Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Transporter Sync, Crashplan and BitTorrent Sync

Transportersync

My father told be about Transporter, a product made by an ex-Drobo staffer that created your own private cloud for file storage. I was excited about a new addition to their portfolio, the Transporter Sync. In essence, data stored on one device would be replicated, without intervention, to the other device.

 

The Sync allowed you to provide your own storage; I thought I’d be clever and install my own storage into it, and have it replicated across the Internet. This is a problem I face to keep my home video editing, photo and music library safe and secure. 

 

Problem 1; the Sync forces you to format the storage to its own format. Not a huge problem, but still a pain.

Problem 2; the Sync used to force you to have local copies on both sides. You had to replicate the content, you couldn’t use it as a remote access device. This feature has been added in a new software release  

 

I however returned my units. Why ? On the same LAN, plugged into literally the same switch, the devices couldn’t see each other. Major, major problem. The company was kind enough to refund my money, but couldn’t figure out why the devices wouldn’t see each other. Also, because of the badly designed software, I managed (accidentally) to delete all my content without warning. Major fail :-(

 

I thankfully have a Crashplan account, and once I saw how long it would take to restore 1TB of data over the Internet, used their Restore to door service. In short, they courier you a drive, you restore, you send the drive back. Takes a while, but better than downloading it all online.

 

I was annoyed until I, by accident, discovered BitTorrent Sync. It did not require a dedicated device, but was software installed on your computer (multi-platform) which would replicate ala Veritas File System that system admin’s would be familiar with. There is a nifty on-boarding of mobile devices (using QR codes), and the solution was up and running within minutes. Highly recommended, especially because of the price - free!