Synchronising Files on Workgroup/Network

tonymc

Hi,

I've managed to set up our three computers so that they can access each other's files etc via a workgroup.

However, I had duplicated the folders and files on two of the PCs, but now there are newer versions of files on both machines as well as files on only one machine.

Is there a way that I can get the machines to synchronise the files between each other so that all the files are the same on each PC? I was sure I had read somewhere that this is possible, but now cannot find the article. Please tell me I'm not going mad and there is a way!!!

Many thanks.

Figment

Something like..... http://sourceforge.net/projects/freefilesync/

Nut used it, so cannot recommend it.

victor2

Do you need to duplicate the files, or would a central storage area for all computers to access not be easier?

tonymc

Figment -thanks for that link. Will check it out, although I was certain that I had seen a way to do this with Windows.....unless I am losing my mind!!!!

victor2 wrote: »

Do you need to duplicate the files, or would a central storage area for all computers to access not be easier?

I can see that it would be easy enough if we used one machine as a "server" and just connected to it and used the one set of folders and files. However, it is useful to have the files on each machine as we quite often take the laptop and netbook away separately and work on existing files or create new ones. Ideally, when we get back, I would like to be able to then make sure that the updated and newly created files are shared across all three machines. Hope that makes sense.

-TangleFoot-

You could use NAS with Windows Briefcase to achieve something of the sort.

esuhl

You could use something like Dropbox. It syncronises a specific folder and its contents across all the machines (Windows, Linux, Mac, iPhone, Android, etc.) that you install it on, and also to the Dropbox servers (so you have a backup and can access the files via the web from anywhere). You get 2GB space free, but can get 500MB extra with this link: http://db.tt/6d0BLWq

FreeFileSync is a great tool if you just want to manually synchronise folders (or can write a script so it runs at specific times, e.g. when a user logs on/off). It's similar to Microsoft's SyncToy, but I found SyncToy had far too many bugs that prevented all the selected files from being copied; FreeFileSync is much more reliable.