Keeping in sync with a file server when not connected?

December 11, 2008 10:26 PM

How do I synchronize local copies from a file server for when I'm not able to connect to its network or the internet?

I'm looking at setting up a large external file server for hosting my digital media and data files. Most of the time, I will either be on the same LAN as the fileserver, and thus can simply connect to it as an additional drive, or will have internet access and will be able to log in remotely.

However, there will be some situations in which I want to access files that are normally stored on the server but will not have internet access. An obvious example is when I take my laptop on an airplane. What is the best way to put some selection of files onto the laptop and then resync the server when I again have access?

I am not looking to simply copy the entire server hard drive to my laptop--for one, I won't have enough disk space on the laptop. But I will want to, for example, have access to my iTunes library or Devonthink database.

Details: OS X on laptop, server will be a ZFS filesystem (probably running OpenSolaris).

posted by philosophygeek to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

It sounds like you want some sort of cache on your laptop that keeps copies of things that you frequently use on the drive, is that right?
posted by zippy at 11:05 PM on December 11, 2008

Use something like arRsync on your Mac with rsync on your Solaris box to synchronize specific folders. With scripting you can do this as needed, i.e. when you have a network connection.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:09 PM on December 11, 2008

If there are cases where you want to do two-way syncing of files, you might want to take a look at Unison, which uses the rsync algorithm but does much more painless two-way transfer. Although, come to think of it, I've gotten to where I would pretty much just use some kind of version control for the problems I used to solve with Unison.
posted by brennen at 12:28 PM on December 12, 2008