Best software (mac or PC) to keep two folders in sync over LAN?

[malm123]

Hey Friends;

As the title suggests, I am looking for software to keep two folders / hard drives in sync over lan. I have been using a program for mac called Sync Folders Pro. I thought it was working well, but noticed the other day in the activity log that it is actually going in and deleting random files because they "couldn't be found" in the master directory. i checked and the deleted files WERE there in the master directory.

looking for software suggestions for either platform (host computer is mac, one of the clients is PC so it shouldn't matter which one runs the software). Ideally something that doesn't need to scan the directory every time you sync, but rather just "watches" a directory for changes like dropbox. any thoughts?

[Bcat00]

Mac don’t play nicely with windows, you should’ve known by now if you can get something like that working

[drsaendu]

You could use "rsync" on the command line of your mac to test it manually, then write a bash script if you have figured it out.

EDIT:
what do you mean host computer? does it run NFS/CIFS to share a directory?
what do you mean by master directory? is only one computer allowed to write on it and the clients have read only access?
could you possibly get a NAS to solve this problem?

 

[malm123]

i just meant it in terms of host = the physical computer the drive is plugged in to. the client computer has full permissions. Right now, the sync folders pro app is running on the client computer so whenever the hard drive is plugged in, it scans it and syncs it to the network drive. 

 

@Bcat00 Windows / mac compatibility has not been an issue at all. one of the client computers is windows, another is mac and they can both read/write to the network drive. the issue is just getting them to do it automatically.

 

@drsaendu yes I have looked into a NAS. Would a NAS device have software to do this? i assumed it would be easier for the syncing software to be client side. how would the NAS know that, for example, one of the laptop clients is connected to the network and has one of the drives plugged in? (external usb drive) 

[LogicalDrm]

Resilio Sync. I've used it between Windows, Android and Linux. You can set one folder to be master and all other devices only having read access to it. Or have read/write. Paid version has more features like selective syncing and scheduling.

[malm123]

this is really neat thanks! Its not really what I was thinking of, but could work.

 

So the "master" in this case would be drive X whenever it is plugged into the computer it was originally shared on? then, with the right settings it will automatically copy any new files on the drive to each additional client computer (/drive destination) that I share it with? 

 

This would leave me with only one problem: the computer sharing the backup drives doesn't support past os 10.6. resilio requires 10.8. Right now I am trying to share a drive from computer A to B and leave computer C (the older network share host) alone to just share the backup drives to the network. So far so good, one issue is there are a ton of files that, as they get copied, will have their name changed because of "unsupported characters". This is likely a pc>mac issue. Although the destination drive and it's computer are mac, the program sending the instruction is windows. there dosent seem to be any way around this through settings either. 

[LogicalDrm]

7 hours ago, malm123 said:

So the "master" in this case would be drive X whenever it is plugged into the computer it was originally shared on? then, with the right settings it will automatically copy any new files on the drive to each additional client computer (/drive destination) that I share it with? 

 

If I understand question correctly, yes. Read Only for those devices which you don't want to have effects on original folder. The setting is per device or share link you use.

 

7 hours ago, malm123 said:

This would leave me with only one problem: the computer sharing the backup drives doesn't support past os 10.6. resilio requires 10.8. Right now I am trying to share a drive from computer A to B and leave computer C (the older network share host) alone to just share the backup drives to the network. So far so good, one issue is there are a ton of files that, as they get copied, will have their name changed because of "unsupported characters". This is likely a pc>mac issue. Although the destination drive and it's computer are mac, the program sending the instruction is windows. there dosent seem to be any way around this through settings either. 

I think that's most of the difference between file systems and file name lengths. As said, I had earlier version working between Linux laptop and Windows desktop. Currently same Win desktop and Android tablet.

[malm123]

@LoGiCalDrm Resilio is working great btw! thank you so much  decided to just let it copy with the bad filenames & auto correct them. took a look at the list  of changes later, fixed the original filenames and the changes syncced over automatically