Question I can't work out which Backup/Sync software will do what I need ?

[emptybe]

Excuse the terminology at times - I'm a composer not an 'IT person'!
I run two computers, a desktop and laptop as 2 DAWs and I want an app that will keep them in sync and keep everything backed up at the same time. At the moment I use Resiliosync and iDrive to do both but they both have their limitations and I would love something that does both sync and backup simultaniously.

Both pcs are windows 10 with 1TB internal SSD and 2 x 4TB external SSD's for audio/video data. Onedrive should do it but it effectively copies all of the data from the external drives into the internal drive when you put them in the Onedrive folder. I gather symlinks used to work for this but don't any more.

So is there a solution that will
- effectively sync all the data between both pcs via a cloud backup
- allow syncing of folders outside the designated backup folder so they're not duplicated in there
- not insanely expensive for 5-10TB of storage

Thanks

 

[Darkbreeze]

Have you looked at Buddha backup? I've not used it myself but I've had an eye on it for a while and it seems to be one of the few credible programs that does both backup AND file sync, including to the cloud in addition to local operations, but for now I simply use either Macrium reflect or Acronis True image, for backups, and I especially like Acronis because you can specifically instruct it to do backups of whatever you want, to wherever you want, and they DO offer cloud options. It can be full backups, or incremental backups if you prefer to simply sync things by backing up only those files that have changed.

It does however have a price tag attached. Not sure what it's going for these days, and I think it's another company that has been trying to go to subscription models, but you can usually find like a five machine license for like something like 60-75 dollars. Maybe less, maybe more, and for one or two machines, possibly somewhat cheaper. Worth looking at though. I've been using Acronis for years and years and my license is perpetual so I'm not inclined to look elsewhere unless and until something REALLY worthwhile that can everything this does PLUS do on the fly multiple system file syncing comes along, for free, as with open source applications.

More importantly, probably, is WHAT are the "limitations" that you are trying to overcome?

 

[emptybe]

Thanks for the reply. The big limitation of resilio sync is that it needs both computers to be on at the same time to sync. iDrive is also very clunky and slow to navigate. If I could get the 2 pcs to to sync via a simple cloud/backup it would solve a number of things in one go.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I'm thinking at this point, it might be better to invest in a NAS unit, though this comes at a large upfront cost. A few things that come to mind as to why a NAS would be a good fit:

• It'd be a good place to stage a "source of truth" for your files
• You can mount a folder on there like another drive. From there you can use an app to push updates from whatever computer you're working on to it.
• NAS units tend to come with backup features in mind
• Some of them may also have cloud backup integration

A lot of this can be setup to be automated, so you don't have to think about it once all the pieces are in place.

 

[Grobe]

I want an app that will keep them in sync and keep everything backed up at the same time.

In my opinion, this sounds like a mirroring feature, not a backup. Consider what happens if all your data files get corrupted by ransomware - then all your "backup" will be overwritten immediately by the "new" and corrupted files.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yeah, that seems like mirroring, not sync and backup to me. And I agree that if something happens to your system in real time, and you've mirrored the data to a second location in real time, then BOTH are fubared. Backups should be created, for the most part, like at the end of the work session, or the end of the day, or use multiple backup options so that snapshots are taken and the next one, if corrupt or infected, does not affect that previous one that was saved. That could be done several times a day, or at the end of each day, or at the end of each week, or every ten minutes depending on your storage capabilities.

But honestly, an NAS might not be the worst idea here either.