[bean]

It's looking like Microsoft is killing it off. For now it's running, but who knows how much longer that will be. And there have been some problems with it on my Mac. So I'm looking for cross platform software that will automatically sync files when they are changed on either my Mac or my PC, that is not tied to the cloud. I have about 500 GB of data that needs to be synced and the cost of solutions that are tied to the cloud is prohibitive. There's also the overhead that goes along with uploading everything to the net twice (I'm already using Backblaze for backups so everything is uploaded for that).

Live Mesh was great for my purposes, within seconds of modifying a file on either system, it would start sending it over to the other system. It was pretty good about saving new files any time there was a conflict (like if the file was open on both systems). And it allowed the use of multiple folders instead of requiring that all synced files be placed in a single folder like Sky Drive or Dropbox.

 

[Capricorn]

Mesh is being supplanted with Skydrive, and offers most of the functionality of Mesh:

First, and in a major strategy shift, SkyDrive is no longer cut off from the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem. The company has released a SkyDrive app for Windows Phone and SkyDrive applications for Windows Vista, 7, and 8, and has integrated SkyDrive in Windows 8 through a Metro-style SkyDrive app and cloud-based settings sync. SkyDrive apps are also available for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and Android versions are on the way. This means that it is, or soon will be, possible to seamlessly access files and folders in your SkyDrive storage from virtually any computing device on earth. (How Microsoft will integrate SkyDrive with the Xbox 360 console and Xbox services like Xbox Music and Video remains to be seen. But it’s coming.)

Second, and perhaps more important, the Windows-based SkyDrive applications provide the all-important PC-to-PC (and PC-to-PC-to-cloud) sync functionality that was previously offered through Live Mesh, albeit in a less configurable (and complex) way. That is, you can’t sync some arbitrary number of folders across your PCs; instead, you sync a single SkyDrive folder that maps to your storage on Skydrive.com. You can’t configure some folders within that folder hierarchy to sync only to certain PCs, and everything must sync to the cloud as well.

This sounds confining perhaps, but in this era of simpler devices, maybe it’s time to stop overthinking things and not worry about micromanaging our PC storage. And as I’ll describe in my own use of the SkyDrive app below, you can easily map parts of SkyDrive storage to your Windows libraries (Documents, Music, Videos, and so on) if needed, and you don’t need to resort of arcane files system hacks as some other misguided souls may suggest.

Third, Microsoft has proven it’s serious about SkyDrive by finally offering paid storage tiers. If you were using SkyDrive previous to the release of the SkyDrive beta application for Windows, you were grandfathered in with your 25 GB of free storage. But while new SkyDrive users “only” get 7 GB of storage for free, that’s still better than what the competition offers: Apple and Google provide just 5 GB of free storage on iCloud and Google Drive, respectively, while Dropbox offers just a paltry 2 GB. And Microsoft’s paid storage offerings are better than the competition, too: You can grab an additional 20 GB for just $10 per year, 50 GB for $25 per year, and 100 GB for $50 per year. These prices nicely undercut the others by a wide margin. It’s not even close.

And finally, while SkyDrive does not offer the same remote desktop capabilities as does Live Mesh, it does offer a solution called Remote Fetch that I think actually answers the real need here, which is to remotely access files on your other PCs. So instead of RDPing into a remote PC, you can simply use the SkyDrive web interface to navigate through the file system of your other PC(s), and then copy files over as needed. Excellent.

http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/2012-cloud-odyssey-live-mesh-skydrive-143611

 

[bean]

Skydrive won't work.
- It's tied to the cloud, which I don't want.
- Even if I was willing to go with a cloud option, their maximum data storage is 100GB and I need 500 GB.
- It's also limited to a single directory. I could get around this with symlinks or some of the options outlined in the article, but that's a lot more trouble than just syncing multiple directories.

I did find Goodsync, which seems to be the most promising option so far. But it requires per-computer licenses which gets expensive when I throw my wife's computer into the mix or if I want to share with coworkers.

 

[binary visions]

Crashplan lets you do free computer-to-computer backups, and you can also pay to have the data synced to their cloud.

http://www.crashplan.com/

 

[bean]

Closer, but as far as I can tell, it's not real time.

I thought what I wanted to do wasn't all that unusual, but maybe it is.

 

[binary visions]

Sync 500gb of data, directly device-to-device, instantly, for free?

It's unusual

You could try GoodSync:
http://www.goodsync.com/

or Cubby, which is in closed beta, but I've heard good things:
https://www.cubby.com/

 

[bean]

I'm willing to pay. I just said Good Sync gets a little expensive with per computer licenses for three or four machines. Though I might just pay since it seems like the best option.

 

[binary visions]

Whoops. I was replying with the Goodsync link on my phone and didn't realize you posted that you had tried it.

Reviews from the beta testers seem good with Cubby. Have you tried Crashplan to see if it's close to real-time? I haven't set it up yet but would like to; it may replace Backblaze if I can sync to both the cloud and a remote drive with relative ease.

 

[bean]

No problem. I haven't tried Good Sync yet, it just cropped in my research. I was hoping to avoid the cost. But it's looking like the most solid option at this point.

Cubby also looks great so I signed up for an invite there.

 

[bean]

I got a cubby invite and they gave me another five to distribute. Anyone want one?

 

[bean]

PM me your email address.