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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?

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[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 19 points 2 days ago (4 children)

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.

[–] Nickelalloy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Thanks a lot man!

[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 7 points 2 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.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Syncthing good for small datasets too

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

and medium sized ones

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 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