Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Sync two folders between a PC and a MAC
- Thread starter DannyBres
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
As long as you can connect to your Windows machine over a LAN and mount its shared drives/folders on your MacBook, you can use ChronoSync to synchronize the contents of whatever folders you want. The software costs $30 USD for a licence, and you have a great deal of control over how it goes about syncing folders.
The other-way-round way to do it is to enable Windows sharing, mount the Mac folder on your PC and use Synctoy - a free (from Microsoft), and highly reliable tool to do this.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx
It's not cheeky - it's a particularly complacent brand of arrogance, especially as my XP/Vista machines are more reliable than any Mac in my possession.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx
It's not cheeky - it's a particularly complacent brand of arrogance, especially as my XP/Vista machines are more reliable than any Mac in my possession.
DirSyncPro 1.4
Old as this thread may be, I thought it useful to post what I found as the best, free solution to cross-platforming syncing my mbp and pc, so that others who look at this thread, like I did, might find the solution they are look for. I didn't want to use Folder Share because I'd given up my Hotmail account after it had been hijacked, and I didn't want to get into the same problems again. Syncmate looked great, but I would have had to pay for what I wanted it to do. DirSynPro 1.4 did exactly what I wanted it to do in under 30 seconds, which previously took me 5-10 mins (syncing my work folder), it only synced changes, no overwrites, and gave a clear report of what it had done. Fantastic tool! I'm thinking of syncing my music folders with it too. That should be a good test as I have in the region of 140GB of music.
http://www.dirsyncpro.org/download.html
Old as this thread may be, I thought it useful to post what I found as the best, free solution to cross-platforming syncing my mbp and pc, so that others who look at this thread, like I did, might find the solution they are look for. I didn't want to use Folder Share because I'd given up my Hotmail account after it had been hijacked, and I didn't want to get into the same problems again. Syncmate looked great, but I would have had to pay for what I wanted it to do. DirSynPro 1.4 did exactly what I wanted it to do in under 30 seconds, which previously took me 5-10 mins (syncing my work folder), it only synced changes, no overwrites, and gave a clear report of what it had done. Fantastic tool! I'm thinking of syncing my music folders with it too. That should be a good test as I have in the region of 140GB of music.
http://www.dirsyncpro.org/download.html
Bumping this old thread -- Does anyone know of a program that will sync pc, mac and a network attached storage drive? I'm looking for something that works like Dropbox/iCloud but localized within a home network, so everything syncs through the network drive instead of a cloud. Have 100gb+ of data/media files, which gets expensive using cloud sources. Any ideas? Thanks.
Any of the above programs should work. They could be ran one after another.
Pc to Mac
Mac to Nas
or
Mac to PC
PC to Nas
Something along those lines
Yes, but what I'd really like is a Dropbox-type solution using the NAS server instead of relying on peer-to-peer connections. Something like this:
Mac <---> NAS <---> PC
Perhaps it was my bad in using the term "server" when what I really mean is a simple network attached storage drive. My reading of ownCloud is it requires either a dedicated in-house computer/server as the hub or use of a third party server service via the Internet.
Yes, but it also requires that the data being sync'd also be on the Dropbox servers as well. My needs are 100gb+ and I don't want to pay the monthly fees for that level of storage, especially since I'd still need NAS for Time Machine Mac back up and similar comprehensive PC backup.
With that much data, you'd get better performance by a wired LAN or by using an external drive directly connected to one computer to transfer files to it, then connect to the other computer to retrieve the files. After the initial transfer, syncing changes may result in a lot less data being transferred.
From what I understand the programs that come with this drive won't do what I want -- WD's vision is that data resides on the WD MyCloud drive and you only DL stuff as you need it. I'm probably going to buy one of these anyway because of its faster ethernet (vs usb) connection to the network.
~~~
@GGJstudios I have a MyPassport 3.0 to move the files and I can ethernet to the NAS to set that drive up (or if I go with WD MyCloud it has its own usb 3.0 port). I'm really just looking for something that will sync incremental changes automatically going forward every time one of the laptops is connected to the network. It'll be pretty rare that I have both in use at the same time, which is why I'm trying to avoid peer-to-peer (directly or thru the network).
I'm kind of surprised there isn't some cross platform program that replicates Dropbox/cloud-like functionality using NAS as the hub.
I'd looked at this briefly but the Amazon reviews were so brutal I moved on. I've now looked at it more closely and from my reading of the users manual it doesn't appear to offer Dropbox-like syncing. It's just another option for centralized storage/access.
Please update the thread if you find something that works well for you. I would love to do exactly the same thing.
Some interesting info here: Comparison of file synchronization software
The only thing that looked like Dropbox-type functionality using a local NAS is Tonido. Unfortunately they want annual license fees as opposed to just selling software. $29/yr for up to 100gb isn't bad though. Next increment is a pricey $99/yr for 200gb.