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Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by thelema314 on Friday December 30, 2011 @07:56AM (#3407459)
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by bryanlarsen on Friday December 30, 2011 @09:05AM (#3407611)
I've been using Unison successfully on critical documents for over 5 years.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by aoisjef on Friday December 30, 2011 @01:42PM (#3408586)
I've just started using Unison and it exactly fits my needs.

Unlike dropbox, it only does work when I run it, and I can manually sort through the conflicts when I choose to run it (which is a good thing).

It also doesn't require a central server, so I can just use it to sync my laptop and PC.

Tarsnap is used for offsite backup, which I trust much more than myself or dropbox.

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by gwillen on Friday December 30, 2011 @02:33PM (#3408788)
Unison has mostly been trouble for me. I'm definitely in need of a replacement for it. Doing point to multipoint syncing, it tends to get confused and need to be manually resynchronized; and above a certain total directory byte size, which I've long since exceeded, it can't sync at all (and you have to manually break your directory into pieces and sync them separately.)
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by icebraining on Friday December 30, 2011 @08:48AM (#3407556)
Simple 2 way sync is old news, there are hundreds of applications for it.

Dropbox adds "cloud" storage, versioning, web access and more importantly: ease of use.

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by Mad_Dud on Friday December 30, 2011 @09:29AM (#3407685)
Sometimes it's not acceptable to store data on external server without root on it. For these kind of uses Unison (mentioned in previous comments) is decent solution, but also AeroFS (aerofs.com), which works much smoother (less collision problems).

Anyway syncing data on several devices must became standard soon.

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by eropple on Friday December 30, 2011 @01:02PM (#3408414)
AeroFS also has a Windows port that works, too. I had no end of trouble with the Unison port.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by joelthelion on Friday December 30, 2011 @04:33PM (#3409178)
Does anyone know how sparkleshare (http://sparkleshare.org/) compares?
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by jsilence on Saturday December 31, 2011 @04:04AM (#3410516)
Tried it a couple of weeks ago and could not get it to sync between a couple of Mac machines. Dropped the experiment soon after.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by est on Friday December 30, 2011 @09:03AM (#3407604)
and DHT for instant uploading.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by jpdoctor on Friday December 30, 2011 @10:24AM (#3407859)
> and more importantly: ease of use. I'll take "Business Risk" for $200, Alex.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by Edootjuh on Friday December 30, 2011 @09:11AM (#3407623)
I've been using unison for exactly this for ages. I was wondering whether this will add automatic uploading on file change, but alas, all it suggest is using cron for it.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by lloeki on Friday December 30, 2011 @09:51AM (#3407755)
If you have your DIY solution, maybe you can add GAMIN [0] to the mix. There are quite straightforward python bindings.

[0] http://people.gnome.org/~veillard/gamin/overview.html

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by slug on Friday December 30, 2011 @11:27AM (#3408109)
https://code.google.com/p/lsyncd/

"Lsyncd watches a local directory trees event monitor interface (inotify). It aggregates and combines events for a few seconds and then spawns one (or more) process(es) to synchronize the changes. By default this is rsync. Lsyncd is thus a light-weight live mirror solution that is comparatively easy to install not requiring new filesystems or blockdevices and does not hamper local filesystem performance."

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by gregholmberg on Friday December 30, 2011 @06:50PM (#3409586)
Lsyncd works pretty well. It was much simpler to install, operate and develop for than the MogileFS solution it replaced.

http://code.google.com/p/mogilefs

http://danga.com/mogilefs

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by swatthatfly on Friday December 30, 2011 @10:32AM (#3407890)
Dropbox has also clients for Android and iOS. Mobile sync would indeed be great combined with local hosting. Sparkle Share made an attempt, but it's still far behind Dropbox. This "DIY Dropbox" is not even beginning to scratch the surface of what is available in Dropbox. Perhaps an attempt to start development on a competitive DIY solution, but far from a replacement.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by jzb on Friday December 30, 2011 @09:42AM (#3407725)
Calling this "Dropbox" is misleading without automatic uploading when files change. Bummed.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by nesquena on Friday December 30, 2011 @03:47PM (#3409040)
You may want to check out our our DIY dropbox attempt: https://github.com/bazaarlabs/gitdocs

Automatic uploading, web front-end and versioning.

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by flexd on Friday December 30, 2011 @09:21AM (#3407651)
What about Lipsync? [1] I believe it was mentioned here on HN when the project first appeared.

1. https://github.com/philcryer/lipsync

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by gwillen on Friday December 30, 2011 @02:34PM (#3408793)
People are claiming in the comments that this isn't new, but this is the first such _open source_ program I've seen since Unison, which I am badly in need of a replacement for. So I for one will check it out.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by ramy_d on Friday December 30, 2011 @02:41PM (#3408820)
sparkleshare?

edit: seems like i'm the only one mentioning sparkleshare, so here are some links:

http://sparkleshare.org/

https://github.com/hbons/SparkleShare

https://github.com/wimh/SparkleShare windows branch

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by viraptor on Friday December 30, 2011 @05:49PM (#3409431)
I couldn't find this on their pages - does anyone know if it clones the whole repo, or just the current versions? Also, can it get rid of old versions of files to save space on the server?
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by nesquena on Friday December 30, 2011 @03:45PM (#3409031)
Would be curious how you guys would compare this library to gitdocs, our DIY dropbox attempt: https://github.com/bazaarlabs/gitdocs

Ours includes a full web front-end, versioning, 'cloud' (git) storage, and relatively easy install. Oh, unix cross-platform too (with some windows kinks being worked out).

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by dlikhten on Friday December 30, 2011 @10:45AM (#3407936)
Why not use aerofs.com? I mean thats the goal, server-less dropbox. The server is just a communication means, it does not store anything unless you ask it to.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by anddd on Friday December 30, 2011 @11:20AM (#3408085)
> Sign Up for an Invite

That's why.

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by cmars on Friday December 30, 2011 @11:44AM (#3408154)
Also closed-source, proprietary software.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by dlikhten on Friday December 30, 2011 @08:40PM (#3409819)
At some point convenience trumps oss. Ask for an invite, you will get one fairly fast. Unlike dropbox it actually works when I need it (new computer) vs dropbox which coughs blood when I need it, and works fine when I don't [dropbox initial dl speed is 0.01kbps for a few hrs, aerofs caps out my bandwidth].
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by anddd on Saturday December 31, 2011 @08:03AM (#3410797)
> Ask for an invite, you will get one fairly fast.

[email protected]

Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by audionerd on Friday December 30, 2011 @03:38PM (#3409007)
Pair with a Guardfile and guard-shell to sync whenever a local file changes –

  https://github.com/guard/guard-shell
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by Shorel on Friday December 30, 2011 @10:07AM (#3407805)
I would take a modified Tortoise SVN client over this about 100% of the time.
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by ericb on Friday December 30, 2011 @01:12PM (#3408461)
Are some of these cross-platform?
Re:"DIY Dropbox" or "2-way directory (r)sync with proper del... by rhizome on Friday December 30, 2011 @01:22PM (#3408496)
I'd say that this could really take off if they implemented federated storage, such that there was sync'ing across multiple storage instances (a semi-cloud, if you will). Furthermore, I see where encryption could be used to facilitate ad-hoc federation among people who might not normally trust each other, like a Tor of storage.