Hi,

As the title suggests: what are alternatives to syncthing that are basically fire and forget, works on multiple device types, and just focuses on file syncing?

I’ve had over the months the weirdest problems with syncthing, and lately I noticed some of my photos got corrupted, which is an absolute no no for me. I use syncthing currently as a easy automatic backup of documents, photos and other files, between my PCs and my phones (they all send only to the server. Folders are not shared with other devices).

  • sorter_plainview@lemmy.today
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    21 days ago

    First and foremost Syncthing is not a ‘backup’ utility. Using it for backup is not at all recommended. Especially if you are dealing with Android or Raspberry pi, because the way clock / time works in these systems are pretty weird and create sync conflicts. So don’t.

    Now to the solution. For backup, use a proper backup solution like Kopia. Modern solutions support browsing the snapshots created as backups. Also creating periodic snapshots ensures better redundancy and better chance for disaster recovery.

    Now if you will not use it for backup, take a look at ‘Round Sync’ available in F-Droid. It’s an application built around the execptionally good app, ‘rclone’. It is some what similar to Syncthing, but designed in a very different way. Also it is more difficult to configure to copy the files to PC.

    I also wanted to mention that I have used Syncthing for many heavy lifting jobs and never faced issues with it. It is a feature complete app, with the philosophy of doing only one thing and doing it perfectly. So if you run into any issues, do reach out to forums or devs. They will definitely help you.

    • ZeDoTelhado@lemmy.worldOP
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      21 days ago

      From what I see, kopia is for the desktop. Unless I didn’t see something, it is not available for android, which is where more important to have backup in my case

      • sorter_plainview@lemmy.today
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        21 days ago

        Aah my bad… I was half asleep. What I meant was use Round Sync / Syncthing to copy files to pc and then use Kopia to backup. Round Sync can do one direction copying, so source files are not corrupted.