How Does One EFFICIENTLY & AUTOMATICALLY Sync 2 Or More Macs?

[willpearson]

How about Airport Extreme plus External HDD

I have a similar problem/challenge. I have 2 MacBooks and want to sync a few folders, address book and iCal - maybe itunes - we'll see.

I've bought an airport extreme and I'm using it successfully at the moment to do automatic backups of both macbooks via time machine and airport.

I figure I should be able to sync using this set up too - that way I don't need both macbooks on and connected at the same time and I don't need to buy a new computer with osx server.

I might have a play with arrsync - I have a programmer mate who's happy to help - I'll let you know how I get on.

 

[striatedglutes]

I think what we all want is a program that's installed on each Mac we own that checks for differences between the Folders we assign for it to check the moment it detects that the other macs become available on the network. If there're differences, it'll either "Push" data or "Pull" the data.

As I understand it, this is exactly how dropbox works, except it doesn't look like you can assign your entire home directory as your dropbox folder. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I will play around with suggestions in this thread when my netbook arrives on Friday.

 

[DoFoT9]

Use OSX server and have roaming profile for when your user is off the network.

very nice!!! any guides how to do this!??! i have 10.4 server lying around here somewhere and a whole bunch of spare computers!!!

 

[striatedglutes]

except it doesn't look like you can assign your entire home directory as your dropbox folder.

Just thought of something with dropbox that might be good enough for some people:

Move the folders you want to sync (documents, et al) into your dropbox folder, then symlink (read the manpage for ln) your Documents, Pictures, Whatever folders back to their original location.

My s10 got delivered while I was typing this, but I might give it a go later.

 

[frannbug]

Ok, my setup does not require any intervention. It just does it automatically.
However there are a few steps to do to have it working (set-it and forget-it).

a) allow remote secure logins (need to edit .ssh/authorized_keys)
b) setup crontab to sync every x minutes (which could be 1min or 1day).

However beware: a mirroring like you dream of has dangers. Any corruption of files will propagate to all the mirrors (and iPhoto does corrupt files on occasions).

So something in the app that checks all the files in a folder for corruption before it copies them across would be useful, wouldn't it? Norton Utilities used to do that but I can't find anything currently that picks out and alerts you to damaged files.

The apps that have been mentioned - do any of them sync in one direction only? Like syncing all the files from several scattered folders on different hard drives onto one master folder on an NAS drive? I wouldn't want everything on that catch-all, mammoth drive copied back onto my laptop.

Thanks for this thread; I've been reading all the advice with great interest!

 

[cawesjmu]

I was reading this post when it started, and then today I came across another app that I don't think has been mentioned and I thought if you were still trying different apps you could try this one out too. I haven't tried it but it claims to keep multiple computers synced. Not sure how easy it is to use, or how complete it is, but worth a shot since it's Shareware. Synchronize Pro

 

[abl7635]

Dude, rsync is the bomb. If you don't want to learn command line then check out bombich software. It's free and uncrippled unlike many other shareware or "demos". http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html