
Strongsync – Host your own Dropbox using only SFTP or S3 - hemancuso
http://www.expandrive.com/strongsync
======
comice
I'm a big fan of git-annex. [http://git-annex.branchable.com/](http://git-
annex.branchable.com/)

A bit fiddlier but very powerful. Supports S3, Glacier, tahoe-lafs, box.com,
google drive, google cloud storage, mega.co.nz, skydrive, owncloud, Flickr,
IMAP and Usenet!

Claims not to be a Dropbox clone - but overlaps the problem space somewhat :)

~~~
rsync
We (rsync.net) are big fans of git-annex[1] as well, but we are more than
happy to support all of the above.

That's what's nice about this new software from expandrive - it works over
plain old SFTP.

I'd like to see about a mixed use dropbox clone - where some (expert) users
access it with either git-annex or the git+encfs method[1] and other users
access it with this new tool from expandrive.

Remember to ask about our "HN Readers" discount ...

[1]
[https://raymii.org/s/articles/Set_up_your_own_truly_secure_e...](https://raymii.org/s/articles/Set_up_your_own_truly_secure_encrypted_shared_storage_aka_Dropbox_clone.html)

EDIT: actually simultaneously hosting strongsync and git+encfs users would be
difficult since strongsync couldn't handle the encfs aspect of it, but I think
we'll still test out a simultaneous git-annex / strongsync model ...

~~~
comice
I've been using owncloud a bit lately, on my phone too. Not entirely satisfied
with it I must admit, but seems to show some promise.

p.s: I'm amused how last time you replied to one of my comments you were being
critical of how I was promoting my business on HN, heh. Your satirical powers
are strong my friend! ;)

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plusbryan
After purchasing Expandrive and then discovering that it isn't compatible with
Amazon AWS's IAM credentialing due to a bug, I'm reticent to try yet another
product from these guys. Their response when I reported the bug and asked when
it would be fixed: "Not yet, sorry! About to release a new product, things are
very hectic. We'll have it fixed soon though." That was October and I suppose
this is the new product that was holding up the bug fix.

~~~
hemancuso
That was fixed a month or two ago, run the auto updater! :) If it fails for
you, there must be some other issue, ping us again if that is the case.

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fraXis
How well was this beta tested?

I noticed the introductory price is only good until the end of the year which
is less than two weeks away. Not a lot of time to play with it before the
price increases.

I feel it would be better to have a public beta (instead of a trial) to work
out all of the kinks first. I remember the problems with the early versions of
Dropbox when it was first released.

~~~
hemancuso
It soft launched 2 months ago and has been banged against publicly for a
while.

~~~
fraXis
I am a paid customer of ExpanDrive and never received any notification about
this software being soft launched or tested. Probably would of been a good
idea to soft launch to all paid ExpanDrive users to help with testing.

After installing the software, I got a 404 link when the installer tried to
open a page.

[http://www.expandrive.com/stronsync/welcome](http://www.expandrive.com/stronsync/welcome)

404 Not Found What you are looking for is not here

~~~
hemancuso
Both of those issues have been rectified!

~~~
adamcanady
FYI Still seeing the 404 now.

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bumpa
Very beta-like (or even pre-beta), bad looking version. In my 15minutes test
by just removing file from the local folder during sync I caused a full stop
for any sync operations. Restart didn't help, the only way to "fix" it was to
remove data store on SFTP side and re-connect clients. Sync speed is low
(seems to be limited to something around 3MB/s, on LAN). All operations seem
to be sequential. Integration with Finder just a joke, most time it doesn't
refresh green/orange badge automatically. From time to time client shows odd
messages like "over limit, upgrade plan" (what limit?, what plan?). In my
opinion - doesn't worth any money yet. I'll stay with btsync for sync and
seafile for dropbox-like.

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dvanduzer
I'm pro- paying for software, but...

Has anyone used this and maybe found it's easier to set up than
SparkleShare[0]? Maybe their deduplication technology beats git?

[0][http://sparkleshare.org](http://sparkleshare.org)

~~~
sreitshamer
I'd say Strongsync is easier to set up because there's no server to set up (if
you use S3). SparkleShare requires a remote git repository on a server
somewhere.

~~~
davidcollantes
Github, Bitbucket, Gitorius, Planio... or your own server (very simple setup).
Setting up Sparkleshare is simple.

------
rodolphoarruda
My suggestion to developers of such tools: whenever you make S3 an option, try
to also include Glacier. I think it's good for the market to start
understanding the difference between those two types of backup and their
respective values. We should start breaking the old paradigm of "having as
many copies as we can of the same thing saved in different places".

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mynegation
So what would be the advantage over Dropbox? Storage price? It is not a big
issue for me personally.

Basically what I want is the Dropbox clone with client side encryption, with
open-source client that is able to work either with proprietary servers or
(better yet), open-source server and/or with S3 and other backends.

Edit: I'll check out SparkleShare!

~~~
hemancuso
Client side encryption is coming [in beta] soon.

~~~
bad_user
You can do client-side encryption with Dropbox or Google Drive, nothing is
stopping you from doing it.

I have an encrypted EncFS volume that I keep in Google Drive and it has been
working really well, being synced between 3 computers. I'm on Ubuntu and in
Ubuntu it's easy to create an Encfs volume with the Gnome Encfs Manager. Just
make sure you pick a strong encryption password.

What I like about this approach is that I don't want all files to be
encrypted, only my documents, certificates, licenses and so on. But I don't
want to encrypt the PDFs in my technical books collection, because I want
those PDFs to be accessible from anywhere. I also have an iPad for example, I
use the GDrive client to download the PDFs and open it in Adobe's Reader.

Therefore I have two problems with alternatives to well established cloud
storage, like Dropbox and GDrive:

\- hosting your files on S3 or on some instance somewhere costs more \- I need
clients for Linux (workstation), OS X (workstation), Windows (my wife),
Android (my phone) and iPad (my ebook reader)

------
drzaiusapelord
Any advantages over the mature and feature rich FOSS Pydio project? I have two
installs of this at work and people seem to like it. I disabled more than a
few plugins to keep it simpler for end users, but its a great little piece of
software.

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api
I hope this works well... I'd gladly pay for a Dropbox-like sync that syncs to
my own servers. I know there's a git-based alternative out there but it has
some issues and is much slower than Dropbox.

------
davidcollantes
Downloaded it, installed it. Added a file to test. Saw the objects being
created on S3. Deleted the file, sync done. All objects are left behind.

How (and/or) when do they get deleted?

------
adamcanady
I'm an ownCloud [1] user. It's free, open source, and pretty easy to set up.

[1] [http://owncloud.org/](http://owncloud.org/)

------
thebananafish
why not use unison
[http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/](http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/)

~~~
mynegation
Probably because it is not actively developed anymore and does not support S3
and all these wonderful backends promised on their page (like Rackspace
CloudFiles)

------
19999hz
Meh. Plugging for ownCloud. (owncloud.org)

------
shootaray
For sparkle, how does the client work? Is it installed on the machine and then
uses git to pull differences?

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msh
No mobile client makes it a non starter for me. Mobile access is one of my
main use cases for Dropbox.

~~~
keehun
But the point is it's over SSH/SFTP/S3 where you presumably have other (plain)
ways of accessing it.

~~~
msh
Good point, didn't think of that.

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Spooky23
More details needed. How does dedup work? How is data encrypted at rest, etc.

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dz0ny
Available For Mac and Windows Linux available early 2013 :>

~~~
hemancuso
Oops.

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ccleve
How is Strongsync different from Expandrive?

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user24
Should have called it Strongbox.

------
ccleve
The windows download link 404s.

~~~
hemancuso
fixed, was updating

