

How we use BitTorrent to improve our design sharing workflow - sgottit
https://medium.com/look-what-i-made/5ee6ae2b1dcc

======
livnev
Note that the author seems to misunderstand a few things about BitTorrent
sync:

1\. Firstly, Btsync is not open-source (unfortunately), as he claims. [1]

2\. 24-hour secrets don't give someone read access for 24 hours. They must be
redeemed within 24 hours after creation, but if they are redeemed on time they
become permanent read-only secrets.

[1] - Answered in these threads: [http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/8816-will-
syncapp-be-open-...](http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/8816-will-syncapp-be-
open-source/) [http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/17782-bittorrent-sync-
faq-...](http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/17782-bittorrent-sync-faq-
unofficial/)

~~~
sgottit
Ah my bad – I've corrected the open source claim and I'll reword about the 24
hr secrets. Thanks.

------
terhechte
There's git-annex for git with big files: <http://git-annex.branchable.com/>

"git-annex allows managing files with git, without checking the file contents
into git. While that may seem paradoxical, it is useful when dealing with
files larger than git can currently easily handle, whether due to limitations
in memory, time, or disk space."

and

"The git-annex assistant creates a folder on each of your computers, Android
devices, removable drives, and cloud services, which it keeps synchronised, so
its contents are the same everywhere. It's very easy to use, and has all the
power of git and git-annex."

------
robmil
I was hoping this was going to be something where the files themselves were
distributed so that they didn't take up space on everyone's machines, a la
MogileFS[1], but alas.

This is always a point of pain for us: in our studios we work from a central
file server, so our shiny iMacs with their 1TB drives all have about 90%
capacity on them — but we don't have any easy way to pool all that extra
capacity and use it even as overflow for our central fileserver.

The search continues...

[1]: <https://code.google.com/p/mogilefs/>

~~~
icebraining
That's what git-annex is for. Everyone has a list of all the files, and then
if you want to access one, you can just do "git annex get [file]" and it'll
get it from any of the machines that happen to have that file. If you want to
delete it, "git annex drop [file]" will ensure at least N machines keep a copy
of the file before deleting it.

I use it to manage files between my VPS, desktop, laptop and NAS, with each
machine having a different subset of the whole pool, and it works great.

~~~
robmil
Is there any way to get around the fact that adding a new machine involves
adding N*2 remotes? (That is, one remote on each of the current machines to
represent the new one; and then on the new machine, one remote for each
existing machine). This seems like it would be the sticking point with Git
annex.

~~~
icebraining
That's what the new Assistant (now part of git-annex) is for!

 _Tons of pairing work, which culminated today in pairing fully working for
the very first time. And it works great! Type something like "my hovercraft is
full of eels" into two git annex webapps on the same LAN and the two will find
each other, automatically set up ssh keys, and sync up, like magic. Magic
based on math._

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeyh/git-annex-
assistan...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeyh/git-annex-assistant-
like-dropbox-but-with-your-own/)

[http://git-annex.branchable.com/assistant/local_pairing_walk...](http://git-
annex.branchable.com/assistant/local_pairing_walkthrough/)

------
GBiT
Congrats on using bitorrent for syncing files. You need at least RAID1 setup
to don't lose information. Never use only one hdd.

------
peterejhamilton
How does this handle a situation where multiple designers edit large files at
roughly the same time?

~~~
freijus
I also always wondered if there was some version control system for pictures.

~~~
digitalengineer
There are a few, one by adobe that comes free with the Creative Suite. Some
are integrated in Photoshop with a clever UI:
[http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/the-ultimate-
guid...](http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/the-ultimate-guide-to-
version-control-for-designers/)

------
shacharz
If you want to transfer a big file easily without the need to upload it to a
server <http://www.sharefest.me> does the trick. bit-torrent like service but
instant and without any client.

~~~
StavrosK
That looks pretty slick. There was a static HTML version I could host on my
site, do you know if this does that? I don't want my files going through any
third parties.

~~~
shacharz
Not sure what you mean there, but if you want to share files you can use this
platform. If you want to hose your own version of sharefest the open source is
in github.com/peer5/sharefest

~~~
StavrosK
Thanks, I meant I didn't want to have to run the node.js server, but I see
it's only used for STUN/negotiation. Thanks for your reply.

------
tuananh
" not to mention it means everyone who wants access needs to commit to losing
1TB of space on their hard drive."

Dropbox has selective sync for years already, doesn't it?

~~~
dagw
Yup, but for some reason most people don't seem to know about it. They could
set up a shared top level project directory with sub directories for each
aspect of the project and then people only need to sync the stuff relevant to
them.

------
rodolphoarruda
OP mentions this app "Arq" for AWS S3/Glacier backups. Does anyone know a
similar app for Linux?

~~~
bryanlarsen
dschep is dead for some reason, so copying & pasting his answer so all can
see:

Duplicity[0] supports it through a boto[1] backend. [0]
<http://duplicity.nongnu.org> [1] <https://github.com/boto/boto>

------
skimmas
IMHO btSync is a great ideia but the use of random ports makes hard to use in
some setups.

~~~
babas
You can set the port in the configuration:

[http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync/get-
started.html...](http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync/get-
started.html#app-preferences)

The closed source nature of Bitorrent Sync is biggest drawback IMHO. But I
guess FOSS clones are on their way. The bit torrent protocol in itself is very
well known after all.

