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Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync

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Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync

#22
post #2

It doesn't need to be a USB 3.0 drive. The RPi is USB 2.0 only.

I've stopped reading when he really recommended that you get a USB 3.0 drive to connect to a RPi :P

I kept reading expecting an explanation for this, but there isn't one. Does he understand the difference? Who knows.

The explanation of "every step of the build" is pretty limited too.

Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync

#24
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've stopped reading when he really recommended that you get a USB 3.0 drive to connect to a RPi :P

I kept reading expecting an explanation for this, but there isn't one. Does he understand the difference? Who knows. The explanation of "every step of the build" is pretty limited too.

I do understand this but what is wrong with recommending picking up a USB 3 external drive over USB 2? I doubt the Pi is the only device it will be used with.

Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync

#25
post #12
post #4

btsync is really nice, just install the software, no account creation needed, and if you just want to sync computers on a LAN, no internet connection needed. I was worried about btsync being closed source but when I looked at alternatives like dropbox and spideroak I noticed they weren't open either and you have to sign up for an account and give them personal information to get serious amounts of storage.

Everyone who's looking to run their own private Dropbox should check out ownCloud[1]. It's free, open source, you install it on your own server (or Raspberry Pi), and it's not P2P like BTsync is. It works more like Dropbox, with a centralized server. You just run that server yourself. They have apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. I've been using it for about two months now with no problems. [1] http://ownc…

OwnCloud is quite nice, but its Dropbox-like feature isn't his best asset. We have big shared folders and the client app does weird stuff sometimes (and given the way things are architected, I'm not confident it will change).

On the other hand, it gives you a nice web-based file browser, CardDav, CalDav, and a RSS webapp. And there's a basic iPhone app.

The approach posted somewhere else in the comments[0] seems interesting. Use BTSync for the synchronization, and put ownCloud over that for the web interface and other goodies. I'm tempted to experiment with that.

[0] http://blog.bittorrent.com/2013/05/23/how-i-created-my-own-p...

Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync

#26

I'm uncomfortable about the opacity of BTsync's privacy architecture. AFAIK even the protocol isn't documented. The code obviously isn't open source. I wouldn't use it sync anything except Truecrypt volumes. :)

This is the same issue I have with btsync, so about a month ago I started working on an open-source clone, with similar features but an open, documented protocol. https://github.com/jewel/clearskies

Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync

#27
post #7

Hi, I'm doing something similar, but instead of BTsync, I use ssh & unison/rsync. The remote pi calls back the main pi by ssh. The main pi uses this connection to sync files. So the remote pi can be behind a firewall and no issue. Im interesting in sharing the setup - and improving it, if anyone interested let me know. Im at padrone.nl

>unison

The forgotten gem.

It was a poster child for OCaml. Didn't get the attention it deserved.

Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync

#28
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've stopped reading when he really recommended that you get a USB 3.0 drive to connect to a RPi :P

I kept reading expecting an explanation for this, but there isn't one. Does he understand the difference? Who knows. The explanation of "every step of the build" is pretty limited too.

"I am still working on the best way to access the data without disconnecting the drive from the Raspberry Pi every time I want to add/remove something."

It sounds like he's putting the data on the USB drives from other computers, not from the RPi.

Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync

#29
I have done something similar, but used a Raspberry Pi and Seafile (http://seafile.com) instead of BTSync. I did not get the chance to test it with large media files, but works great for documents and photos. Also has mobile and cross platform clients.

And the best part is it's open-source: https://github.com/haiwen/seafile

Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync

#30
post #25
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who's looking to run their own private Dropbox should check out ownCloud[1]. It's free, open source, you install it on your own server (or Raspberry Pi), and it's not P2P like BTsync is. It works more like Dropbox, with a centralized server. You just run that server yourself. They have apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. I've been using it for about two months now with no problems. [1] http://ownc…

OwnCloud is quite nice, but its Dropbox-like feature isn't his best asset. We have big shared folders and the client app does weird stuff sometimes (and given the way things are architected, I'm not confident it will change). On the other hand, it gives you a nice web-based file browser, CardDav, CalDav, and a RSS webapp. And there's a basic iPhone app. The approach posted somewhere else in the comments[0] seems inte…

The CardDav and CalDav stuff was a hassle for me to make work. After the trial and error and googling, getting it set up myself, I pretty much had to grab each family member's mobile device or computer and punch in the magic codes. But once I had it going... It works! All of our calendar and contact data is available on each of our computers and we can share them easily.

And we own the data, not Apple.

I highly recommend owncloud.

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