* A second option for synchronizing computers
In my last article, I talked about using Laplink to keep multiple computers synchronized; in my case, I need to ensure that a home-office tower system, a laptop computer and a tower system at my university office all have the same files in the same versions.
Recently I tried a different approach that eventually might be easier for my purposes: a private peer-to-peer network for synchronization. BeInSync is simple and inexpensive and happens to fit my needs perfectly. The software works for systems that can be left plugged into persistent Internet connections; in my case, both my home-office system and my university system are always connected to the Internet through a satellite connection and the university T-1, respectively. The portable can be plugged into either network as required.
Once one establishes an account with a user ID and password on BeInSync, one can define “shares” on each machine – to define precisely which folders are supposed to be synchronized. In my case, almost all of my functional data are in a folder called C:Data, so it’s easy to define the shares. Having installed the software on all three systems, you simply load the program on the computers to synchronize and activate the synch process. In my case, I let the initial synchronization run over a weekend because there were about 40G bytes in the shares. The process worked flawlessly and without human intervention.
I used to have to remember to manually synchronize the portable from the home-office system before I went to the university, and then use the portable to synchronize the university-office computer. In the evening, I’d reverse the sequence by synchronizing the portable from the university tower and then the home tower from the portable. With BeInSync I don’t have to do anything special at all. I can simply leave BeInSync running on all three computers all the time, and they remain in synch all the time.
BeInSync uses 256-bit AES encryption on all Internet transfers, which is good enough protection for my purposes. Additional functions that you can enable include secure Web-based access to your own computer files from any browser and the ability to define group shares for defined sets of people such as colleagues, clients, and friends.
Unfortunately, the program version I tested repeatedly crashed, interrupting the transfers and significantly slowing the synchronization. At one point the estimated synchronization time reached 503 days. I hope to see a resolution with newer versions. In the meantime, the product is still worth testing and following to see how it develops.
In my next article, I have information from a reader who tells us about another approach to sharing information among multiple computers – this time using client-server technology.
