One drive APFS the other drive ExFAT, can Chronosync 'sync' them?

[Emiljabo]

Hi all,

I’m primarily a Apple/Mac user with my home ecosystem, however at work I have to use a Windows PC.

I have a lot of files I need to access/open/save on both my home and work systems.

I want one hard drive as a back-up at home, formatted as APFS and another drive that I take with me to and from work formatted as ExFAT to use on the Windows system.

When I get home and plug-in the work ExFAT drive on my Mac, can Chronosync 'sync' both the APFS formatted back-up drive and the ExFAT formatted drive to be exact copies of each other?

Thanks!

 

[Rodan52]

I believe so. Of course the formats will remain the same but in the end it's just data.

 

[gilby101]

An exFAT and an APFS can't be exact copies, almost by definition. In particular APFS has file attributes and metadata which are messy to sync with exFAT. But, if I understand your scenario right:

You will be doing your file activity (reading, writing, modifying in applications) on your exFAT drive and then want a one way synchronisation from the exFAT to an APFS volume acting as a backup. That will work fine.

You will have to decide what you want CS to do with files you have deleted on the exFAT drive - do you want to also delete them on the APFS or do you want to keep the deleted files on the backup drive. But CS can do that.

Two-way sync with differently formatted file systems has its quirks.

Some comments (possibly unwelcome?):
If it is just for backup, why not a keep a backup at work?
exFAT is not a robust file system. You might be better using APFS or NTFS and appropriate software (from e.g. Paragon) on the "other" operating system.
Is your employer happy with you taking work data back and forth.
If possible keep work and personal separate.

 

[Emiljabo]

Thanks all for your advice.

Hi Gilby101, what I mean by identical, is files and file structure mirrored between the two.

That is very interesting info abut the Paragon Software. I didn't realise I could use an NTFS formatted drive. I would much prefer that than ExFAT, so thanks for the tip.