How to sync in real time folders from my laptop to NAS

[fat_thor]

Hello LTT Forum !

My father let me help him solve a tech problem at his office. This is the current situation:
One of his colleagues works as a 3D modeler and has this folder on his laptop where he keeps all of the company's 3D files for all their projects. On the same network with this laptop , is a QNAP TS 231 NAS that has an identical copy of my father's colleague's 3D models folder among other valuable folders which contain various company documents. All the folders on this NAS are shared folders to which everyone on the network has access. 

This is how the exact copy stored n the NAS is created/maintained :  

At the end of the working day, the 3D modeler goes in the folder on his computer, sorts by "Date Modified" and copies everything that was modified that day then goes in the shared folder on the NAS and he pastes and replaces the respective files.

Not only is this an extraordinarily tedious job but it is also very dangerous thus I offered to find and set up a way for this task to be performed automatically in real time by the computer. 
What I am trying to do is find a way to configure the local computers on the network and the NAS in the following way:

Certain designated local folders on each employee machine to be real time synced to the copy on the NAS. That means if the 3D modeler makes a modification on a file in the designated folder on his computer then as soon as he saves that modification in the file , the copy on the NAS is updated with the just modified version. While googling I found out this is called setting up " a sync job".

The NAS is running something called QTS a QNAP proprietary OS which also has an appstore. I downloaded various utilities developed by QNAP for sync jobs however I couldn't figure out how to make them work. 
So far I tried:
 

• Qsync which as far as I could figure was more of a Dropbox type of service that would run on your NAS. You would have to manually drag and drop files into a Qsync folder for it to sync with the NAS or have them created there in the first place. Configuring it requires setting up accounts for each user and then installing a client on each user's machine. I was on a hurry last time I tried it , I will give it another go tomorrow.
• Netbak Replicator , another QNAP tool which states that it provides real time sync but is in fact a back up tool, not what I need.
• Hybrid Sync which seemed to be the only one out of the bunch that could actually work however I could not figure out how to properly set it up so tha tthe "pick up" folder would be a local folder on a machine and the "destination" would be on the server. If anyone has any idea on how to configure this app please walk me through a short tutorial below.  

So here is what I ask of you internet. Is there a feature in Windows that can work with the QNAP NAS OS ( it's called QTS, the server is running version 4.3. something ...I forgot) so that I pick the folder on the machine and then set it up in the NAS that it should constantly check that folder for modifications and bring it up to date in real time? I would be baffled if for all the complicated features Windows has it doesn't have something fit to my needs.
If you have done this exact thing before please let me know exactly how you did it. Also if there are any third party apps that could solve my issue please let me know. 
It would be great if anyone could provide a tutorial . 

Thank you.

[Electronics Wizardy]

How on about offline files in windows. Will keep a copy of your files offline on your pc, so when it can't access the nas/

 

Does the 3d modler have access to the nas when working? Why not do the work directly on the nas share?

 

You could also use a program like realtime sync included with free file sync to keep the files synced.

[FloRolf]

Why isn't he just working directly from the NAS? 

I also hope you have offsite backups as well in case you mess something up and/or someone in the company messes something up. 

[Kilrah]

Run something like nextcloud on the NAS, that way everything is synced like dropbox would, and the server will save multiple file versions as they're changed.

 

You do not want a real time sync if there isn't also versioning in place.

 

Another solution is to use FreeFileSync or SyncBack and run a 2-way sync manually at the end/beginning of the day like they manually do now.

[fat_thor]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How on about offline files in windows. Will keep a copy of your files offline on your pc, so when it can't access the nas/

 

Does the 3d modler have access to the nas when working? Why not do the work directly on the nas share?

 

You could also use a program like realtime sync included with free file sync to keep the files synced.

 

1 hour ago, FloRolf said:

Why isn't he just working directly from the NAS? 

I also hope you have offsite backups as well in case you mess something up and/or someone in the company messes something up. 

 

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

Run something like nextcloud on the NAS, that way everything is synced like dropbox would, and the server will save multiple file versions as they're changed.

 

You do not want a real time sync if there isn't also versioning in place.

 

Another solution is to use FreeFileSync or SyncBack and run a 2-way sync manually at the end/beginning of the day like they manually do now.

The NAS primary purpose is that of local safety backup. It is programmed to automatically back up it's content to Dropbox Cloud ( there are 2 backups :  the 1st is local and it back's itself up to the 2nd which is in the cloud, a back up of a back up) However there are other employees that need to retrieve project files that the 3D modeler works and it's much faster than pulling them from the cloud. He does not work directly on the NAS because the files he uses are large and everybody is on WiFi which I plan to move to wired ethernet once I figure out the syncing.

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, fat_thor said:

 

 

The NAS primary purpose is that of local safety backup. It is programmed to automatically back up it's content to Dropbox Cloud ( there are 2 backups :  the 1st is local and it back's itself up to the 2nd which is in the cloud, a back up of a back up) However there are other employees that need to retrieve project files that the 3D modeler works and it's much faster than pulling them from the cloud. He does not work directly on the NAS because the files he uses are large and everybody is on WiFi which I plan to move to wired ethernet once I figure out the syncing.

Id really try to move to wired and just do it directly from the nas.

 

But if you can't do that, id copy the project your working on your pc, then do the work, then copy it back and replace the version on the nas.

 

You can use other syncing programs, but syncing just leads to sync errors. If you want a easy sync solution, id just use dropbox for the working folder, and the nas as the backup.

[remakethegame]

You can try to use something like FreeFileSync to setup a replication of the files between the shared folder from your NAS and your local folder 

[JustTheTip]

I used to use SyncThing, basically same as like the real time syncing have with OneDrive except its all peer to peer and self hosted, install it on the server and the client, point the instances to there respective folders and your good to go. 

 

Like previously said Nextcloud is a more elegant solution in this case though because as you have said the files your dealing with are large so you probably dont want to have all of them stored locally on the client as well as the server.