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Best way to sync 10GB of files between my PC and other devices?

Asked by blizeH,

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blizeH

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Hi guys,

I've currently got 10GB (and ever growing) of pictures and movies taken on my phone/camera - I'm wondering what is the best & cheapest option to get these on my other devices, ie iPad, iPhone, Macbook etc (mostly the iPad and iPhone)

Ideally it'd:

1) Not break the bank

2) Offer a similar experience to actually browsing through the photos as if they were saved on my phone's camera roll

3) Automatically act as a backup for all of my photos & data

I'm just wondering which piece of software you guys at Neowin would recommend? :)

Thank you!

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+BudMan MVC

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What phone/camera? Are you looking to have the pic sent somewhere as soon as its taken? Or something you would say kickoff to copy all new ones, would this be while your connected to your home network, internet? What?

Curious what you do to backup these pics now?

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Slacker

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I use unison to sync my entire home folder except the library and downloads folder between my iMac and macbook pro. May Aperture library is over 40GB and I've not had any problems with this. iTunes syncs as many pictures and movies as my ipod touch will hold, and this should be true for iphone and ipad too. This solution has cost me absolutely nothing.

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blizeH

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Thanks guys, it'll be a mixture of things from my iPhone and Canon S100, I'm more than happy copying them across to the relevant folders, it's more just being able to access them once they've been sorted into those folders.

At the moment I just back them up onto an external hard drive which isn't ideal.

Slacker, does that not require both devices to be on the same time though?

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+BudMan MVC

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  • MVC
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So to be honest your phone/camera are not really part of the equation. You have a folder on your desktop that you store your pictures in, and you want this to be able to get to your iphone and ipad and macbook.

This is pretty much any sync company out there, dropbox, box.com, sugarsync, google drive, etc. etc. etc..

Check them out and pick one - every single one of them can do what your asking. I do believe they all support mac devices, maybe not? They all have free space so you can test. I personally like dropbox, and I have like 72GB of space with them for FREE ;) 50 of that was for having a samsung phone that came with at 50gb promotion deal for 2 years. But before that I have 20GB for FREE, refer some people do some quests, etc. Which is more than you need with your 10GB.

  • CG-88 and blizeH
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CG-88

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surely iCloud would be best suited for the apple products he has instead of using a third party cloud service?

And doesnt iTunes have autosync to apple devices also for photos/videos/etc based on a specified folder?

But yeah as everyone has said, standard procedure considering you are just wanting to sync folders from desktop/ c:/

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+BudMan MVC

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  • MVC
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icloud would work - can you buy more than 5GB that it starts with? If their pricing plays along with the rest of apple its prob like $100 for 5 more gb a month ;)

But sure if that one does what he wants, it works too. Not sure about the photostream thing? Can you just share folders with files? No real exp with that one - most of the others ones I have at least played with and they all work pretty much the same.

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blizeH

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Thanks both - I am using Dropbox right now and it's great, but I only have 7.5GB space! Guess I could try to get my free space up with referrals, or simply bite the bullet and pay the monthly fee. Some of those other suggestions are worth a look too, thanks (jealous of your 72GB btw!)

With regards to iCloud, unfortunately that only keeps the photos for 90 days, it also uses up space on the device, which rules out the iTunes sync too... my phone is only 16GB, so with 10GB+ of movies and pictures I really wouldn't have anything left for apps etc.

One thing I have just tried, and _so far_ have been really impressed with, is Picasa - I only installed it last night to help me find duplicates on my machine (though eventually opted for VisiPics thanks to the recommendations on here), but then discovered you can sync all of your folders with Google+, which has unlimited space, and I've literally just grabbed the iPhone app and it's a genuinely fantastic - it almost seems to good to be true though, so I shall continue to build my Dropbox allowance where possible :D

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+BudMan MVC

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  • MVC
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^ yeah synctoy going to work great on the macbook and ipad and iphone :rolleyes:

How long have you been using dropbox? Have you played the last 2 dropquests? That would of been 2GB, did you do the beta for uploading movies/photos - that was like 5GB I think, maybe 3 after first testers. You can get extra space for tie to twitter and fb, then you can just remove the ties.

They give you 500GB for referrals now.. Its pretty easy to get +10GB to be honest.

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blizeH

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Thanks Bud :) I've been with Dropbox for maybe 6 months or so, didn't play either Dropquest unfortunately, but I did participate in the beta, so my allowance is currently at 7.5GB, haven't referred anyone yet though, don't really know anyone to refer!

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sc302 Veteran

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  • Veteran
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Thanks Bud :) I've been with Dropbox for maybe 6 months or so, didn't play either Dropquest unfortunately, but I did participate in the beta, so my allowance is currently at 7.5GB, haven't referred anyone yet though, don't really know anyone to refer!

surely you have some fictitious mail accounts somewhere that you can refer them to dropbox.

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blizeH

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That is a good idea, thank you - I could get almost another 16GB that way, which would take me nicely over the amount I actually require at the moment... but each time you refer someone, they need to install it on their PC. I would set up virtual machines etc using Linux distros (I guess that'd work?) but that seems a bit disingenuous to me... tempting as it is :D

Picasa is actually doing the job quite well, again, really impressed - but it keeps tagging me and other people in the bloody photos!

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+BudMan MVC

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  • MVC
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". I would set up virtual machines etc using Linux distros (I guess that'd work?)"

Not going to confirm or deny that ;) But if they catch it, they will remove the extra space. Yes they have to install to PC for it to work, more legit way is to just ask your friends to do it even if they don't understand what it is as a favor to you ;) This is not really cheating, they did install it - even if they don't use it and uninstall it later.

But look into the other methods of getting more space.. I love the quests they do!! Fun time trying to solve the puzzles, but they only run those once a year. keep an eye on their forums for info, etc. Also if you watch their forums and run exp builds they do run specials sometime giving away free space to those that test stuff.

Samsung + Dropbox Samsung promotion (expires 7/19/2014) 7 weeks ago 48 GB

Dropquest 2012 Dropquest 2012 step 24 4 months ago 200 MB

Dropquest 2012 Dropquest 2012 step 20 4 months ago 175 MB

Dropquest 2012 Dropquest 2012 step 18 4 months ago 150 MB

Dropquest 2012 Dropquest 2012 step 16 4 months ago 125 MB

Dropquest 2012 Dropquest 2012 step 13 4 months ago 125 MB

Dropquest 2012 Dropquest 2012 step 9 4 months ago 100 MB

Dropquest 2012 Dropquest 2012 step 7 4 months ago 75 MB

Dropquest 2012 Dropquest 2012 step 2 4 months ago 50 MB

Camera Uploads Bonuses for using Camera Uploads 6 months ago 5 GB

Dropquest 2011 Thanks for playing! 1 year ago 1 GB

Simple Tasks Linking with Facebook 7 months ago 125 MB

Simple Tasks Posting <3 to Twitter 7 months ago 125 MB

Simple Tasks Linking with Twitter 7 months ago 125 MB

Simple Tasks Follow @Dropbox on Twitter 7 months ago 125 MB

etc.. etc...

Total space earned 69.35 GB

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blizeH

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Thanks Bud, I've just done some of those and now have just over 8GB! :-) Will keep an eye out for the Dropquests, and try to refer people if possible. Ideally I want around 15GB to allow for extra photos (which I will undoubtably take) and also for the fact that I actually find Dropbox really quite useful. Loving that Samsung promotion by the way, 48GB! Amazing.

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+BudMan MVC

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  • MVC
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If you buy or know anyone that buys a htc or samsung you can get it.. My son got the new S3 and he doesn't really use dropbox, so I logged in with my account first and shazam 48GB added, and get to keep like 3GB after the 2 years. Then just remove my account from the phone and he set up his ;)

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blizeH

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One thing I have just tried, and _so far_ have been really impressed with, is Picasa - I only installed it last night to help me find duplicates on my machine (though eventually opted for VisiPics thanks to the recommendations on here), but then discovered you can sync all of your folders with Google+, which has unlimited space, and I've literally just grabbed the iPhone app and it's a genuinely fantastic - it almost seems to good to be true though, so I shall continue to build my Dropbox allowance where possible :D

Ah, unfortunately I was right - it was too good to be true! They seem to have *really* strict rules with regards to max picture size when uploading, so I hit the 1GB limit really quickly.

I've managed to get my Dropbox limit to just 10GB now, not quite enough but almost there, but annoyingly Dropbox feels *really* clunky and slow compared to the Google+ interface now...

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Grand Master

ultimate99

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^ yeah synctoy going to work great on the macbook and ipad and iphone :rolleyes:

How long have you been using dropbox? Have you played the last 2 dropquests? That would of been 2GB, did you do the beta for uploading movies/photos - that was like 5GB I think, maybe 3 after first testers. You can get extra space for tie to twitter and fb, then you can just remove the ties.

They give you 500GB for referrals now.. Its pretty easy to get +10GB to be honest.

Where, what's that?

also, FB and twitter will give you only 125mb. :/

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