Syncing with external hard disk

Submitted by Ivan on Sat, 2006-02-04 17:33.

Member's Forum

Here is the deal. I have bought a massive external hard disk. I want to use it as a shuttle between work and home.

Here is what I want to do:
1. I want to work on my office machine and sync the files to the external disk.
2. Go home and work on the external disk directly changing and updating files.
3. Go back to work and update the files on the office machine that have been changed at home.

What's the best way to achive this? I don't mind installing a software for it if necessarry. I don't want to do it manually and want to avoid replacing all the dozens of gigabytes every time. I wish there was an intelligent software to check for only changed files.

Thanks for the help!

For years I used Carbon Copy

Submitted by mck on Sat, 2006-02-04 18:22.

For years I used Carbon Copy Cloner. Basically what you do is install a command line tool called Psync. Make a partition that is big enough to hold your work compie's entire HD. The leftover part you can use for personal backup. Now just run the syncing tool. I am not sure how long it would take to sync but it's worth a try.

I found a piece of software

Submitted by afterglow on Sat, 2006-02-04 18:45.

I found a piece of software that seems to work well for syncing info between my powerbook and imac. I'm only doing it to keep my Powerbook up to date on the design work on my imac but it may work in both directions as well.

Martian Slingshot

Using an external drive means that this might not be the best option for you but there is the possibility of syncing the work directly and not using the drive at all.
afterglow.ie - Icons, interfaces, illustration

How about...

Submitted by cbrophy78 on Sat, 2006-02-04 21:46.

PC and Mac.... i got a small hard drive to take files back and forth from work. And i do most of the work on the PC but the mac is there to do edits on the mac such as PSCS2 and ILLCS2 with the bridge and version cue. The PC has alot more processing power but a slower USB speed. SO long story short PC to MAC to HARD DRIVE.? SYNC annoyance? Any help?
What does this button d.... CRAP!

Automator Action

Submitted by smartgrafix on Sat, 2006-02-04 23:23.

An Automator Action called Sync Folders would probably achieve what you want to do.

"Synchronizes the content of any two folders. Ensures that both folders contain copies of all of the same files and sub-folders. If two folders contain files of the same name, then the newer file is duped over the older. Provides an option for logging all changes. I find this particularly useful for times when I've copied different versions of images in process to different machines. I can quickly consolidate them into one folder, keeping only the latest versions of each."

You can get it from here:
http://www.completedigitalphotography.com/index.php?p=373#more-373

You'll find SyncFolders near the bottom of the page. There's another Action on this page called Backup Folder which may also be of use. A few other interesting Actions are available here too.

Vice Versa

Submitted by alexleonard on Sun, 2006-02-05 01:16.

I've used this for ages. It's PC only.. so possibly not of help to you Ivan, but maybe of some assistance to cbrophy78?

Vice Versa Pro
http://www.tgrmn.com/
This has good synchronisation options - allowing you to mirror drives, archive old content, perform advanced synchronisation utilising a history database for file comparison. It'll keep track of which files are newer, which files have been removed, and warn you when a file has been modified in both locations since the last synchronisation.

It's saved me from absolute nightmares trying to keep files synchronised between a desktop, external HDD, laptop and my business partner's laptop. I'd be screwed without it.

The only free option I've seen for Windows is Microsoft's Sync Toy - though I felt this was not as fast or detailed as Vice Versa. Only other free ones are very much command line based... personally a bit confusing to me.
Sync Toy

Hope this is of some help to somebody!

Alex

--------------
Business: www.pixelapes.com
Personal: www.ebauche.net