So I recently quitted Google Drive and downloaded all my data and hoping to keep it on Hard drives myself, They are external plug in types and I want the files synced like it was on my computer. So when I plug it in it copies/syncs the things on my computer, anyone knows somethign like that?

  • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
    14·
    21 days ago

    rsync, SyncThing, or Nextcloud. I use all three, often on the same machine at the same time, for various purposes.

    rsync is great for scheduled syncs (but intentionally not TOO frequent – where blowing away one copy would almost instantly blow away the other copy could be a concern.) and outstanding for one-off syncs. With the right command line options it can even create a rough approximation of snapshots with copy-on-write rolling incremental backups. I believe this is the original documentation for that particular trick although it has spawned many genuine backup tools which operate very similarly using rsync under the hood, like rsnapshot.

    SyncThing is great for large, intensive datasets that you want to keep perfectly synchronized across multiple computers at the same time. One example is my saved games, so without relying on Steam “cloud saves” or anything, I can just save my game and hop from gaming on one computer onto my laptop and pick up right where I left off.

    Nextcloud is what I use for keeping separate copies of all my documents, photos from my phone, etc. It’s easier than SyncThing to setup and manage in my opinion, it’s simple and reliable and reasonably user-friendly in most use-cases, and seems to be more compatible with a lot of software due to its similar design to something like Dropbox. It isn’t ideal for handling huge numbers of files or very large folders in my personal opinion, but it does work if you want to try it.

    • friend_of_satan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      21 days ago

      My man. rsync and SyncThing are the only two sync softwares I use anymore. Well, I still have a single computer connected to dropbox for sharing with other folks, but for my own data, it’s those two tools all the way.

    • BCsven@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      21 days ago

      GRsync is helpful so you can toggle the delete files on destination or not, based on source deletion. Other toggles also, and it shows you what the command line string would be if you did it manually

  • WolfLink@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    6·
    21 days ago

    I have bash scripts of the form rsync -av source dest for this. Make it -avz if copying over a network.

  • lch361@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    4·
    20 days ago

    So when I plug it in it copies/syncs the things on my computer, anyone knows somethign like that?

    So you want to sync files from a drive whenever you plug it in to the computer? Sounds like a udev + rsync solution. Udev mounts the drive and runs rsync.

    • vegetaaaaaaa@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      19 days ago

      This is the correct solution for unattended file copy/sync, plug the external drive and wait till the copy finishes. The only difficulty is monitoring progress/completion/failure if that’s on a headless machine. I built a basic orchestration system with systemd .path/.mount/.timer/.service units, logging and monitoring around this, once you understand your exact needs and get it working, it works.

  • lntl@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    21 days ago

    So I recently quitted Google Drive

    Congrats, great life choice

    downloaded all my data and hoping to keep it on Hard drives myself, They are external plug in types

    You have multiple external drives. Are they USB? How many?

    So when I plug it in

    Are they not usually plugged in? Is there a requirement to keep them air gapped between syncs?

    it copies/syncs the things on my computer, anyone knows somethign like that?

    Like others have said, a shell script that calls rsync is maybe the way to go and with some more information on number of drives, drive interface type, and air gap requirements it may change