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I have 2 macs I need a perfect sync app !!!

U

umbilical

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 3, 2008
1,329
362
FL, USA
hi, I have one mac on my home and other on my office, I need if I make some change in some files like .psd photoshop files, or code files... .css etc... or address book app etc... when I go to my home I click update or something and the files are updated... you know sync

I think on buy mobile me I know that works with address book, ical, bookmarks... but! for files??? like .psd??? and other works like .doc files etc..? :eek:

I see Drop Box like a solution, or other better app?? :confused:
https://www.getdropbox.com/
 
MobileMe works very well, but I don't know if it what you want.

iDisk is fantastic for everyday use for file syncing. I am an academic who needs files both on my laptop and desktop. I work on one set in a library and then the files sync through iDisk to my desktop and vice versa. I am sure you can also do some file syncing for individual photos, but not whole libraries.
 
THX1139 said:
You are probably looking for something Chronosynch.
Click to expand...

I use ChronoSync as well - it works flawlessly and fast. I use an external hard drive that I carry between home and work where I have the two macs. I sync about a 20 GB fraction of my entire Home directory (it's easy to specifiy what you want to sync a what not) and it does it in about 10 - 20 seconds. You have to play around a bit with the sync criteria so it suits your needs - personally, I only go by file date and time. It's easy to adjust these parameters and it has a "trial sync" mode where it shows you what it is going to do before actually performing. After a while I gained confidence and just let it do the sync automatically, even for situations where files on both macs were changed. You can also choose to archive all files that are being deleted.
 
kraftzwerg said:
I use ChronoSync as well - it works flawlessly and fast. I use an external hard drive that I carry between home and work where I have the two macs. I sync about a 20 GB fraction of my entire Home directory (it's easy to specifiy what you want to sync a what not) and it does it in about 10 - 20 seconds. You have to play around a bit with the sync criteria so it suits your needs - personally, I only go by file date and time. It's easy to adjust these parameters and it has a "trial sync" mode where it shows you what it is going to do before actually performing. After a while I gained confidence and just let it do the sync automatically, even for situations where files on both macs were changed. You can also choose to archive all files that are being deleted.
Click to expand...

Is that on a firewire connection? Does having the 3rd hard drive (external) involved make it easier than say connecting the two macs directly via firewire? I guess it gives you a backup...
 
I'll say the "right" solution is to use network drives for these files and then always load and save the files from the network drive regardless of what computer you're using.

That is: don't "sync". don't keep files on the local computer. read the files from a central fileserver regardless of what computer you're using.

This can be done with a corporate network that the work computer is connected to and the home computer can access by software.

Ask your IT group about this.
 
lostinmysphere said:
Is that on a firewire connection? Does having the 3rd hard drive (external) involved make it easier than say connecting the two macs directly via firewire? I guess it gives you a backup...
Click to expand...

This is with a USB 2 connection, which I find is pretty fast on the newer Intel Macs (it was terribly slow on my old Powerbook). The external drive is simply because I have one computer at work and one at home and don't want to carry one of them around all the time (I commute by bike). Yes, it also gives you a backup - that's an added benefit. Also, you don't have to restart the mac in target mode, which I think would be required for a direct sync (correct me if I'm wrong).
 
DaveF said:
I'll say the "right" solution is to use network drives for these files and then always load and save the files from the network drive regardless of what computer you're using.

That is: don't "sync". don't keep files on the local computer. read the files from a central fileserver regardless of what computer you're using.

This can be done with a corporate network that the work computer is connected to and the home computer can access by software.

Ask your IT group about this.
Click to expand...

Personally, I much prefer to have the files on my local computer. That allows me to work on them wherever I want (train etc.). On top of that I made the experience that the fileserver of our local IT group has more out time than my personal solution. They have air conditioning failures all the time etc., whereas I keep upgrading my harddrive (now SSD) every two years or so and never had a single problem (have Time Machine backup as well).
 
THX1139 said:
You are probably looking for something Chronosynch.
Click to expand...

wow looks really cool, I test it right now!

web site suck... but app looks great. I see great beacuse I dont need pay by year... I have my own server, I can use it for sync. thanks (review later) ;)

kraftzwerg said:
I use ChronoSync as well - it works flawlessly and fast. I use an external hard drive that I carry between home and work where I have the two macs. I sync about a 20 GB fraction of my entire Home directory (it's easy to specifiy what you want to sync a what not) and it does it in about 10 - 20 seconds. You have to play around a bit with the sync criteria so it suits your needs - personally, I only go by file date and time. It's easy to adjust these parameters and it has a "trial sync" mode where it shows you what it is going to do before actually performing. After a while I gained confidence and just let it do the sync automatically, even for situations where files on both macs were changed. You can also choose to archive all files that are being deleted.
Click to expand...

ok now I install but my question is:

Is necessary a external drive? I mean I want sync between macs but! online... you know my imac of home with my macpro of work... I make changes on work and update at home a viceversa.

:confused:
 
umbilical said:
ok now I install but my question is:

Is necessary a external drive? I mean I want sync between macs but! online... you know my imac of home with my macpro of work... I make changes on work and update at home a viceversa.

:confused:
Click to expand...

You can sync to any volume that is mounted on your mac. That means if your work macpro can be mounted via network on your imac at home, you can sync directly without external drive. Personally I have never tried that but I'm pretty sure that can be set up to work. It may depend on the network settings of your work network though. Another thing is that your computer would have to be up and running all the time, unless you can find and activate a "wake on ethernet access" option.
 
Another option that many people seem to like is the unix program "unison" which does synchronization via ssh over the network. Setting up the configuration file requires some expertise though.
 
kraftzwerg said:
Personally, I much prefer to have the files on my local computer. ...
Click to expand...
For people who work in more than one place, keeping files local is not always an option. Except for the boot volume, however, MacOS X does not distinguish between mounted networked and local volumes.

My favorite synchronization utility is Qdea's Synchronize! Pro X. It has functionality similar to that of Chronosync.
 
Bye Bye Baby said:
MobileMe works very well, but I don't know if it what you want.

iDisk is fantastic for everyday use for file syncing. I am an academic who needs files both on my laptop and desktop. I work on one set in a library and then the files sync through iDisk to my desktop and vice versa. I am sure you can also do some file syncing for individual photos, but not whole libraries.
Click to expand...

I would second this, I use mobileme to sync 2 laptops and 2 iphones and it works for me really well. I use idisk for all my docs and it just works so well. It evens syncs to my Vista bootcamp :)

As others have mentioned chronosync is such a highly valued product but `i have no personal experience of this
 
Another sync option

FWIW, I've used Synk from Decimus software for several years. It is simple on the surface, but has options (if you want them) under the simple exterior. I use it to back up between machines over a network and from machines to external hard drives.

I hadn't used it for a few months and had a question last weekend. I wrote to support on Saturday afternoon and received a response that took care of my question early on Sunday morning! Great customer service in my experience. :)

Good luck with your search.
 
I use dropbox, but livemesh (from microsoft!) works well too. They're both automatic syncing programs. They use the internet to transfer (though dropbox now does p2p transfers on a LAN).


Dropbox takes whatever files you put in a single folder (and any other folders within that) and syncs them to the cloud, and any other machines that run dropbox, its excellent for documents and files (if you're prepared to use the Dropbox folder as your documents folder, not a huge issue).


The only drawback to dropbox is the lack of prefernce syncing. This is where livemesh can be useful. Livemesh allows you to select any folder on your system and sync it with any other on another system. This means you could sync things like your web browser favourites, application preferences etc. You just need to know which file/folder contains the information.


Personally, I use dropbox over mesh, simply because it uses less system resources, and I have no need to sync preferences from once machine to another. You can also access dropbox files via a web browser (not sure is livemesh allows this now, when I last used it it didn't).
 
Another vote for Synk

Been using this since it was freeware. Great and gets better all the time (Synk Standard). I use it to back up four drives in a Quad Pro. Only glitch, if you can call it that, is that it consistently registers an obscure "error" somewhere when backing up a Users folder. Instructions indicate that this is not a problem.
I love the drag-n-drop setup, clear scheduling. Tried DataBackup when I got a free copy, but couldn't get it to work well with the four drives.
 
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