-mail, particularly sent messages. Why is it so freaking difficult/risky to sync two pst files?

yksyks:
At the moment I'm quite happy with FolderShare. It's for free and you can have up to ten synchronized "libraries" of up to 10.000 files. What I like about it is the fact that this is not a remote storage, just sync service. The advantage is that when both the computers are on the same LAN, they are connected peer-to-peer, so you can sync many gigabytes in a couple of minutes, which would be impossible via internet.

I only had slight problems with Excel files ever changing theirs timestamps (described here).

For this reason and for the case of any other disaster I'm running on one of the computers FileHamster, which keeps automatically different versions of important files.

This setup is not suitable for every situation, but it works completely unattended, reliably and doesn't cost me a dime. Hope this helps.

40hz:
I want to have my entire 'data' partition synchronized at work + home.
Ideally more than 2 computerx should be possible.

The idea I have in mind is to have a central server that contains the latest copy of everything, and then clients that grab stuff from the server on a timely basis (e.g., hourly).
-urlwolf (September 17, 2008, 11:06 AM)
--- End quote ---

If it's your own business, and you're using Windows Server, you're already set to go. Set up users to have roaming profiles and host the home directory on a network drive. Then you can log on using any machine on your network (or connect remotely) and much like Moby Dick, your files will rise to meet you.

You can also invoke the "make files available offline" option for mobile PCs. Whenever you log in (or out or both depending on how you set it up) all files in the specified directories will be synchronized.

If that's overkill, (or you're talking about a home network) give Allway Sync a try.

http://www.allwaysync.com/

Set up a directory on whatever you're using as a server and use that as your central storage point. Use AllwaySync to keep things synchronized. Combine that with one of the web backup services like Drop Box to create an "offsite failsafe" and you'll be better protected than some businesses I know.

BTW: Make sure your system clocks are also kept in sync. File timestamps are absolutely critical when you're synchronizing files.

 Why is it so freaking difficult/risky to sync two pst files?
-Darwin (September 17, 2008, 12:07 PM)
--- End quote ---

Primarily because a pst file is a database rather than a simple collection of individual message files. Your Outlook e-mail application enforces its own internal integrity and structure checks on the database. Hard to tell exactly how Outlook tracks things, but I would assume it hashes the pst file periodically and stores the result internally. It then checks the latest hashkey when it opens the pst file. If there's a mismatch, it knows some other app has changed the pst file. Outlook tends to view any changes made to pst by outside programs as file corruption.  So to do it correctly, Microsoft would need to provide some sort of "smart merge" feature for pst files. And  I doubt MS will be in any rush to provide that feature since it would remove some of the rationale for needing to buy MS Exchange. ;D

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