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I need a storage device in 3 different location. Each device will have 4TB of storage. At least 2TB should be a 'shared folder' working like Dropbox: when a user change a file in one location, the file should be updated instantly on the two other devices over internet (as fast as the network allows it of course). Each storage device will be connected to the local network and people using MAC/Linux will drop files to the 'external HD'.

I have thought about a NAS with a built in backup to another NAS in a different location (like Synology offers), but I don't know if that will work with more devices. Also thought about file storage, like glusterfs to replicate whole disk but it feels like going too far for such a job.

Could you recommend any software / setup for this? Thanks

mit
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Vincent Peres
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    Shopping Questions are considered Off-Topic here on ServerFault. Please see the [Help](http://serverfault.com/help) section or [Here](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/qa-is-hard-lets-go-shopping/) for more info. **If you are interested in having a way to ask these types of questions** head over to the [IT Shopping Questions Beta](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/59278/it-shopping-questions) and post your question as a possible question for the beta and follow the proposal. – TheCleaner Oct 14 '13 at 13:02
  • I probably didn't turn my question properly, I guess that my main point is to find a software/tool that will do the job, I don't really mind the hardware behind it. Should I edit it? But I will follow your advice thanks. – Vincent Peres Oct 14 '13 at 13:07
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    Even after your edits it still really follows the standard shopping question look/feel. What you "might" get away with (I'm not the expert on this, the mods are) is asking what types of technologies to look for in a replication over the internet solution. Asking for setup/software will almost always get closed unless you have really detailed out your environment and are stuck 90% into it and just need a tool to test with, etc. – TheCleaner Oct 14 '13 at 13:10
  • You can forget about any "backup" solution. What you want is dropbox-like syncchronisation with multiple clients. You need a specialised software for this that can do conflict resolution. This is an excellent question. – mit Oct 14 '13 at 13:25
  • I believe this is a valid qustion and it fits serverfault. It is not about hardware, but a software and infrastructure solution that is not easy to setup, so this question should really be solved on serverfault. – Alojz Janez Oct 14 '13 at 13:29

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At the core this will be a synchronisation problem, and it is not so easy to find a software solution.

I would recommend you look into sparkleshare, although it is not very good for very big files, like video files:

http://sparkleshare.org/

Sparklsehare uses git under the hood, which is a proven concept for distributed setups and conflict resolution.

But it is not good for big files.

You should also consider OwnCloud, which can be run on your own hardware: http://owncloud.org/features/

And there is seafile, which is also a real syncing solution: http://seafile.com

GlusterFS could also work, it depends on your special case. The advantge of GlusterFS is, that there is only 1 filesystem and not 3. So conflicts cannot occur and they are handled before a client saves a new version.

What you probably not want is a behaviour that for example occurs in the solution "Bittorrent Sync": "When a file is changed on one of the devices, it will be recreated as a new copy and synced to the other devices. We save only the latest version of the file." - This means there is no real conflict resolution and you could loos data on 2 people with overlapping edits So be careful with that issue and check all solutions how they handle conflicts!

After you have choosen the software soutions that will work for you, you should then choose the hardware.

Alojz Janez
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  • those are great suggestion! Sparkleshare looks like what I need. I came up to this article with even more solutions while googling it http://www.howtogeek.com/166424/how-to-sync-files-between-computers-without-storing-them-in-the-cloud/ So I should be able to pick up hardware for that, thanks a lot! – Vincent Peres Oct 15 '13 at 07:38