Coordinating data between computers. « Tech Talk « Forum

Floogal

I’d like some tips on dealing with data spread out between two computers.

Specifically, I’d like an easy way to transfer files between a Windows XP computer and an Ubuntu computer. I’d also like to be able to turn on a computer, update all the data files in selected folders to the latest version, and then save those changes to the “network”, however this may work.

This also ties into backups. How do you all handle backing up your data? Partitioned harddrives? Extra harddrives? Stored online? Burned onto DVDs? Done automatically/daily/montly?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

ND3JR

If you’re not averse to using the command line I recommend rsync for Ubuntu and cwrsync for Windows. What’s nice about rsync is that you only transfer the difference between the files over the network, saving both time and bandwidth. For the connection to the system you want to get files from you have the option of either running an rsync daemon (service in Windows) or having it operate entirely over SSH.

As for backups, I’d never keep them on the same hard drive. A second, external hard drive is what I’d recommend, otherwise I’d use DVDs or, if you’re really serious, a tape-based backup system. Those are generally the province of data centers and will probably be overkill for two home systems, though. Stick with the DVDs. If you have a Blu-Ray burner use Blu-Ray discs. And again, if you’re really serious, make at least one back up and store it somewhere other than where your computers are in case something should happen to your home.

Mr. Sword

If it’s a lighter load than 2 GB, I’d suggest a Dropbox . It puts a folder on your computer that’s mirrored online, essentially. It can be bigger, but you’d have to put down money for that. I believe a free alternative exists, but I don’t know how it fares.

I can’t vouch personally for the commandline utilities Jeff’s Radio suggested, but transferring only differences between files would indeed save you a lot of time and bandwidth.

Other than that, burning optical media is a viable option, but if you don’t have a bigger burner than regular DVD, it’ll be a lot of discs if what you have in mind reaches into the double digits, which you’d have to consider the expense thereof.

Floogal

Thanks for your replies. Dropbox sounds interesting, as there’s an online copy, and the files I plan to use a lot will fit within 2 GB. I guess there’s the security issue with having the files online, but I’m not saving bank passwords or other such things.

Dropbox seems pretty secure (they use HTTPS and their Web of Trust reputation is good), although stuff like bank passwords and whatnot probably shouldn’t be uploaded online anyway.

I have a computer at the office and my laptop at home that I use Dropbox to sync my research (data, papers, reports) and school work to. It works very well and is very useful because if I need a report or data from home, the program automatically syncs it for me. Another good thing is that if I need to quickly transfer a file from my office computer to home and I don’t have a flash drive on me (or knowing me, I put my file on the flash drive and forget to transfer it over), I can drop it in the Dropbox. The public folder also is a neat way to instantly get any file you want hosted which we occasionally use for Lost Sky. I also keep a text based to-do list that gets synced automatically between these two computers.

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