
AeroFS - File Sync Without Servers - dli282
http://www.aerofs.com/
======
pilif
I'm using this for about 6 months now. It works exactly like Dropbox, but it
doesn't store any data on a central server, so I can use it even for my more
sensitive files like my ssh private key.

I have a server at home on which AeroFS is running, so my data generally is
available. And if my internet at home is down, usually there's another machine
where it's running.

As it's syncing and keeping the local copy, the most current data will be on
the machine I'm working on anyways.

The installation feels a bit "heavier" than dropbox which does a better job at
staying out of my way, but the advantages of next to unlimited storage and no
third-party server are huge for me.

~~~
buro9
I've got one of these NAS devices at home that is always on:
<http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=167>

I'd love to see installers made for a few of the NAS devices on the market for
this. It would solve the "must have another computer on" thing really well.

~~~
StavrosK
I've been using AeroFS in headless mode on my NAS as well, and it's worked
fine so far (the headless mode itself, I think there were a few bugs in
AeroFS).

I'll try it again now, however. If they nail the fundamentals down, it'll
replace Dropbox for me.

EDIT: Or do you mean custom NAS OSes? Mine just runs Ubuntu.

~~~
buro9
QNAP have some packaging stuff of their own, and make it simple to one-click
install and keep it updated.

<http://www.qnap.com/QPKG.asp>

I used to build my own SqueezeBox Server for years from source, but after a
while I just wanted it reasonably up to date, in a stable build, without the
hassle. I'd hope that AeroFS would be packaged in the same way so it's not
another thing on my list of things to maintain.

------
plusbryan
AeroFS isn't as refined as Dropbox, but the flexibility of cross-computer sync
makes it pretty ideal for large media storage. I have almost 200GB of photos,
and dropbox really wasn't an option for that. They release updates to the
product every few weeks, so it's getting better.

Gripes: 1- It's a lot chattier than dropbox. This could be a tradeoff for
being a distributed protocol, but it's something that dropbox seemed to
improve in over time as well. 2- Iffy compatibility with Lion: I often get
"AeroFS is already running" messages. 3- They recently added the needed
ability to change the location of the AeroFS Library, but I'd love to modify
the location of each Share in the Library. 4- This is likely beyond the
project's scope, but I'd love to be able to access my files without syncing in
a pinch. 5- Better activity view: Dropbox's menu icon changes to indicate
activity. I find this useful, so I can shut it off if my connection is slow.
AeroFS's icon doesn't change, and to view activity, you need to open
Preferences.

Positives: 1- Unrestricted size, great for large media libraries 2- Seems very
fast, especially over LAN 3- I love how you can set up multiple shares - one
for a workgroup, one for personal projects, and one for photos, and you can
sync those among any computers you want. 4- It makes offsite backup effortless
5- Auto-updates are great

~~~
yurisagalov
Hey Bryan, Your gripes haven't fallen on deaf ears :) The chatty protocol
feedback we've heard a few times, and we're doing our best to optimize it. The
Lion issues we'll investigate ASAP.

As for #3, That's actually a highly requested feature (see
<http://ae.ro/iUi6OZ>), so it's pretty high on our to do list

#4. We've thought about this for a while, not really sure yet how we will
implement it though.

#5. Working on that, as well, no ETA yet though :)

~~~
StavrosK
Regarding #3 (and probably #4), make sure they don't clutter your default UI
(maybe hide them behind a small button in preferences). There's a reason why
Dropbox is so popular, and it's because it's just a folder that syncs. You
might want to preserve that simplicity as much as you can in AeroFS too.

~~~
baxter
Since up votes are hidden now, just want to make it clear that I +1 this.

------
aquark
I've been using the beta for several months now and it has worked great across
a variety of Windows and Mac machines.

For things like music and photos where I have 40+GB of accumulated bits it
feels a better option than a straight cloud based system like DropBox or
JungleDisk (which I also use, but for a smaller amount of stuff).

I have a number of machines with many GB of spare disk space, so rather than
paying monthly storage fees for back up, I can just use this to replicate
rarely changing content. Since machines on the local network sync at LAN
speeds it is also very fast in the usual case.

~~~
icebraining
>Since machines on the local network sync at LAN speeds it is also very fast
in the usual case.

On a LAN, I don't really see the advantages over something like FreeFileSync,
which is GPL'd.

Over the 'net, locating the machine and performing NAT traversal can be
useful, though, especially for people behind ISP NAT.

~~~
roel_v
"On a LAN, I don't really see the advantages over something like FreeFileSync,
which is GPL'd."

AeroFS is not a 'copy diffs' tool, it's like dropbox - changes are propagated
instantly and automatically, in all directions. Yes you can run a cron job
syncing every 2 minutes or whatever but that still doesn't do syncs to many
machines, it means you need to keep the machine with the cron job always on
etc. So no, AeroFS/Dropbox are not like FreeFileSync or Cobian Backup or rsync
or SyncToy or anything like that.

------
yurisagalov
Good morning everyone, I'm one of the co-founders of AeroFS. I'll be here the
rest of the day answering questions as they come up, if anyone has them.
Otherwise, feel free to either chat with me on the website, and/or through
support@aerofs.com :-)

~~~
roel_v
I got an invite yesterday and I'm trying it out, one thing you could make more
clear on the website is for what purposes it does connect to the central
server. I had to enter a username/password so it must be doing some
communication with your servers, no? Otherwise, how does it find other
computers that are connected to the account? And if your service goes away,
would I be unable to add new machines to my 'sync network'?

~~~
yurisagalov
This actually used to be such a common question that we wrote a support
article about it :) See <http://ae.ro/jnqNyw> for more info

(edit: wrong link before, my bad)

~~~
roel_v
Sorry, didn't look hard enough then, thanks :)

------
jb55
I was using this for awhile but the sync algorithm is retarded. It spent all
of its time syncing gigs of meta data and saturating my upload rate. Also be
prepared to make room for the 100mb+ process as it does not seem to care about
memory efficiency.

I guess I'm still stuck with rsync and cronjobs until they work out the
issues.

~~~
sliverstorm
Indeed. Prepare to wait hours for newly added files to be synced, prepare for
immense memory footprints, prepare for the worst conflict resolution you've
ever seen.

------
callahad
One day, I will love AeroFS. But that day is not yet today: AeroFS does not
preserve file modification times across clients, which kills it for me.

On the bright side, I finally got around to setting up Unison + cron to keep
files in sync between my MacBook Air and my MacBook Pro, and it's working
quite well. I'd highly recommend it to anyone facing a similar challenge.

~~~
erikcw
I had read awhile back that Unison does not preserve HFS+'s extended
attributes. Has that changed in a recent version?

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kenjackson
This sounds very similar to Microsoft's LiveMesh. Besides that fact that it's
not Microsoft, what are the big differences in functionality or usability (or
is it totally different)?

~~~
Splines
This is exactly what I use Live Mesh for. I sync 10s of gigs of photos between
remote PCs with it.

The only thing I don't like about Live Mesh is that it's very difficult to
tell what it's transferring and how long it's taking. It works, but I wouldn't
be able to tell you "it'll be another 20 minutes before it's done".

How does AeroFS stack up here?

~~~
lloeki
There's a window with a list of current transfers with progress, speed and an
ETA per transfer, but no global ETA (yet).

------
tryp
This looks very interesting, but the it's a bit difficult to figure out what
it actually is from the website. My impression is that it's like a more
featureful take on Unison ("two-way rsync" iirc) with a central server to
facilitate NAT traversal.

I suppose they probably haven't figured out their eventual pricing model, but
I'd certainly pay a few bucks a month just for coordinating NAT traversal,
papering over dynamic IPs and a web interface to set sync policy. For the most
part, when my computers are sync'd peer-to-peer, I really don't need or want a
copy of my data in the cloud -- my boxes _are_ the cloud. That means that
their typical incremental cost per user would be practically zero.

~~~
pge
it looks like they ultimately will charge for cloud backup (just like
dropbox). As you note, the incremental cost of user is zero, so they don't
incur a cost by distributing lots of client applications (unlike dropbox, who
incurs costs for free customers that use the <2GB plan). it will be
interesting to see if dropbox responds. I like the model aerofs proposes. I'm
a dropbox user but I use it entirely for the file syncing across three
machines - I've only once used the web access to my files (i.e. only once used
the cloud storage that aerofs would not provide). If AeroFS has the same
usability as dropbox, I would switch to get more storage for free.

~~~
nroach
I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned the lack of a web interface. I've
been using AeroFS and Dropbox heavily but haven't felt that I'm at the point
where I could give either one up completely. Dropbox is too costly for syncing
everything on my drives and I'd prefer not to have sensitive documents on
someone else's server.

But, AeroFS requires a client installation and sync to get any access. I've
used the Dropbox web interface and iPhone app numerous times to look up a file
or reference when I was away from the office. Sure, I could set up a web
interface on my desktop as an alternative, but that's not end-user simple.
It's also a problem in that, at least on OSX, changes made my system-level
processes (such as file sharing) don't always register as modification in the
File System Event Database, and thus don't get synced.

------
mgw
Beautiful homepage but there is an extra word in the paragraph "Unlimited
Storage": "AeroFS lets you can sync all the data"

Also I don't fully understand the product from just the first page. Who is
your target audience?

~~~
robterrell
The "unlimited storage" thing threw me. If I understand it correctly, it's
limited by the free storage I have to use.

"Your computer quite possibly has hundreds of gigabytes of space..." actually,
no. Yes, I have a desktop with hundreds of GB free, but my laptop fights with
me every day to keep 10-20 GB free. In that case, I think a network file share
makes more sense.

Aside from the confusion marketing, I like it. Definitely looks like a
potentially nice, secure Dropbox replacement.

~~~
mtogo
It is unlimited, as they do not place a limit on it.

------
alexro
I see it more suitable for techies than normals. For instance I can't imagine
explaining to my wife or sister that their files won't sync and they can lose
something if the other machine went offline but when it came back they have
already switched off the first one :(

~~~
lloeki
Yes that one can be tough to explain, especially after the Dropbox "magic".
Still it's a very valid use case that clearly highlights the tradeoff between
_"in the cloud, so always available, but at a monetary and potentially privacy
price"_ and _"not in the cloud, so as unrestricted free and secure as you make
it, but needs a reachable peer"_.

It's not as fire-and-forget as Dropbox so I don't see everyone using AeroFS,
but there are quite a bunch of non-techies that can get it and could be very
interested in such features.

------
scrrr
Is there a command-line client? I'd like to install that on a server via ssh
and use it as a middle-man storage so I don't have to always have at least 2
computers running to sync.

~~~
StavrosK
There is, yes. There's also a headless daemon.

------
ArbitraryLimits
I guess I'm just old school, but my solution to this problem has been a 250 GB
external drive + CVS for all my files. I've been doing it for years and it
works great. Every time I leave a machine, it's just 'cvs commit -m "Leaving
home/work/library/Starbucks"'. Once you get past the perverse feeling of
checking your music library into CVS, it works fine.

~~~
gcr
I'm curious; why CVS instead of something nicer like git (or mercurial, which
has good windows support)?

~~~
ArbitraryLimits
My sibling commenter is giving me too much credit - I started before git came
along, so it was either CVS or SVN. I wanted to be able to kill directories
directly from the repository, so CVS it was.

------
jmspring
AeroFS looks like an interesting service, I remember reading the earlier entry
about them and their blog (i think it was on posterous at the time).

It reminded me of two projects --

Wuala which allowed seemless syncing between machines, as well as donating
storage to gain the benefit of "cloud storage" for your files. They eventually
went the route of offering storage space and got bought by Lacie.

The second is much older (mid/earlyish 90s) that had the same p2p based donate
space on your drive and fragments of your files will be stored on other
connected machines.

The sharing and other similar features will be interesting to see how those
are implemented.

~~~
evgen
_The second is much older (mid/earlyish 90s) that had the same p2p based
donate space on your drive and fragments of your files will be stored on other
connected machines._

I think you are thinking of MojoNation, which died and forked off several sub-
projects/companies based on its original codebase: Allmydata was just like
Wuala but five or six years earlier that never gained any traction and now
lives on in the Tahoe-LAFS project, and BitTorrent (which you have probably
heard of...)

------
rmorrison
Our whole company has been using AeroFS exclusively for our network drives,
and it's worked extremely well! It's great because we can share files of any
size, and it seamlessly updates between all machines.

~~~
plusbryan
Us as well. We have it installed on a central mac mini, and each client has a
copy. It's a lot better than DropBox's current team solution, which forces you
to dump your personal dropbox account.

------
DEinspanjer
Anyone know if it supports lazy syncing? i.e. if I have a big beefy server
with a couple hundred gigs of media, and I would like to be able to access
individual files occasionally from my small laptop, am I forced to sync
everything over because the folder is shared?

~~~
plusbryan
AFAIK, right now, this is not supported. You can have multiple shares/folders
though, so it's closer to this than say, Dropbox.

~~~
yurisagalov
Bryan is right. Right now we support selectively syncing independent shares.
So if you had a "music" library, and a "workgroup" library, you could sync
either the music library, or the workgroup library, or both (or neither), but
that's as fine granularity as we allow today.

------
BuddhaSource
I am using it as well ... really fast & light weight :) \- If you are in work
environment, updates happen almost real time across your team.

Only if they had option to have different path for each libraries.

~~~
nifoc
I would like to try it out, but it looks like somebody has to invite me. Could
you maybe do that? Thanks in advance! (daniel.kempkens[ät]gmail.com)

------
rmc
I see they have a Linux version. Is it Open Source?

~~~
iam
The biggest problem I have with centralized servers in the first place is that
I don't trust my data with them. If it was decentralized and open source,
that's an app I could see myself using.

Closed source = no good for privacy.

~~~
nroach
I think that AeroFS only uses central servers to identify the IP addresses of
participating hosts and negotiate a connection. AFAIK, the actual data flows
directly peer to peer. So, even a malicious employee or government snoop would
only know the IP of swarm participants. Presumably you'd still need to
intercept and crack any encryption between nodes.

~~~
iam
That's not the problem, the app being closed source and being able to do
whatever it wants with my data is the problem.

------
kragen
Echoing joelthelion, I wonder: is this just a service selling you access to
Tahoe-LAFS? If so, wouldn't it make more sense to just install Tahoe yourself
instead of paying them and worrying about whether their version of the code is
less secure than the publicly audited version?

(Actually, even if not. Why would you pay someone to have access to your own
files on your own computer?)

~~~
nl
_is this just a service selling you access to Tahoe-LAFS?_

No. Tahoe-LAFS is very different (access is only over HTTP for a start)

 _Why would you pay someone to have access to your own files on your own
computer?_

Ignoring the whole free-to-use-on-your-computer-but-we'll-sell-you-cloud-
backup model, there is always the old fashioned you-pay-us-for-the-software
model.

------
phishphood
love it, love it, love it. Please don't go out of business :) Related to going
out of business - I'd like to start paying something monthly to support,
please add that option

------
flocial
git annex might be of interest to some:

<http://git-annex.branchable.com/>

[http://julien.danjou.info/blog/2011.html#Handling_my_music_c...](http://julien.danjou.info/blog/2011.html#Handling_my_music_collection_with_git-
annex)

------
shadowhillway
There's a nice big "Download Now" button that leads to a "Sign Up for an
Invite" page that says "as soon as we can". That button causes the expectation
that I would download something immediately so it's disappointing and
discourteous when that's not the case.

------
atourgates
I can't figure out if at allows seeding backups.

E.g. - backing up your first massive backup locally using an external drive,
then moving it physically offsite and beginning the sync online.

That seems like a fantastic feature to me. That way, instead of having - say -
a photo library on each of my laptops - I can have a single photo library at a
remote location on an external hard drive that's constantly synched with new
photos, without the need to upload hundreds of GB in an initial seed.

Plus - of course - being able to access any of my photos from anywhere.

Crashplan offers something similar - but it's purely a backup solution - and
doesn't make your files "cloud-like" accessible.

~~~
plusbryan
I believe so. My photos on two drives were about 3 months out of sync and and
it seemed to only sync those that were missing.

------
samarudge
Theory is great, BUT if it isn't storing anything, then at least one
device/computer with an up-to-date version of the folder must be online at all
times. Is that correct? If not how does it sync without storing the data
remotely?

~~~
jbellis
You sync only when both sides are up.

~~~
samarudge
See that seems like a bit of a downside to me, I like being able to pull down
things from my Sparkleshare server onto my laptop when I'm out, but I don't
have my computer on all the time (Infact, most of the time, when my laptop is
on my computer is off and vice-versa). I still think it's a great idea but
having some cloud storage is a definate plus.

~~~
icebraining
Seems like you could use a decent router with USB storage support ;)

~~~
samarudge
Like I say, I use Sparkleshare instead of Dropbox and also have a Drobo for
central storage, this isn't something I want to do because I can already do
it, I was just pointing out it could be a problem for some people

------
mike-cardwell
I signed up for this ages ago. I tried it for a while, and then ditched it.
IIRC it didn't have support for one of my operating systems at the time. My
requirements have changed now, and it's been a while, so I just went to the
website to download the app again, and I can't find it anywhere. The download
link just goes to an invite page. I still have my credentials, but I can't log
in with them, because there is no login form. Or at least it is hidden...

------
dholowiski
It definitely looks cool. I assume when the cloud backup option is avaiailable
you can choose what to back up? Can you choose which folders are synched on a
folder-by-folder basis (since I don't need my 500GB photo library on my mac
laptop, but I do want it on y desktops)? Hopefully there is a version that
works on Windows Server 2008/2011? This would kick butt on the mac app store.
Invite requested...

~~~
pilif
I'm running this on a Windows Server 2008 (among other things) and it works
fine. (update: invites are gone)

------
jqueryin
I received my invite awhile back but was disappointed to find out they didn't
have support for my 64bit Linux box. Since I primarily run Linux, I was a bit
disappointed. I'm fully understanding, though, as I know my demographic by no
means has any kind of market share. Still, it would be a very nice additional
and would be the pre-cursor to me giving AeroFS a shot at home.

------
twodayslate
I have been using this for a while and am waiting for full Amazon S3 support,
versioning and backup/upload any file (not just in AeroFS folder). I liked how
I was able to talk to the creator the day I installed it. He seemed very
optimistic. I see a lot of potential in this but as of right now dropbox has
it beat. I am looking forward to more updated (soon!)

------
joelthelion
I wonder if it uses Tahoe-LAFS behind the scenes?

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nicolas314
Not sure I understand how sync works when the same file is being edited from
multiple places simultaneously. Who wins? Any pointer appreciated.

Totally unrelated: how do you pronounce aerofs? If I try to say it in French
it either comes out as "erofesse" (erotic buttock) or "aerofesse" (flying
buttock). That will definitely win points with French-speakers :-)

------
perlgeek
So, what's the business model? You pay for "cloudy" backup space, but
otherwise it's free?

------
cmars
Can someone send me an invite please? I'd like to try this...

casey.marshall@gmail.com

~~~
iamichi
i'd like to try it as well if any of your could spare an invite please?

~~~
mikehearn
I'd also love to try it - if anyone has an extra invite, mind sending one to
hn@mikehearn.net?

~~~
Roritharr
I'd love an invite too... stumpfie@hotmail.de

------
andrewparker
I really want to try this out, but I'm concerned about conflicts or syncing
collisions with Dropbox. Has anyone tried a setup with both AeroFS and Dropbox
running simultaneously?

------
EGreg
Hey. What does this give me that I can't get from just having a mercurial
repository which has a bunch of clones and each clone pushes to the others
when something changes?

~~~
canadaduane
The other comments are quite explanatory--you should read them. What it gives
you is "instant" syncing between multiple computers, and without a centralized
online cloud (like Dropbox). So it's a good fit for: non techies who need
sync, or situations where you don't want to concern yourself with whether
you've synced your repo or not (it does it for you).

------
br41n
Looks nice but invite only so can't test it, help?! :)

~~~
pilif
next time when begging for invites, do make sure that people can contact you
privately via your profile :p

~~~
br41n
yeah forgot i didn't add any contact info :) well if you have any left please
send to magasesti@gmail.com thanks!

------
gmac
Isn't this the same thing as PowerFolder, which has been around a long while?

------
lean
So, it's Dropbox, but the Cloud part is optional?

~~~
will_lam
from what I understand, yes. The cloud part is the "upsell" I think.

------
kahawe
I think I missed something... basically it uses P2P instead of a central
server that copies my data but doesn't that mean I am sending possibly private
data all around the internet to other aero users, though encrypted?

Then isn't that the same situation we had in the DEFCON hacks: what keeps
people from recording all your traffic and one fine day when the encryption is
not secure anymore, they can simply decrypt it?

~~~
nasmorn
If you want to share your data over the internet you kinda need to send it out
at one time or another. This traffic can always be intercepted and stored for
later use.

What is your point exactly?

~~~
kahawe
You did not understand my question.

I was talking about the part where people use Aero for their personal backups
and syncing their own machines, not about sharing with other people.

With something like dropbox traffic goes between me and their servers and
whoever is listening in between there.

The way I understand it, with Aero it will go through P2P even if I am just
syncing my own machines since both are likely to be behind some sort of NAT or
firewall.

------
Peg-Leg
How is this different from Polkast ? (polkast.com)

------
cpr
If AeroFS is a big honkin' Java background app, I worry, because I worry about
the Java ecosystem itself. Who knows how long Oracle will keep it updated?
Will new versions of Java break the AeroFS daemon? And I just hate everything
Java (bias showing there).

(I suppose DropBox has the same issue with Python to some extent, but at least
Python can be fully embedded in an executable and bypass the system
environment questions.)

