Windows: Sync process?

[oguruma]

I currently have two PCs that I use for photography/editing. One of them is in the garage, which is set up as a studio. The other one is in my office. I use the PC in the studio to capture photos directly to the PC. This allows me to check for focus and exposure, etc. on a monitor, versus a 2" screen on the back of the camera. I use the PC in the office to edit the photos and print.

Is there a way to constantly sync new photos to a share on the network? I would like to be able to take photos in the garage, and by the time the session is over, have most or all of the photos transferred to the PC, or on the NAS. I know the windows native Robocopy supports some level of syncing, but from what I have gathered, it can only be set to sync on an hourly basis. Ideally, I would like kind of setup that will sync every time a change to a specific folder is found (i.e. when a new photo is taken).

 

[anodos]

http://www.freefilesync.org

 

[Mirfster]

Can do it with a PowerShell Script if you are creative (if you have Windows). It will monitor the directory and perform action on changes. Been a while but I wrote a very similar thing for Booze Allen a long time ago. If you are interested let me know, I can find the code somewhere in my storage.

 

[pirateghost]

Sync thing

 

[SweetAndLow]

Why not just save the photos straight to your nas over smb? This way they will just be there when you view them on your office pc.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

BitTorrent Sync is another option.

 

[Mirfster]

Meh, just thought about Windows Briefcase? Did anyone ever use that?

 

[Ericloewe]

Meh, just thought about Windows Briefcase? Did anyone ever use that?

I tried. Never really worked for even the most lax definitions of "work".

SyncToy is said to work well, but is rather brute-force and needs to be invoked (manually or by a scheduled task).

 

[oguruma]

Why not just save the photos straight to your nas over smb? This way they will just be there when you view them on your office pc.

This wouldn't work that well for my purposes. When I am taking photos, I need the workflow as fast as reasonably possible. Basically, I capture a photo to the PC (over USB), I then need to be able to view the photo in as close to realtime as possible. I could technically capture the photo to a network share, rather than a local disk, but I then have to wait for the file to transfer over the network before I can view the photo.

 

[oguruma]

Can do it with a PowerShell Script if you are creative (if you have Windows). It will monitor the directory and perform action on changes. Been a while but I wrote a very similar thing for Booze Allen a long time ago. If you are interested let me know, I can find the code somewhere in my storage.

That would be excellent! I just downloaded FreeFileSync, but as far I can tell, I have to start it manually, or schedule the task to run at start up.

 

[pirateghost]

Again, I will say try syncthing. It will do exactly what you want.

 

[anodos]

Again, I will say try syncthing. It will do exactly what you want.

This was actually the program I was thinking about. I remembered that it had something with the word 'sync' in the name. My stupid brain went 'sync something or other', 'sync toy? no... sync... thing...', 'freefilesync!'. Stupid brain.

 

[SweetAndLow]

This wouldn't work that well for my purposes. When I am taking photos, I need the workflow as fast as reasonably possible. Basically, I capture a photo to the PC (over USB), I then need to be able to view the photo in as close to realtime as possible. I could technically capture the photo to a network share, rather than a local disk, but I then have to wait for the file to transfer over the network before I can view the photo.

The USB will be the slow link not the network. I bet if you did it over the network it would work just fine. How large are these media files?

 

[ethereal]

i use freefilesync