File Sync utility for Mac?

[Itsallaguess]

Can anyone please recommend a free file-sync utility for the Mac OS?

I want to be able to keep the contents of two hard-drives, each with multiple files and folder-structures on them, in sync for back-up purposes.

Anyone got any personal recommendations?

I could of course use Google, and I will if no-one can offer any help, but this board would be my natural first port of call for stuff like this, in the hope that someone here has already gone down this path and found a suitable utility.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[superFoolish]

Have a look at: http://www.dirsyncpro.org/

I don't use it, but know people who do, and they haven't complained!

[GoSeigen]

Is there any problem using the built-in Time Machine?

GS

[Itsallaguess]

Have a look at: http://www.dirsyncpro.org/

I don't use it, but know people who do, and they haven't complained!

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll take a look.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Itsallaguess]

Is there any problem using the built-in Time Machine?

GS

I'm not a MAC user, so not sure what Time Machine does. If it's anything to do with backing up the MAC itself, then it may not be suitable for my purpose in that I'm wanting something that will help sync two external hard-drives. Apologies if that detail would have helped in the OP, but thanks for prompting me to mention it now, in any case.

Do you, or anyone else, know if Time Machine will help with the syncing of two external hard-drives?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[GoSeigen]

Is there any problem using the built-in Time Machine?

GS

I'm not a MAC user, so not sure what Time Machine does. If it's anything to do with backing up the MAC itself, then it may not be suitable for my purpose in that I'm wanting something that will help sync two external hard-drives. Apologies if that detail would have helped in the OP, but thanks for prompting me to mention it now, in any case.

Do you, or anyone else, know if Time Machine will help with the syncing of two external hard-drives?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

It would help to have a bit more detail of what you want to do then. Sync is a tricky operation for all but the simplest tasks. In particular, if your two drives have files with the same name but whose content differs, you have a conflict which needs to be resolved. That requires automatically choosing the newer or older version, or alternatively, manual intervention from the user: selecting one or the other or even merging differences.

Another cosideration is whether you are syncing just a subset of user-created documents, or whether you wish to sync system-created files also. The latter will of course require greater care.

If your task is simple then a low-cost, simple app is the way to go. If not, a more professional but complex and costly app may be required.

GS

[Hariseldon58]

I think GS is pointing you in the right direction.

Rather than "I want to keep 2 external drives in sync" I would stand back and perhaps explain what you are trying to achieve ?

There may be a better solution out there. The mac uses iCloud very well to allow access to and keep in sync files that can be accessed from multiple devices and locations, it works really well.

As someone who had 4 macs , 2 iPads and 2 iPhones in the household ... a huge amount of cabling under my desk , more than 25 power outlets, multiple hard drives , 2 off 8 way USB hubs and multiple Ethernet outlets I stepped back and decided to question how did it get this complex !!!

Result 4 macs down to 1 New MacBook Pro , iPad replaced with 12.9 iPad Pro , multiple external mains hard drives down to 1 USB powered drive, dramatic simplification, large desk gone,increased use of iCloud and OneDrive, room freed up

Hence the thought that keeping multiple drives synced can get complex , the possibilities of losing data are definitely there. I have found cloud synced files allow access to the up to date file from any any device , anywhere.

[Itsallaguess]

Thanks for the interest, and to the prompts for a better understanding of needs.

The hard drives in question will be a store of family photos and videos. Currently they are being stored on just one hard drive, but I managed to convince the owner that where they (like many other people...) have it in their heads that they have a 'back-up', they really only had a single store and hence a single point-of-failure.

I've managed to get them to buy a second hard drive to actually help create a proper 'back-up' solution. The way they will work is that they'll copy any required photos or videos onto the first hard-drive as a first-process to get them off the relevant camera or phone, and then at some regular periods they will want to ensure that the second hard drive (that was initially created as a complete copy of the first) is kept in sync with regards to any new photos or videos moved to the first one.

I understand that cloud-based services are available, and I know that the above isn't 'ideal' in terms of what they could be doing to position themselves better still. That said, I don't think there's any chance of convincing them to go any further than they are now, with the two hard drives, and at this point I'd be happy to help create a process, via the requested 'file-sync utility for a mac', to help make the regular 'sync' processes between the two hard drives as simple and quick as possible.

I say this as I know that if they weren't to find a simple and quick method to carry out the sync process, then it simply won't get done, so I'm trying to help them find a way to utilise the back-up process they currently have in the easiest way possible.

I saw the solution to that as me helping to suggest a Mac file-sync utility that will simply look at both drives and present the user with two lists, one that lists the files on the 1st hard drive but not on the 2nd, and one that lists the files on the 2nd hard drive but not the 1st. In almost 100% of the cases, if they use it correctly, I would imagine there only to be files in one of the two lists, which would be where files are on the 1st hard drive but not on the 2nd, the 2nd being the 'back-up' drive for the 1st hard drive.

So given the above, can anyone please recommend a file sync utility for the Mac that will do this?

Having had a Google at the weekend, I came across this which looks very promising -

http://www.freefilesync.org/

Whilst the above does look promising, I would prefer to have some user-recommendations if possible.

Thanks again for your interest and help.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Infrasonic]

I'm not a Mac user but it seems you want a mirrored external hard drive solution, which you might be able to do with time machine.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?num=30& ... crhYs9HeiE

[UncleEbenezer]

Since MacOS is built on Unix, you have the regular Unix toolset at your disposal. Hence rsync, which does the job efficiently and without fuss.

Dates from long before the era of encryption (or of security threats: the original Internet Worm only happened in 1989), but can be run over ssh if you need encryption. Make it a cron job to run every day/hour/week/whatever suits you.

[Hariseldon58]

Time machine could handle your idea, time machine can be set to back up from the main hard drive and an external primary photo hard drive to the second drive.

I use lightroom to for photo storage and use an external drive , the basic structure is very simple put photos in a folder structure by year and months as sub folders , so manual back up is trivial. If you a back up apart from time machine which works very well in a Mac and as well allows you to dial back to previous versions of the file structure at a set time.

Lightroom or similar allows any virtual structure or grouping of pictures based upon a simple physical storage.

[PitBullCH]

Be aware that most "sync" tools just keep two drives in sync - if you were to delete a treasured photo file from your source drive, it will likely delete it from your backup drive (either immediately or according to some pre-defined time schedule). Also depends whether the "sync" tool is set to delete or archive files on the backup drive that are deleted on the source drive.

I use a combination of Time Machine (for backing up local disks including user files, apps and the OS) and Chronosync (for backing up my NAS drives (photos, music, docs etc) all to USB-attached disks and then Crash Plan for backing up those USB-attached backup disks to the cloud. This gives me the security of both on-site and cloud backups (and note it's always quicker to restore from on-site backup than from the cloud !).

Chronosync will do what you want (and much more) but does cost some - always been very happy with it myself.

[johnw11]

I use a combination of Time Machine (for backing up local disks including user files, apps and the OS) and Chronosync (for backing up my NAS drives (photos, music, docs etc) all to USB-attached disks and then Crash Plan for backing up those USB-attached backup disks to the cloud. This gives me the security of both on-site and cloud backups (and note it's always quicker to restore from on-site backup than from the cloud !).

Chronosync will do what you want (and much more) but does cost some - always been very happy with it myself.

Hi PitbullCH, just catching up on this. My plan is to attach a USB drive to my TimeCapsule and then back up the timecapsule. ChronoSync sounds good for this. Is there a performance issue in that the data needs to be networked from the TimeCapsule to my Mac and then back to the USB drive. I am told this is how finder works if you copy a file on the NAS to another device. Does ChronoSycn work the same would you know, or at a low level does it copy directly from the NAS to the USB drive

[PitBullCH]

In my case the NAS is connected via 1Gb Ethernet, and the external discs are USB3 to the Mac - so there are both network throughput restrictions and USB3 restrictions. In your case I assume the TimeCapsule is Wifi to your Mac (?) and then USB2/3 from TimeCapsule to external disk but I have to confess I know nothing about how the TimeCapsule works so cannot advise.

Ideally I'd do backups to local external disk and cloud backups direct from the NAS, but none of the "home-user" cloud backup vendors I've seen support this as they see a huge risk that it would be abused (you need their commercial plans for that) - hence my cloud backup is from the external disks.

FYI have just added BackBlaze as a second cloud backup to my system - given the importance and the time invested in what's on my NAS, I wanted the extra security and it's not too expensive (went for the 2-year option at $95).

[johnw11]

In my case the NAS is connected via 1Gb Ethernet............

Thanks for the detail. I check with Chronosync and they tell me the copy will will come back via my Mac, so I will need to ensure for the large backups that I am connected to TimeCapsule by cable. I am told I need to switch off TimeMachine anyway when I do the backup to the USB drive so that will make life easier.

My upload speed is so slow that I discount the cloud backups. I tried about 6-7 years ago and it was impossible to get the uploads to complete. Maybe in a few years when I get Fibre at my address I may review using cloud backup.

Regards

John

[hiriskpaul]

As NAS boxes are so cheap these days I recommend people just buy one of those and just use it for backups. For example, the Synology DS115j costs about £80. Add a 3TB drive for another £80, or use your own existing spare drive if you have one (or buy a DS115j with the drive already in place starting from £146 for 1TB to £339 for 6TB off Amazon). There are lots of different ways of configuring these NAS boxes for backups, but I think the simplest is to set it up to operate like Dropbox/OneDrive. For each family member, set up CloudStation to sync local folders on their PCs with the NAS. It is easy for everyone to understand as it looks just like OneDrive with little icons indicating the backup status of files and folders. The main difference from Dropbox, etc. is that it is MUCH faster because it runs on your LAN. You can configure CloudStation to keep up to 32 versions of a file so that you can retrieve accidentally overwritten or deleted files.

If you want to you can configure the Synology NAS boxes to work outside your LAN. It is very easy to do and does not require a static IP, or any kind of dyamic DNS setup. You don't have to open ports in your router's firewall either. Just register for a free account and domain with Synology and their connectivity software takes care of everything. It will adapt to use the local IP on your LAN when it can for maximum performance, otherwise it will operate across the internet. I find this invaluable with kids away at university, etc. as it never occurs to them to back up anything. A number of essays and other corrupted files have been rescued.

For extra security you can buy another Synology box, put it at a relative's house and backup your local NAS to the remote one. Or just plug a USB drive in and backup to that if you want.

I only have experience of the Synology NAS devices, but I am sure the WD NAS devices can be configured similarly.

[Infrasonic]

I was going to suggest a Synology NAS earlier in the thread.

From the many reviews I've seen they are a bit ahead of the game when it comes to the personal cloud / backup to online cloud services ease of set-up, as they write their own custom Linux based OS aimed at the non-pro.

If you and a near neighbour/friend bought one each then backing up to each others NAS would give an easy 'offsite' solution with no reliance on online cloud services, although your uplink speed would be the bottle neck in both cases.
For large data sets you could just clone locally and then put the SSD/HDD back in the other NAS. Again Synology have thought all this through to make it easy to set up and execute, but I don't think it is available across the whole range yet, only the more expensive options (but that might change...).

I think Qnap are getting closer but it seems Synology is the one to go for unless you have good IT/networking chops.

As well as rsync their is also rclone (cloud) for those with a bit more CL confidence...http://rclone.org/

[hiriskpaul]

I was going to suggest a Synology NAS earlier in the thread.

From the many reviews I've seen they are a bit ahead of the game when it comes to the personal cloud / backup to online cloud services ease of set-up, as they write their own custom Linux based OS aimed at the non-pro.

If you and a near neighbour/friend bought one each then backing up to each others NAS would give an easy 'offsite' solution with no reliance on online cloud services, although your uplink speed would be the bottle neck in both cases.
For large data sets you could just clone locally and then put the SSD/HDD back in the other NAS. Again Synology have thought all this through to make it easy to set up and execute, but I don't think it is available across the whole range yet, only the more expensive options (but that might change...).

I think Qnap are getting closer but it seems Synology is the one to go for unless you have good IT/networking chops.

As well as rsync their is also rclone (cloud) for those with a bit more CL confidence...http://rclone.org/

You make a very good point about getting things in sync before taking a NAS off site. The same is true when setting up a new laptop or new sync folder with a lot of data to sync with the NAS. I use a wired network connection initially as well so as not to swamp the WIFI for hours.

I have never understood the point of TB sized Dropbox or Onedrive accounts when a lot of people only have 0.5Mbps or lower ADSL upload speed. Upload speed to my bottom of the range Synology NAS is limited by the speed of the hard drive when going across a wired connection and even then initial sync times can be frustratingly long for photo and video collections.

I do follow a belt and braces approach and back up to 2 USB drives using regular backup software. One stays off site and I just swap them over occasionally. Since installing the Synology NAS I have never had to use these backups. The Synology is just so much more convenient.