8

I am currently using Dropbox. Just decided to sync my huge (about 5 GB) iTunes Library (music collection) in Dropbox. For that I must subscribe to their paid account. But before I do so, I'd like evaluate the alternatives.

Is there an alternative that does this?

  • Local LAN sync (eg: sync my huge music collection across computers in local network without uploading/downloading them to internet)

The following would be nice (but not required):

  • Native android client - so music will be made available in the Android music app / SDHC card
  • Selective sync: sync particular folders / exclude certain folders on certain computers .. eg: excluding porn folder on work computers ;-)

Just like Dropbox, it MUST work on 64-bit Windows, Linux and Mac.

Know of any? (I am currently evaluating Spideroak. Boy, was it so complicated to use?)

Improve this question
1
  • Any backup solution could perform the Local LAN sync easily.
    – Sun
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 18:35

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
8

Doh! Dropbox recently (6 days ago) added support for LAN sync. I'm sold!

Improve this answer
3
6

Well, in both cases, the underlying answer is rsync and optionally a frontend for it. works on all 3 major OSes, open source, and only syncs what's changed.

Improve this answer
4
  • I'm afraid rsync is the solution. Why, how about manually copying files around? ;-)
    – Sridhar Ratnakumar
    Commented Jan 28, 2010 at 7:23
  • 1
    rsync is more efficient with file changes, and works over a network, or locally.
    – Journeyman Geek ♦
    Commented Jan 28, 2010 at 10:45
  • I was hinting at usability of a rsync-based solution. With Dropbox, I don't even have to do anything to get my files in sync (it "just works"). Whereas with rsync I presumably have to manually invoke it once in a while (or add it to Scheduled Tasks, cron, so on) for each pair of the computers I have.
    – Sridhar Ratnakumar
    Commented Feb 17, 2010 at 7:17
  • look into a daemon called lsyncd for automatic rsyncing
    – jweede
    Commented Apr 8, 2010 at 14:50
4

I'm a bit late to the party, but you might want to look at Unison.

It will synchronise files between two arbitrary folders/drives (which can be on the same computer, or accessed via shared drives or SSH). As a bonus, it will safely (!) synchronise in both directions (i.e. you can work on both copies, then sync, and Unison will figure out the correct version of each file).

It can be a bit slow due to the complex work it does, but after the initial synch it will only copy changed files, so should be OK.

Unison runs on Windows, MacOS X and just about any Unix/Linux system. Dunno about Android, but seems to work as well.

Setup is a bit clumsy (text config), but once it's setup you usually don't touch it. Ah, it also allows customizable inclusion/exclusion of files.

Improve this answer
1

You can check out SparkleShare. You provide a remote Git folder (you can install one on your local network) and download their open-source client (currently only Linux is offered as alpha). Seems to demonstrate a lot of promise.

Improve this answer
3
  • 3
    Of course, since it's based on git, it's not going to perform well with large media files.
    – Ryan C. Thompson
    Commented Aug 13, 2010 at 22:02
  • @Ryan Thompson: however, git's merge conflict solution for textfiles is a great plus. But I just noticed it's only beta and only for linux so far...
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Jan 21, 2011 at 8:13
  • Actually, I tested git with editing the ID3 tags on some mp3 files, and it stored them quite efficiently. I suspect that the majority of use cases for large media files are perfectly fine in terms of incremental storage. The main problem is that as a distributed VCS, git needs to keep at least a full copy of all the data locally, which means your stuff takes up double the disk space. And also, you can't easily prune history, so if you accidentally add a large file once and then delete it, it still takes up space in the repository.
    – Ryan C. Thompson
    Commented Jan 21, 2011 at 16:17
1

Ubuntu One is a service that is growing in support. The Windows client is in beta testing, and there are clients available for Android and iPhone.

Improve this answer
0

Here is the best alternative I found after a LOT of searching. It's called broolz and it works perfectly syncing my files/folders over 2 PCs that are connected via LAN. It pretty much works almost exactly like dropbox, with exception of not having online storage and using LAN instead. Same as dropbox, it synchronizes files in real time whenever it detects they are changed/added/removed. Enjoy! http://broolz.com/index.php?Page=index

EDIT: scrach that, seems that the program is java based and is a huge memory hog, it started using half a gig of ram just like that, while dropbox usually sits at around 50 MB ram. I'll try to check out GoodSync next and see if that's a viable sollution.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .