Good two/multiple-way file synchronization software

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Which is the best application to Sync two folders?

I like to synchronize mostly media files (music, videos, DVD images, etc..) back and forth from my internal computer hard drive to the external disk.

Currently I use Dropbox 2GB to sync my documents, some music and other small files .. but Dropbox uploads the files to the internet.

Since my media files are huge in size, I'd like a Dropbox-like offline solution. Bonus points for being able to sync between multiple locations (eg: internal HD, 2 external HDs .. all in sync).

Does such a software exist for Windows? I am even willing to pay for a good one.

Answer 1

DeltaCopy is an rsync wrapper for windows. Have not used it myself yet, but rsync is a standard method of syncing files in the unix world. It is capable of syncing entire hard drives, easily recovers from connection issues because it can pick up where it left off in a sync. It can either compare and copy entire files, or send only the bitwise differences between files. You can also tunnel rsync over ssh to use securely over the internet, or use it between network shares, or between local hard drives or directories.

My usage would be along the lines of:

rsync -avz dirA dirB
rsync -avz dirB dirA

where "-avz" specifies to copy in 'archive' mode (recursive, etc), v=verbose, z=use compression for the transfer (useful if over a network) and the directories are source and destination respectively. Swapping on the second command gives you a two-way sync.

Another unix like tool that I believe has a windows version is Unison which is specifically built to handle 2-way and 3-way syncs, and it also has conflict resolution options in case the same file changed in multiple places.

The final option which I use for lightweight backups on windows is SyncToy, a free download from Microsoft that allows you to define folder pairs and preform either one or two way syncs. It is directory based and does not have the network copy functions of the previous two programs.

All are free.

Answer 2

I've used GoodSync for quite a while and it does fit my needs in that very well.

Still, for syncing to two targets you probably need to create two jobs, which may or may not be too much work.

Answer 3

You could host a version control server on one of you machines. For example, you could create a Subversion repository, and use Tortoise SVN to manange the checked-out folders on your various machines/hard drives, from the windows shell.

I've not tried this for very large files static such as DVD images, but it should work. However, you may have to do all the syncing (lots of commiting and updating) manually.

Answer 4

i'm using Total Commander, which makes folder/drive synchronization a breeze.

open target and destination and then go to

Commands > Synchronize Dirs... > Synchronize or Compare

Total Commander is shareware, try before you buy.

Answer 5

For a LAN solution, you want Microsoft's SyncToy. However, on DropBox's to-do list is LAN sync for computers on the same LAN, so eventually it will be faster.