Syncthing tutorial update#
Syncthing tutorial software#

Once that was complete, everything was in sync and we were ready to go. Once Syncthing was set up on all of our machines, it scanned the files and communicated with the other peers to make sure everyone had the same content. So we didnвЂ™t even have to go through a painful initial sync process. It was impressive how we were each able to connect our existing folders (since they were rsynced with each other up to this point, they had the same contents).

With all of these benefits, we decided to give it a try, and started using it day to day. It seemed like a great solution since we all had a copy of the files anyway and wanted it to stay that way, and since it allowed us to also begin editing the files locally on our own machines rather than going through a process to get them on the central server.

Once set up, our computers would propagate changes to each other, still using a bit more bandwidth than we did when we had the central server, but at least that burden was distributed equally.

This solution was set up to be the most cost effective and simple way for us to manage our collections. Syncthing TutorialД®nter Syncthing вЂ“ a peer-to-peer file synchronization tool without the need for a central server. We looked at cloud storage solutions as well, but due to security concerns and the sheer cost of hosting 3TB on the cloud at the time, this didnвЂ™t seem practical for us either. We could have made one of our home servers the central server, but that would have consumed a lot of bandwidth for one of us. We looked into alternative cloud sync tools such as ownCloud and NextCloud, but again these do require a central server. The real Achilles heel of this method, for us, was the need for a central server which raised the cost of our project, especially considering the amount of data we were hosting.

Syncthing tutorial update#

However, it made it more difficult to make updates since we would have to login to FTP to update the data, even though we all had a local copy. This had the advantage of simplifying change synchronization, since we always trusted everything on the central server to be the latest copy of the data. The original setup was a central server where we all pulled backups via rsync. We each need the ability to add, remove, and edit items in the library with the changes synchronizing out to everyone else.ДЇaced with the challenge of mirroring this rather considerable amount of data between multiple computers, we have gone through a variety of solutions to decide what will work best for us. There are currently 4 people working on the project who need access to the files. Most of these files average between 5MB and 100MB in size. In my case, I have a library of almost 3TB of data consisting of over 250,000 files in over 20,000 directories. All communication between the peers is encrypted to protect against man in the middle attacks intercepting your private data.

Syncthing tutorial software#

Unlike other peer-to-peer software you may be familiar with, like file sharing applications, Syncthing uses a private sharing model and only devices specifically authorized with each other can share files. Computers attached to your Syncthing network each retain copies of the files in your shared folders and push new content and changes to each other through peer-to-peer connections. Syncthing works off of a peer-to-peer architecture rather than a client-server architecture. It also shares similarities with self-hosted cloud storage platforms like ownCloud or NextCloud, but unlike those products, it does not require a central server of any kind. It shares similarities with commercial cloud storage products you may be familiar with, like Dropbox or Google Drive, but unlike these cloud storage products, it does not require you to upload your data to a public cloud. Syncthing is a decentralized file synchronization tool.