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> c.) no "cloud" so you have to do your own (e.g., leave an iMac running 24/7 back at your house or something) > That problem has now been solved better, way m

> c.) no "cloud" so you have to do your own (e.g., leave an iMac running 24/7 back at your house or something) > That problem has now been solved better, way more securely, and for free. You haven't accounted for the cost and maintenance of the 24/7 iMac (or VPS) if one doesn't already have that, and not everyone does. I'm also a happy SyncThing user but I wouldn't say it's as easy to use as Dropbox for the general user.

veidr 7y ago
Yeah, you are right. But if you do have one computer you can leave on all the time, then I think it is.
johnpowell 7y ago
I run Syncthing on a Raspberry Pi without issue.
thekyle 7y ago
My 24/7 server is my Android phone. It doesn't cost me anything more than before it had Syncthing on it and maintenance consists of running Android updates which I did anyway. I suspect that most people with smartphones also leave them on 24/7.
- kranner 7y ago
  That might work except for people who use iOS, for which Syncthing doesn’t have a client yet if I’m not mistaken.
  - thekyle 7y ago
    That's true. I don't really know why Syncthing isn't on iOS. It could be missing APIs or licensing issues with GPL. Hopefully something gets worked out eventually.
    - veidr 7y ago
      It's not that, it's actually because of the best and most reasonable of reasons: the maintainers and core committers don't use / aren't interested in iOS. They aren't opposed to it, and they give advice and helpful comments to those who want to try it. But, this is just one of the many places where Apple's authoritarian platform model shows its disadvantages. Syncthing is written in Go, but Apple didn't provide a good story for doing Go development for iOS, and because of their lockdown rules, nobody other than Apple can. Therefore, to get Syncthing running on iOS, you'd need to do a complete from-scratch implementation in one of the languages Apple allows you to use. So it is a relatively huge effort. A few people have tried, but nobody's completed anything very compelling. [1]: https://forum.syncthing.net/t/on-syncthing-ios-port-again/8964/11 https://forum.syncthing.net/t/on-syncthing-ios-port-again/89...
- cesarb 7y ago
  Wouldn't that require the phone to always be on wifi, to avoid hitting the monthly data transfer cap? IIRC, the Android version of Syncthing comes configured by default to run only when the network connection is a wifi connection for that reason.
  - Multicomp 7y ago
    > Wouldn't that require the phone to always be on wifi, to avoid hitting the monthly data transfer cap? True, but unlimited data plans do exist and I've found that more often than not, one laptop finds another laptop over the internet than using the fallback of using cellular data over the phone to sync. I just installed the F-Droid android client yesterday, it syncs over both Wi-Fi and cellular data by default since until you add devices/folders, it won't spend any mobile data at all, which is when it prompts you to make that choice.
  - thekyle 7y ago
    That's a fair point. For me, I am pretty much always connected to WiFi except when I'm driving. However, I understand that may not be the case for everyone.
jszymborski 7y ago
You're absolutely right that, depending where you live in the world, the environmental and economical cost to run a computer 24/7 can be non-trivial. An average computer doesn't really consume more than a couple 100W light-bulbs worth of wattage when idling, and so if you live in a region where energy is clean and cheap (e.g. myself in Montreal) then there is very little overhead. On the other hand, there are certainly plenty places around the world where energy costs are much higher to both the consumer and the planet, so that is indeed something to consider.
- nottorp 7y ago
  It's not the cost of maintaining that matters most, it's the cost of recovery when it fails. I'd rather pay a 3rd party for storage. Just not Dropbox. Edit: and yes, i have 24/7 machines.
  - veidr 7y ago
    Yes, of course, but shouldn't the backup part be unrelated to the syncing part? There are many ways to do it, but in my case, I back up my main "on 24/7" workstation (which has all my sync'd folders, whereas my laptop and other machines have a subset) with Arq→S3 snapshots-over-time. And also Backblaze as a secondary backup, just in case, and while they don't support snapshots, they do let me back up 14TB for $5/month.
    - jszymborski 7y ago
      Agreed, I use SyncThing to get things sync'd between devices and Duplicati to back-up my data to Backblaze (as well as other drives).
      - Faark 7y ago
        Duplicati does the client side encryption with the Key never leaving my device? Backblaze didn't offer that when I was choosing a cloud backup and the reason I went with the competition. But Crashplan (RIP consumer version, now only 2x as expensive small business remains) client turned out to be just so ... amateurish in many ways, now that I actually had a drive die on me and need to restore a bunch of data. I'd love to switch to a more competent backup provider and cancel Code42/Crashplan once the restore is done in hopefully 2-3 Months. Am I right that Duplicati only works with B2, not their cheap $6/device personal backup stuff? That would be a significant price increase. At that price I'd probably prefer the $1/TB/Month of S3 Glacier Deep Archive, though restoring at ~$100/TB seem quite painful.

veidr 7y ago

Yeah, you are right. But if you do have one computer you can leave on all the time, then I think it is.

johnpowell 7y ago

I run Syncthing on a Raspberry Pi without issue.

thekyle 7y ago

My 24/7 server is my Android phone. It doesn't cost me anything more than before it had Syncthing on it and maintenance consists of running Android updates which I did anyway. I suspect that most people with smartphones also leave them on 24/7.

kranner 7y ago
That might work except for people who use iOS, for which Syncthing doesn’t have a client yet if I’m not mistaken.
- thekyle 7y ago
  That's true. I don't really know why Syncthing isn't on iOS. It could be missing APIs or licensing issues with GPL. Hopefully something gets worked out eventually.
  - veidr 7y ago
    It's not that, it's actually because of the best and most reasonable of reasons: the maintainers and core committers don't use / aren't interested in iOS. They aren't opposed to it, and they give advice and helpful comments to those who want to try it. But, this is just one of the many places where Apple's authoritarian platform model shows its disadvantages. Syncthing is written in Go, but Apple didn't provide a good story for doing Go development for iOS, and because of their lockdown rules, nobody other than Apple can. Therefore, to get Syncthing running on iOS, you'd need to do a complete from-scratch implementation in one of the languages Apple allows you to use. So it is a relatively huge effort. A few people have tried, but nobody's completed anything very compelling. [1]: https://forum.syncthing.net/t/on-syncthing-ios-port-again/8964/11 https://forum.syncthing.net/t/on-syncthing-ios-port-again/89...
cesarb 7y ago
Wouldn't that require the phone to always be on wifi, to avoid hitting the monthly data transfer cap? IIRC, the Android version of Syncthing comes configured by default to run only when the network connection is a wifi connection for that reason.
- Multicomp 7y ago
  > Wouldn't that require the phone to always be on wifi, to avoid hitting the monthly data transfer cap? True, but unlimited data plans do exist and I've found that more often than not, one laptop finds another laptop over the internet than using the fallback of using cellular data over the phone to sync. I just installed the F-Droid android client yesterday, it syncs over both Wi-Fi and cellular data by default since until you add devices/folders, it won't spend any mobile data at all, which is when it prompts you to make that choice.
- thekyle 7y ago
  That's a fair point. For me, I am pretty much always connected to WiFi except when I'm driving. However, I understand that may not be the case for everyone.

jszymborski 7y ago

You're absolutely right that, depending where you live in the world, the environmental and economical cost to run a computer 24/7 can be non-trivial. An average computer doesn't really consume more than a couple 100W light-bulbs worth of wattage when idling, and so if you live in a region where energy is clean and cheap (e.g. myself in Montreal) then there is very little overhead. On the other hand, there are certainly plenty places around the world where energy costs are much higher to both the consumer and the planet, so that is indeed something to consider.

nottorp 7y ago
It's not the cost of maintaining that matters most, it's the cost of recovery when it fails. I'd rather pay a 3rd party for storage. Just not Dropbox. Edit: and yes, i have 24/7 machines.
- veidr 7y ago
  Yes, of course, but shouldn't the backup part be unrelated to the syncing part? There are many ways to do it, but in my case, I back up my main "on 24/7" workstation (which has all my sync'd folders, whereas my laptop and other machines have a subset) with Arq→S3 snapshots-over-time. And also Backblaze as a secondary backup, just in case, and while they don't support snapshots, they do let me back up 14TB for $5/month.
  - jszymborski 7y ago
    Agreed, I use SyncThing to get things sync'd between devices and Duplicati to back-up my data to Backblaze (as well as other drives).
    - Faark 7y ago
      Duplicati does the client side encryption with the Key never leaving my device? Backblaze didn't offer that when I was choosing a cloud backup and the reason I went with the competition. But Crashplan (RIP consumer version, now only 2x as expensive small business remains) client turned out to be just so ... amateurish in many ways, now that I actually had a drive die on me and need to restore a bunch of data. I'd love to switch to a more competent backup provider and cancel Code42/Crashplan once the restore is done in hopefully 2-3 Months. Am I right that Duplicati only works with B2, not their cheap $6/device personal backup stuff? That would be a significant price increase. At that price I'd probably prefer the $1/TB/Month of S3 Glacier Deep Archive, though restoring at ~$100/TB seem quite painful.