I'm looking for a (free) tool that will automatically synchronize two folders that exist on the same computer (one folder being on the local hard drive and the other a networked drive).

I've taken a look at the Microsoft Live Sync (which I use religiously between my work, home, and laptop computers), but it doesn't allow you to sync to a networked drive. Dropbox doesn't let you sync to a networked drive either.

I'd like for the changes to be automatically sync'd in real time, a la Live Sync and Dropbox, nothing that scans every X minutes and syncs the changes. Am I being too picky?

Any ideas?

7/30/2009 7:57:04 PM

Microsoft SyncToy

7/30/2009 8:03:28 PM

synctoy is my suggestion as well

7/30/2009 8:18:01 PM

Third!

Used it to back up my thunderbird local folders to a networked drive so they'd be fast and safe before I sent them to the cloud miasma.

7/30/2009 8:20:57 PM

Doesn't synctoy require you to run it manually? Or at least schedule it in the task scheduler? I actually installed it to see if it would work, but maybe I'm missing something here...

7/30/2009 8:32:27 PM

Yeah I use SyncToy but it's not real-time.

7/30/2009 9:20:55 PM

[Edited on July 30, 2009 at 10:05 PM. Reason : n/m]

7/30/2009 10:04:38 PM

http://www.allwaysync.com/

never used it, but it claims to do what you ask

7/30/2009 10:56:55 PM

Have you tried Microsoft Live Mesh?
http://www.mesh.com

Not sure how much it is different than LiveSync. Mesh has been working great for me.

7/31/2009 4:14:40 AM

synctoy.

7/31/2009 7:46:02 AM

I assume you're using Windows. How does a simple shortcut to the folder not do the job?

7/31/2009 7:56:45 AM

^I'd assume because he wants it as a backup?

7/31/2009 8:29:03 AM

I sync a lot of stuff to an external hdd at work so I can work from home sometimes. The reasons I don't just work off of the external drive are ClearCase rapes the file permissions and those have to be modified before I can work at home (no VPN, can't install CC, rsync does it automatically) and to a lesser extent it's nice to have a copy in two places; if I forget my external drive one day, I can still do work and if something happens to either copy I have another one handy (sure, it's backed up to a server at work but another local copy is easier).

7/31/2009 9:56:00 AM

Won't shadow copy with Vista/Win& do this?

7/31/2009 10:06:35 AM

you can schedule synctoy to copy whenever you like. ie. set times and at boot

i used it for a while but had trouble with it replacing files with the same name instead of renaming. i think there was something i didn't quite understand about it, but it worked great besides that

[Edited on July 31, 2009 at 10:38 AM. Reason : c]

7/31/2009 10:38:06 AM

Quote :

"Dropbox doesn't let you sync to a networked drive either."

Adding lan support on the next major update. Should be neato. And you can always use symbolic links in windows to add any folder. Networked drives work i think.

But synctoy seems like the best bet unless you really need the realtime. What i love about dropbox.

[Edited on July 31, 2009 at 6:44 PM. Reason : .]

7/31/2009 6:41:03 PM

yeah it depends on how "realtime" you need it. I have Synctoy setup to sync every half hour and never had a problem.

Live Mesh will have the same problem as Live Sync. You need to have the networked computer on the service, and sync that way, instead of syncing from a network drive.

7/31/2009 7:16:41 PM

Thanks for all the replies. I'm probably going to just stick with SyncToy + a scheduled task. I just really like how tools like DropBox and LiveSync constantly are synchronizing when changes are made. Too bad neither let you sync to a networked drive.

The reason I want to do this is so that I can work from home and still have access to my latest files that exist on a shared network drive (that a whole bunch of us are constantly using). When I'm at work, there's no problem with me working off the network drive. The files I'm working on always need to have an updated copy on our shared drive so other people can use them. It saves me from having to email 50MB files or do some other kind of rsync or something.

So my idea was to do a 3-way sync between the:

network drive <----> work computer HDD <----> home computer/laptop

8/1/2009 2:03:10 PM

pretty cool.. def gonna use synctoy

8/1/2009 2:18:33 PM

Why not use something like svn or ClearCase where you can check files in and out. How are you going to manage saving to a file that someone else has open?

8/1/2009 4:18:12 PM