Question Is it possible to sync files with external hard drive

[bntheman]

I want to work on my school projects between school and at home. I heard that FreeFileSync can sync my files over an external hard drive, but if I am not mistaking, wouldn't I need to install FreeFileSync on both computers? I ask, because I do not have permission to install any software on any of the PCs from school. If this is true, are there any other options I can use? BTW, my home PC is connected to a public network, so I do not have a router either.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, it would require it to be installed on both systems.

Other methods to do this?
OneDrive, and upload your files to the cloud.
Manual copy/paste between systems and external drive.

I would create 2 top level folders on your external drive. Home and School.
When done working at Home, copy all the relevant files to the Home folder on the external.
Repeat for when you are at School, wit the School folder.

Reconcile the actual files whenever you want.

 

[britechguy]

I agree that using the Cloud these days for this sort of thing makes doing it so much easier.

You can often avoid syncing at all, if both ends can access the same cloud storage, as you use that cloud storage just like it's a local drive and edit the files on that drive.

Since most (probably all) cloud storage can be accessed via a web browser, even if you cannot install the software to make the drive appear as though it is a local drive, you can still access the files you need from it with ease and save them back once you've edited them locally (and that presumes you're not using something like Google Docs on both ends, which actually edits "in the cloud").

 

[Alabalcho]

Check whether Microsoft' robocopy can do the job for you. You can make it mirror files (that is, delete files on the target which are no longer present on the source), or not. If I was you, and with today's size of hard drives, I'd create a new backup folder every day / week.

 

[britechguy]

I'd be more inclined to use SyncToy than Robocopy.

I love Robocopy, but it's not particularly "regular user friendly" while Sync Toy is (and works well, to boot).

 

[USAFRet]

Unfortunately, both Robocopy and Synctoy fall afoul of:
"I do not have permission to install any software on any of the PCs from school "

 

[britechguy]

ROBOCOPY is coming up on my partner's Win10 machine on searching and I know I never did anything to install it there. It also comes up on mine, but I wasn't sure if I did install it.

True, though, about Sync Toy. One must install that.

 

[USAFRet]

Robocopy is now run directly from the commandline.
They must have slipped that in there over the last few years.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/robocopy

 

[bntheman]

Wow, I am very disappointed. I actually thought there is a way to connect to your home network from your college, simply by entering the home's real IP address in the URL. Then, from there, you simply enter your home user's account credentials and login. Is this something different, and can it be done without a router?

 

[USAFRet]

Wow, I am very disappointed. I actually thought there is a way to connect to your home network from your college, simply by entering the home's real IP address in the URL. Then, from there, you simply enter your home user's account credentials and login. Is this something different, and can it be done without a router?

There are methods, but it isn't quite that simple.
And the security issues are many.

If you can access your system at home, maybe someone else can as well.

Cloud, and let the billion dollar company worry about the security aspect.

 

[britechguy]

All I will say is that something similar to what you're describing can be accomplished, it's difficult to do and a security nightmare.

Why on earth don't you simply use a thumb drive, which can be done perfectly safely as far as preventing virus transmission and if you get one that is a key fob on your key ring the probability of losing it is very low? (I would also be copying off the contents every evening when I did any work on any one of the files).

 

[bntheman]

Why on earth don't you simply use a thumb drive

Firstly, a thumb drive is really a smaller capacity external hard drive, which I am using. So, using a thumb drive, external hard drive, the cloud, or what ever else can be used, the main focus is to avoid mistakenly saving the updated file to a different user account, which has happened to me. This annoying mistake can easily happen to anyone, when following the method below.
Scenario:

1. you started a new project at home on a Saturday.
2. Next, you put a copy of your project folder, with the updates, onto an external drive, something like a thumb drive.
3. Sunday comes, and you take your external project folder to school
4. Before you can work on your project, it needs to be copied to the school's local hard drive, since a hard drive is faster than an external drive.

5.When you are ready to go back home, you copy the updated files back to your external drive and take it home.

1. Now, Sunday, late at night, you are feeling a little groggy, but you still need to make a few more adjustments before school starts on Monday at 8AM.
2. However, just before you got on the computer Sunday night, little Johnny was previously using the PC and he was logged onto his account but forgot to logout when he was finished.
3. Now you come along, thinking the computer is still logged on to your account, but it is not, you still mistakenly drag your updated project to the wrong user name folder, thinking it is your account that your are pasting the updated files to. OH-OH!!! Now you have 2 of the same project folder in 2 different user accounts. It's not as bad then it could be if you catch it early enough. However, let's say you didn't catch it, and 3 months later you need to go back to your old project. So, you login to the PC of your account, but after opening the project, you realize that the last file saved isn't the latest file. Now you are cursing out your PC, swearing up and down that you saved the project prior to going to school, which obviously does not solve or help the problem your in now. So the first thing that comes to mind is to do a search with the date modified filter. However, sure enough, you still cannot find it because the correct saved project is located in Johnny's account, and for at least in Windows 10, you cannot search for files that are under a different user's name. Now you are SOL!!!

 

[USAFRet]

"the main focus is to avoid mistakenly saving the updated file to a different user account "

Then don't save to a 'user account'.

As said earlier:
--------------------------
I would create 2 top level folders on your external drive. Home and School.
When done working at Home, copy all the relevant files to the Home folder on the external.
Repeat for when you are at School, wit the School folder.
--------------------------


The only 'foolproof' method is long term backups.
If you need to retrieve a file in the state it was 3 months ago, then you need to be more diligent with what data is where.

 

[britechguy]

One also has no need to copy a file from a jump drive to a HDD/SSD to work on it.

No human can work at a speed that they'd ever notice anything of significance [perceptual speed wise] even at load time for a file many MB or even several GB in size from your average USB drive. Once the file is loaded it's mostly managed in RAM and virtual memory until it is written out to the USB drive again. The read in and write out time is not an "hours long" process but seconds.

I'd be using the USB drive as my primary repository and copying off what I do at school to my home machine after any significant work has been done away from home for safe keeping. But if I'm editing at home I'd still use the USB drive as the primary, and then copy off the changed file to my backup on my home machine. It makes life much easier to have a single "primary source" and a single backup location.

 

[USAFRet]

Bottom line:

Your best way forward is sneakernet, with an external HDD or flash drive.
or
Some cloud situation

The limitation of your system at school pretty much precludes any application solution.