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Last weekend I set up a small personal file server where I store most of my files. The server runs Ubuntu 13.10.
For the purposes of accessing and reading/writing most files, this server works fine. Most of my files are stored rather than on my main computer (an iMac running OS X Mavericks Server).
However, there is one hard drive that I'd rather plugin directly to my Mac: My iTunes Library. My iTunes Library is a 1.8 TBs monster residing on a 3 TB External hard drive. This hard drive is currently on my Linux computer, and I want to plug it to my Mac directly. iTunes has been organizing my files for an obnoxious long time now and this just won't be too reliable, I believe.
The problem is that this Linux server backs up to Crashplan. All my files, including my iTunes Library, are backing up to Crashplan via this server. What I want to do is to:
- Connect my iTunes Library hard drive to my Mac.
- "Sync" my iTunes Library with another dedicated hard drive in my Linux server.
- Backup up my iTunes Library "Clone" in my server to Crashplan.
There are, of course, two things I could do:
- Pay Crashplan to backup another computer, in this case, my Mac with the iTunes Library. But I don't want to do this route because my internet is slow (1.5 mbps) and having two computers abuse my bandwidth is going to kill everything for everyone. Not to mention it's a bit expensive for my personal economy at the moment.
- Set up Crashplan in my Mac to backup to my Linux computer, and then have Linux backup the backup (lol) to the Crashplan cloud. I don't want to do this because Crashplan's backups are encrypted, and I like being able to access my files in Crashplan with their apps or with the web client.
So what would be the best way to "Sync" my Mac and Linux in such a way that the directory structure is preserved? And so that the Linux server can upload to Crashplan with said structure? In the best Hassle-free manner? I am an audiophile, so my iTunes library will keep on growing so I need something that can keep up too. I heard of "rsync" but I also heard it has problems playing properly between OS X and Linux. Dropbox and Cloud services that require their servers to sync are absolutely not an option.
Thank you for any help!
Andy Ibanez
Posted 2013-10-31T18:06:00.543
Reputation: 111
What are you referring to when you say "rsync has problems playing properly between OS X and Linux"? If you are referring to the infamous "building file list" hang, that can avoided. – MariusMatutiae – 2013-10-31T19:23:59.553
I honestly didn't read much about what problems it could have. When you're looking for a working solution you just don't want to use the one that may cause you trouble, haha. I do remember reading that it didn't sync some metadata in HFS+ drives or something in those lines. – Andy Ibanez – 2013-10-31T19:45:31.373
FTR, I'm considering to use BitTorrent Sync. – Andy Ibanez – 2013-10-31T19:45:50.500
Actually, I think I think I just thought of a better solution that I don't know how I didn't think of before. Maybe sharing the hard drive from my Mac to Linux would work? I'd make Crashplan backup this shared drive. – Andy Ibanez – 2013-10-31T19:52:07.017
Yes. You must remeber however to turn journaling off because Linux can write to a HFS+ filesystem only in that case, otherwise it is read only. I thought this was what you were trying to stay away from, when I saw you did not consider this option. – MariusMatutiae – 2013-10-31T20:13:47.080
I think there should be no problem with that, since it's only my Mac who will modify files and Linux will just make sure to back them up via Crashplan. – Andy Ibanez – 2013-10-31T20:27:55.233
Then you can also keep journaling on, which is the safest solution. – MariusMatutiae – 2013-10-31T20:57:22.870