Distributed file sharing application

[MG2R]

I'm looking for a way to share files in distributed manner (think BitTorrent) on a local network. I was considering using BitTorrent Sync. I'm currently using that for offsite backups and syncing my laptop with my home network. BTS works great for that.

 

The thing is, I don't want to just have a complete folder synced. What I'm looking for is a way to let people browse my files as if it were a Windows share, but with file transfers being done distributed. So say I share a folder with three files in it (A, B and C). Someone downloads A. Now, if someone else also needs A, he can download the file from both me and the person that first downloaded A.

 

Is there a such a thing? I would prefer if it could be run cross-platform, but I'll take any option at this point... Have been searching for two weeks now.

[Flojer0]

Interesting idea that I haven't heard a solution for yet. I'm also imagining the possibility of someone getting together with friends and having a "virtual cloud drive" that they all have a piece of stored on their machines and they take down what they need when they need it. Don't know how practical that would be though .

 

I would like to know of something too, right now I use bittorrent sync to move files between my main machine and others in the network, like my HTPC that currently only has a 64GB SSD. But it would be nice if I could browse the office PC from the HTPC to pick the files I wanted. Though that may just be solved by me not being to lazy so set up a network drive.

[MG2R]

Interesting idea that I haven't heard a solution for yet. I'm also imagining the possibility of someone getting together with friends and having a "virtual cloud drive" that they all have a piece of stored on their machines and they take down what they need when they need it. Don't know how practical that would be though .

 

I would like to know of something too, right now I use bittorrent sync to move files between my main machine and others in the network, like my HTPC that currently only has a 64GB SSD. But it would be nice if I could browse the office PC from the HTPC to pick the files I wanted. Though that may just be solved by me not being to lazy so set up a network drive.

Well, you could just set up a NAS for your use case, but I really need to have distributed sharing to lighten up the load on the server. The problem is that the server will serve executables of 500MB and up to about  30-50 clients at the same time over a single gigabit connection. I need it to be distributed so that clients that already have downloaded an executable can help upload to the other clients. I can't use bittorrent sync because not every client will need every exectuable in the shared directory, they need to be able to  select what they get individually.

[Flojer0]

I've heard something about regular torrents letting you pick individual files if you set it up right. But I'm not that experienced with torrents so I can't go much further. If that's a possibility could you just set up a private torrent for the network and let people choose from there?

[MG2R]

I've heard something about regular torrents letting you pick individual files if you set it up right. But I'm not that experienced with torrents so I can't go much further. If that's a possibility could you just set up a private torrent for the network and let people choose from there?

That might be doable, but the problem is that that method would need a torrent per folder per server and a private tracker that'll become obsolete after one night and that is quite the hassle to set up, especially as I'm not the host of every server on the network. I'm starting to think I'll have to stick to simple file sharing on this one