

Replacing Dropbox with BitTorrent Sync - ingve
http://jeff.noxon.cc/2014/10/28/replacing-dropbox-with-bittorrent-sync/

======
joshstrange
My experience with BTSync was not a very good one. If you try to sync a large
number of folders (As in each folder as it's own share) then it eats up a ton
of CPU/RAM. It wouldn't be as big of a deal but with the lack of selective
sync that was the only way that I could implement my own selective sync.

The other big hangup I had was I want to be able to browse my data from my
phone but not keep a full copy of it there which is impossible with BTSync.

Lastly I find their attempt to act "Open" laughable. The source is closed with
vague hints that they might open it at some point and to use the API you have
to REGISTER with them. To control software running on your personal machine
from your personal machine you have to get an API from them. I am at a
complete loss as to why this is needed.

I will not be using BTSync again and have been recently looking at Pulse
(previously Syncthing) [0].

[0] [https://ind.ie/pulse/](https://ind.ie/pulse/)

~~~
pdx
I really want to like syncthing. The problems I have had with it are..

1) Difficult to set up as a service on Windows, so you don't have a command
window in your task bar all the time. I want this thing to be fire and forget,
not in my face all the time and setting it up on all my PC's, my wife's PC's
and my kids PC's, I don't want a lot of extra steps and 3rd party solutions
just to get SyncThing to be a service.

2) I had some CPU hogging issues on my Ubuntu boxes that forced me to disable
it.

I did not know they changed their name to Pulse. That explains why I'm getting
email from a Pulse mailing list suddenly.

~~~
Shish2k
I've been using SyncthingTray for keeping syncthing's GUI footprint to a
minimum, it seems to work quite nicely: [https://pulse-
forum.ind.ie/t/syncthingtray-for-windows/586](https://pulse-
forum.ind.ie/t/syncthingtray-for-windows/586)

------
baldfat
I use BTSync and I love it.

BUT BTSync is an Orange to the Apple of Dropbox and company. Dropbox and such
is CLOUD BASED. BTSync is DRIVE BASED AKA you can't log onto some web page and
get your files.

My Likes:

1) I have 4 work computers 2 personal computers and 2 laptops with BTS and it
works great.

2) I just share folders based on my 6+ year old file server structure. All my
file are available with whatever file structure I want on any of my devices.

3) Syncing my pictures from my desktop to file server is automatic and FAST on
my local server.

4) My mobile devices I can pick and choice what files I want and download into
any folder I want. (I have podcast available only on YouTube. I download the
audio and store it into my podcast folder. Those files are automatically sync
to my podcast program and are avilable. If I have a ton of books I can pick
and choice what book and store it into any reader app (Amazon, Google, etc))

5) Super simple sharing of massive video files for editing. I have a friend I
help with some video edit and audio processing. I have a raw and a cleaned
folder and I just place the finished files in my cleaned folder and they go
ONLY to my client's computer directly and not some website. Awesome way is
that the raw is read-only on my side and cleaned is read-only on his side.
That way it is clear who did what and mistakes (Which always happen) are
clearly under the control of each side.

~~~
bjitty
I have to agree. I've been using it a while and really like it as well. I
agree with what others have said I wish it was open source. I haven't found
anything that works as well as it does.

I use SpiderOak for all my cloud backups. I've been using BTSync to keep my
cell phone photos backed up to my desktop and then that folder gets backed up
to SpiderOak. So far it has been working well.

------
biomene
> There’s Box, OneDrive, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, Bitcasa, SpiderOak,
> Wuala, Transporter, and I’ve missed a bunch. It doesn’t matter because
> they’re all pretty bad, and nearly all have the same problem, which is that
> any data you upload can be decrypted by the provider. In the event of a bug
> or a breach, anyone could have access to your files.

Both Wuala and SpiderOak do end-to-end encryption, so this statement doesn't
apply to them. All their servers ever see is encrypted blobs.

Wuala seems to be the only encrypted file sync service that does team sharing
though, which is a requirement for me. Does anyone know any alternatives?

~~~
davedx
Yup. I've been using SpiderOak since Condoleezza Rice joined Dropbox, and it
works fine as a drop-in replacement for Dropbox, at least for my personal
files.

------
qznc
Without the code being Open Source, I consider the "encrypted" feature
incomplete.

------
ancarda
>it’s different and better

I'm a huge fan of (the idea of) BitTorrent Sync but it's very bad software.
Very early on I tried it and found it would eat my files sometimes (lost,
corrupt or old versions). Recently, hearing it's now in stable I gave it a
shot. I lost files again. If it works for you fine but I've found it to be
very buggy.

------
de_dave
I'm almost certainly an edge case, I just migrated _off_ BTSync. I was using
it to automatically back up my docs/code/photos etc from my laptop to my low-
power NAS, but the CPU overhead was just not worth it. (NAS was frequently
pegged at 100% CPU dealing solely with BTSync).

Switched to using lsyncd instead, and works a treat!

That said, BTSync was fantastic when it worked, and Syncthing looks incredibly
promising, too.

~~~
domainkiller
I've currently (slowly) migrating from Dropbox and BTSync to Syncthing. I'd
say you might have a glitch in the matrix if BTSync is running that high
without any active transfers.

~~~
0x5f3759df-i
I'm completely switched over to Syncthing/Pulse or whatever they're calling it
now. I have no trust for a proprietary "cloud" with my data.

~~~
de_dave
Would love it if Pulse had the option to encrypt the stored data (currently it
only encrypts during transmission), so it could be used on untrusted hosts.

~~~
eli
Yeah, definitely. It would be a lot easier to have multiple redundant copies
of my data if I didn't have to worry about securing each one.

It's one of the main reasons I picked Duplicity for backup.

------
drKarl
As other commenters already mentioned, BitTorrent Sync is closed source.

An alternative, open source, multi platform (even mobile) solution is Seafile.

~~~
mverwijs
No, that is not an alternative as Seafile is server-client, where as BTSync is
client-client (peer2peer).

syncthing.net is an alternative to BTSync.

------
Torgo
I am using btsync to handle saving android titanium backup backups off-phone
and to easily push podcasts from my personal server to my phone and every
other device. It also keeps my keepass synced between devices. It has solved
so many problems it's not even funny.

------
jasonpbecker
I have generally enjoyed using BT Sync since about June and haven't run into
some of the CPU problems other are mentioning. I use BTSync primarily for
files that I was never really comfortable leaving my machine-- paper I scan,
my work files, etc-- but would like to work on from multiple machines and have
multiple copies of.

However, I have had at least two cases where a file somehow didn't completely
sync and it was corrupted, totally unrecoverable. I am left feeling that
versioning is the killer Dropbox feature that BT will never replace. I'm not
sure what I'm going to do... I'm still using BTSync for a lot of stuff, but it
has lost its trust.

~~~
eli
I thought BTSync had an "archive" for previous versions. Or is that just
deleted files?

Either way, it seems like it'd be possible to add (at the expensive of
additional complexity and disk usage)

~~~
hobbes78
I believe there is an archive folder per machine, but it only stores files
replaced at that machine during 30 days...

------
ixwt
> and nearly all have the same problem, which is that any data you upload can
> be decrypted by the provider.

The author includes SpiderOak under this statement. Whilst I understand that
they can decrypt anything if you give them the password through their web
interface, I was under the assumption that this wasn't possible if you never
downloaded any of your files through their web interface.

Am I under a false assumption here? Is there something I am missing?

~~~
pyre
> The author includes SpiderOak under this statement

Is it really? From your own quote:

> and _nearly_ all have the same problem

(emphasis mine)

------
lazyant
"nearly all have the same problem, which is that any data you upload can be
decrypted by the provider". SpiderOak and Wuala do client-side encryption
iirc.

~~~
eli
I believe CrashPlan does too.

------
merlin83
I wrote a BTSync Docker ([https://github.com/merlin83/btsync-
docker.git](https://github.com/merlin83/btsync-docker.git)) a week or two ago
to help backup and synchronize some of data across several of my machines in
the cloud and behind a NAT.

The biggest benefit so far is that it just works, even for machines behind a
NAT.

------
IDrive
"...nearly all have the same problem, which is that any data you upload can be
decrypted by the provider. In the event of a bug or a breach, anyone could
have access to your files."

Hey folks. Thomas from IDrive Online Backup. We are of the few cloud services
which uses private key encryption so only the user can decrypt their data.

------
tormeh
>On my wishlist: Hosted plans for folks who need the always-on aspect of cloud
storage and can’t roll their own

What do you mean, can't roll their own? You can just leave an old PC with
BTSync on all the time. Problem solved.

~~~
Shish2k
And while we're at it, let's solve world hunger by getting all the people who
can't afford bread to eat cake instead :P

------
desireco42
I use BTSync, it just works, no need to worry about capacity any more, just
make sure I don't sync laptop with huge photos folder.

