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
with a 150Mbps wifi adapter
Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync
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Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync
#32How well does BTSync work in terms of a large team collaborating together? Dropbox has a habit of just working, with surprisingly few hiccups (none so far except during massive folder migrations). Does BTSync work that well with a team of 10? 20? 30? that work on the same set of documents (though not on the same document simultaneously, so no need for e.g. git).
Given that it's using the Bittorrent protocol (Basically) to handle the actual transfers, yes it will work; the issue you may run into is that there can be a lot of files and data available in the share and every client will try to download all files.
The challenge here is not data transfer, but interacting with the underlying filesystem well -- handling, say, one user saving a file while another is moving it into a subdirectory, or programs that save files by deleting and rewriting them (or writing a temporary file and then moving it), or similar. That's the real strength of Dropbox.
Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync
#33I tried this recently... it works well except with the mobile integration. I then purchased a TonidoPlug and things seemed to go much more smoothly.
Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync
#34I 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
I'm using Seafile with a VPS. I had the VPS anyway for other projects and it's great to be able to access my files from anywhere. I'm really impressed with Seafile's polish, too.
The only feature I miss is not being able to host files publicly so others can download them like Dropbox lets you. I ended up with a workable solution though by installing a seafile client on the seafile server as well. I then used it to sync a particular directory with my PC and made that directory available through nginx.
Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync
#35My friend ran BTSync on a raspi, and it was dreadfully slow to index for large amounts of data. Like, multiple days of 100% CPU slow.
Also, with encrypted volumes, just reading files on the raspi is very slow. Consider replacing raspi with odroid, utilite, or other fast, fanless, cheap arm sbc.
Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync
#36I'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
best of luck. i really hope you succeed with this. it seems that right now all opensource dropbox alternatives, while great, have a shortcoming somewhere (git annex, sparkleshare, btsync...)
Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync
#37I'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. :)
Or encfs, a per file encrypted filesystem.
Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync
#38I installed and played with BTSync yesterday. It was really easy to get it all up and running syncing between two local machines and a remote server. The config was really simple compared to other stuff I've used. Sometimes it could take a while before the syncing would start which is a bit of a pain. We run a system where we have a lot of data on a server that we want to see locally. Edits are made both locally and…
We tested AeroFS and BTSync on a variety of data in shared folders, and consistently found sync issues with BTSync. We eventually abandoned BTSync for AeroFS, and while it hasn't been perfect, it's been considerably better at handling syncing issues.
Anecdotal, and just one case, but hope someone finds it helpful.
Re: Clone Dropbox with a Raspberry Pi and BTSync
#39It doesn't need to be a USB 3.0 drive. The RPi is USB 2.0 only.
plus, the RPi can't even achieve full USB 2.0 speed, it is not a good choice for a file server.