January 15, 2014 (tech,gadgets)
Bittorrent Sync

This is a good tool for peer-to-peer synchronization of folders between computers.

I used to use Live Mesh to keep certain folders synchronized between my computers, but it never really left beta and Microsoft stopped supporting it when their strategy moved to Skydrive.  Since then, I have been using Dropbox, but the problems with Dropbox are:

  • It is not peer-to-peer, so your files are hosted on Dropbox.
  • You have to place your files in a dropbox folder, so you cannot synchronize folders in other locations on your filesystem.

Recently, I saw a new player enter this 'market', Bittorrent Sync.  As they state on their website:

Your Data Belongs to You. Secure, unlimited file-syncing. No cloud required.

I have been using it for about a month now, and it seems to work very well.  Performance is great, and I have not seen any sync issues.  I am currently sharing the following folders:

Screen Shot 2014-01-15 at 7.33.12 AM

 

It also supports mobile devices!  I may use that to sync some tv shows (ShowRSS) from my pc to my iPad mini.