Computer synchronisation

[Alan Holtham]

Can any of the computer experts point me in the direction of some software to synchronize two computers? :?:

I am working on a large document (30gig) on a pc in my office and on a laptop at home and also save it to an external HD as a back-up. I want to link them together so that the one with the latest changes updates the other, rather than resaving each time.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Alan

 

[Malc]

Hi Alan

You could try this

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... nctoy.mspx

 

[Malc]

Type Synctoy in google it is a free XP plugin

 

[CHJ]

Hi Alan

You could try this

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... nctoy.mspx

The Spam trap strikes again, it will leave you alone after a few posts Malc.

Welcome to the Forum.

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Malc

Welcome to the forum.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[RogerS]

Alan - I could be way out of date but working with a document that size is fraught with danger..not least of which the ability of the programs to manage something that size. Some programs may even work by saving three copies of the docxument...the original...the version that you are editing..and the saved final version ..that's 90Gb of disk space needed..Then there is the speed aspect of moving huge chunks of the document in and out.

Of course, it could be a document containing huge graphics etc and so I could be talking a load of old rubbish.

Just my two'pennorth.

 

[Malc]

Thank you. I have been reading the Forum for some time and never got round to posting.
I have started to dabble in woodworking and wondering if I should take the plunge and buy some tools. At the same time I see the posts and pictures on the site and wonder if I could achieve such good work with my limited knowledge.

But the site is brilliant for ideas and inspiration

 

[Malc]

Agree with Roger. unfortuantly some programs like Corel and publisher are capable of generating very large files

 

[beech1948]

Alan,
Its been said but bears repetition.

A document of 30 Gb is bloody huge. I am assuming you used the description "document" and meant a text based file, with possibly a few graphics.

Your problem is that at that size very few programs can reliably handle it without freezing, breaking or corrupting the file. If you are using MS Word as the document handler then please, PLEASE break it up into chapters or sections or what have you and try to keep these below 5Gb and preferably below 10 Mb.

Trying to move 30Gb into and out of applications and temporary storeage will also ask for trouble each time you attempt it.

Forgive me if you have other reasons for keeping this as 30GB but even then.....

regards
Alan

 

[Malc]

I would be interested to know the program that created the file. In perspective, I have 26000 pictures on my disk which comes to 30 gb.

Malc

 

[Alan Holtham]

Thanks guys, I should have been a bit more specific. The 'document' is a book with text and a whole lot of high res Tiffs, hence the size. I am laying it out in MS Publisher.

I think the answer would be to break it down into the various chapters and substitute the high res pics for low res jpegs for the purposes of layout, but I would still want to update the two computers and external back-up if I add a picture or text to one or other of them.

I need something that can just look at the two PCs and see any latest changes and update the other. I do save to yet another HD every few days as well, so I do have plenty of backups if it goes pear shaped.

I have already done this the long way on a previous book by just resaving the whole file and copying to the other PC manually, which seems like a very long winded way to get round what should be a simple problem, but I am a bit of a computer tyro, give me wood anyday!!

The other slight complication might be that the PC is XP and the laptop Vista!


Thanks for all your input so far,

Alan

 

[Malc]

Alan

Try the synctoy I have used it between XP and Vista. If you start with a smaller file while you experiment it will give you the chance to see how it works

 

[beech1948]

Alan,

I have two PCs. A desktop and A Latop.

They both have links to my wireless network. The desktop is the major data repository and is mostly used connected to broadband while the laptop is only occasionally connected to the net.

So your approach could be:-
1) Network both desk and laptops.
2) Set up both to share files
3) Put your 30Gb monster on the desktop and map the network drive across to the laptop and at the same time create a copy drive on the laptop
4) You now have two identical files on each PC.
5) If you now go to the TOOLS icon and click on it you should see a few options. One of which is to Synchronise the files. If you do this from the laptop then the desktop file will be updated on the laptop or vice versa
6) Its a standard part of Windows XP and probably also Vista but I have no experience with Vista.

Its a bit of a brute force solution as the whole file will be backed up from one PC to the next but thats what you seem to ask for. Obviously your off PC stores would need to be treated similarly.

Hope this helps a little.
regards
Alan

 

[Alan Holtham]

Malc, thanks for the link, I have downloaded it, I'll give it a try.

Alan, thanks for your idea, this almost seems easier. It has stirred a long lost memory but didn't there used to be software that allowed you just to hard wire (remember that!) two PCs together? Was it called Laplink or something similar. This would presumably do the same rather than networking them.
May aim though was just to save the changes, not the whole file, as I am doing at the moment and what your method seems to imply, unless I have misunderstood, which is quite possible!!

In the scheme of putting men on Mars this seems to be a very simple little problem which doesn't appear to have been addressed thoroughly yet, unless I have missed something blindingly obvious, which is even more possible,

I'll try synctoy and let you know.

Thanks again,

Alan

 

[RogerS]

Alan

A quick google (synchronise file changes) gave some results. This looks very promising

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=5941

 

[beech1948]

Alan,
I have just had to synch the two sets of files across my two PCs as I suggested.

What I noticed was that only the files which had been updated were synched/copied etc etc. So there is some intelligence in the application..I know I'm just an old cynic here.

The time taken to synch about 350 files which add up to about 60Gbytes was 11.5 seconds so not all of the data was copied just that which was "different".

Might be worth a try.

rgareds
Alan

 

[Alan Holtham]

Alan,

That sounds just like what I wanted to do, thought it should be possible. Many thanks, I have two options to try now, plus the link from Roger.

Cheers,

Alan

 

[RogerS]

I've been giving this a bit more thought.

The example of synching that beech gave and timings is what I would expect since all that the sync program is doing is looking in the directory and checking the various status flags such as date last modifed etc. So if the date is the same then nothing gets copied.

But when we come to Alan's file, my understanding is that the file is one file containing many embedded TIFFs and the overall size is 30Gb. Now I think that Alan is asking the 'impossible' as, unless I misunderstood him, what he wants to do is the following.

Change one word in copy one from say 'there' to 'their' and just to have that change reflected in the other copy. Correct me if I'm wrong on this, Alan. Now to do this requires a program with an intimate knowledge of how the internal file structure of your Publisher document is made and then to parse (ever so slowly) through the two copies..correcting on the fly. I reckon that this would be painstakingly slow...even if such a program existed.

So far simpler just to copy over the complete file IMO.

 

[Alan Holtham]

This is all getting a bit too technical for my small brain.

All I want to do is switch on either the pc or laptop and them both have exactly the same content, even if I have only changed one word, as Roger suggests. Surely Alan's way of networking them to share files is the answer. :?:


Alan

 

[RogerS]

Surely Alan's way of networking them to share files is the answer. :?:


Alan

Don't think so...sync looks at the file attributes and not what's inside them. At least that is my understanding