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I've been using BitTorrent Sync for the past week. For the use case of sharing large files, it obliterates Dropbox, AeroFS, and Cubby.

It distributes the files intelligently and makes optimal use of everyone's bandwidth. Dropbox, for example, slowly uploads all files to the cloud before distributing them, plus there's the space issue. AeroFS allows unlimited space, but is far slower than my Internet and LAN speeds allow, and does things like trying to upload the same file, linearly, to every peer at once. Cubby has limited space and has the same slow syncing problems.

I'm running BitTorrent Sync on my 6 year old Windows 7 Thinkpad, a newer Windows 8 desktop, a Digital Ocean Ubuntu VPS, and a Synology DS110j NAS. It runs perfectly on all of the above, and provides a useful web interface for the VPS and NAS.



How does it handle scenarios where files were modified offline on two separate devices? Is it able to identify conflicts?


Look under "What if several people make changes to the same file?" http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/16410-bittorrent-sync-faq/


TL;DR - Last writer wins.


Well, that description totally sold me on BS. That's like everything I want.


Ouch, what an unfortunate acronym. Hopefully people will start using BTS instead.


If you already have a Synology box, what do you get with BS versus using Synology's own CloudStation? I've looked into BS, but I guess I'm not getting what I gain running it on my DS410.


I've never used CloudStation, but with respect to BitTorrent Sync, the DiskStation would be just another device that syncs the files. So the main benefit is that it acts as another backup / seeder for your private p2p network.


Ah, thanks. With CloudStation, the Synology is a central box to which all devices sync, as opposed to the p2p nature of BS.


This is the exact scenario I have in mind—syncing music and photos between two laptops and a Synology DS110j. Which binary did you use for the NAS?


I used the ARM binary. Log in to your NAS and use wget to download the binary, then execute it. That's it.




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