Sync/backing up data from a SW perspective?

[hititfaster]

I work for one of my clients one day a week on their site, the rest of the time I'm office-based. I have a laptop for site and a desktop machine in the office. I have data on the office server that requires copying to the laptop before going on site, then back from the laptop when I return to the office.

A while back I had IT set up a sync. system between the folder on the server and the laptop, which should have sync'd the laptop and desktop as soon as the laptop was re-connected to the server. Only I started to see oddities... the occasional file greyed out with a cross through and a message saying 'this file is currently not available for use on this computer' if I tried to open it.

Then recently I experienced a quite dramatic loss of data from the laptop. I have back-ups set on SW and I regularly export Pack & Go's so it's salvageable, but more than a bit of a pain. It's chunks from a couple of places - really patchy and quite concerning. My issue is that I'm worried it's a sync. problem... The thing is, I do the same as described above for a second client, only I MANUALLY copy and paste folders over to a different laptop. I have NEVER seen any data loss or any of this behaviour.

I can't be the only person trying to sync. and back-up data, so what do other users do? I need a worry-free, rock solid solution before I develop a nervous ailment! Thanks guys!

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

AllwaySync from

http://allwaysync.com/

I use it weekly to back up the company PC's and file-server. I haven't used it to auto-sync with a laptop, but my co-worker does & highly recommends it.

 

[PatCouture]

At our company we use a software called Beyond Compare, to ease up the syncing process. It's obviously not a perfect solution because you have to be carefull not to overwrite stuff done by other colleague but I think it's still a lot better then copying and pasting folders with windows explorer.

Patrick

 

[hititfaster]

Thanks chaps, I'll have a look at both. I'm lucky enough to be the one in charge of this account, so nobody will be doing anything sync'y without my say-so and the chances of two people working in that folder at the same time are almost non-existent, which is great from a control point of view.

I can feel the confidence coming back already

 

[GRF]

I have used the sync before. The reason I would see files greyed out was they were open the last time the computer had done a synch. One way to avoid this is to configure your synching to happen at boot up and shut down. The problem is that it will add 1-2 minutes to each boot and shut down as the computer will attempt to synch all the files. Your best option is to only use 1 computer and get a VPN for accessing files stored on a network. But VPN and a new laptop can be an expensive purchase all at one time.

I have been using a workstation laptops for the last 6 years and have been pretty happy with them. I used a 17inch from Dell for 3 years and a 15inch from Lenovo for the last 3 years. The all had quad core processors and a Nvidia workstation graphics card. They also had 8gb of ram or more. I have used these as my everyday computer for modeling and drawings as well as running Flow simulation analysis with out a problem. I actually just upgraded to new Lenovo 15inch with 16gb of RAM. At the office I have a docking station with 2 external monitors plus the laptop display. I have SW on the largest screen email on the next and anything else I might need to reference on the laptop screen. For home I just use the laptop screen or can plug in an external monitor if I really need it.

I will say the laptop workstations are not the lightest laptops in the world. But I keep one power adapter at the office and one at home so most days I do not have to carry one unless I am going on a trip.

The cost for the laptop workstation was pretty comparable to a tower workstation, when I was pricing things out a couple months ago. I think you can get a more powerful tower than you can laptop but you have to doing some pretty heavy simulating of have extremely large assemblies to need more power than the laptop will give you.