mirrored laptops

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j2bryson

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I now have a fast, heavy laptop and a light, slow one. I would like to be able to use either and then have them resync every night when they are home together. This would obviously be both convenient and also safer since I'd have two copies of all my files.

I don't mind paying for software! But I do have gigs of data, research and old email etc. so don't want to rely on anything requiring a monthly charge.

Thanks for any suggestions,

Joanna
 
Have you thought about getting a server so neither laptop has to manage all that data? You just use retrospect to back everything up; it compares all worked on files to the server files and copies over only what's changed.
 
j2bryson said:
I now have a fast, heavy laptop and a light, slow one. I would like to be able to use either and then have them resync every night when they are home together. This would obviously be both convenient and also safer since I'd have two copies of all my files.

I don't mind paying for software! But I do have gigs of data, research and old email etc. so don't want to rely on anything requiring a monthly charge.

Thanks for any suggestions,

Joanna
Click to expand...

What version of OS X are on those laptops? I ask because it really makes a difference for a choice of software.
 
Retrospect wouldn't keep the two laptops with identical files. I need to be able to use either interchangeably.

The air's sadly all run Leopard, which I'm not impressed by. I have paid for the upgrade to my other laptop and can make it if I have to.

Joanna
 
j2bryson said:
Retrospect wouldn't keep the two laptops with identical files. I need to be able to use either interchangeably.

The air's sadly all run Leopard, which I'm not impressed by. I have paid for the upgrade to my other laptop and can make it if I have to.

Joanna
Click to expand...

Sadly you will need a server will roaming accounts for what you are exactly want.

The closet Sync files that act like Apple's .Mac is BusySync.

Also you get something like Time Capsule or get something like a Drobo with a Dobo Share and an Airport Extreme. Then share files with this kind of setup.
 
Actually, it is no problem finding a 3rd computer to act as a server (I don't download music & movies so I don't have *that* much data compared to modern hard drives.) But I still don't see how your solution would help me make sure both computers have the same files on them. BusySync seems only to do calendars, and I already just use gcal for that.

Thanks though for the effort!
 
Carbon Copy Cloner (Mike Bombich's software) will do exact boot level clones of machines, not sure if it will work with the AIR though. CCC is free though.
 
j2bryson said:
Retrospect wouldn't keep the two laptops with identical files. I need to be able to use either interchangeably.

The air's sadly all run Leopard, which I'm not impressed by. I have paid for the upgrade to my other laptop and can make it if I have to.

Joanna
Click to expand...

It would with the configuration I described. Have you thought about SilverKeeper: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10097

You could get an external hard drive as your backup and it would feed both computers the latest data.
 
Sorry if I'm being dense. Can conventional backup software like Retrospect or SilverKeeper really be used to back two different laptops that are both getting changed onto one backup version of a file system?

The most promising backup software I found was SuperDuper & I wrote their tech support, but they just said "no can do", not even "we might work on that in the future"!

Joanna
 
As I suggested, the one hard drive (external) would serve as your working drive. When you're home you work off that hard drive, not the computer. When you back up you make sure to update both laptops, one at a time, with regard to the master external hard drive.

This is just one way to do it. The other is to pick one computer you use more and just push the files you've worked on to the other computer.
 
I don't see how this helps -- I can already try (& fail) to remember which files I've updated & then shunt them around by hand -- I've been doing that badly for years (yes, even with external disks backups.) I was hoping for something a bit more elegant, less time consuming & less prone to error.
 
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