Suggestion to add several Windows-specific entries to .SyncIgnore

[systemshock]

Hello,

Today I installed Bittorrent Sync and tried to share an entire drive. It is not the system drive, but a second drive used for storage of data. After indexing was done, I noticed, that the Recycle Bin was included in the index. I opened .SyncIgnore and saw that the default entries do not specify the following two folders, which are present on all drives in a Windows Vista/7/8 system:

• Recycle Bin
  
• System Volume Information
  

So, I would suggest that the following entries get added to the default .SyncIgnore file:

\$RECYCLE.BIN
\System Volume Information

It may also be a good idea to add the following two files:

\pagefile.sys
\swapfile.sys

The reason is that these two (unlike hiberfil.sys), may be relocated on drives other than C:

[GreatMarko]

I don't think these things shouldn't be added to the default .SyncIgnore file as they are very specific use cases!!

The idea of the "default" rules in the .SyncIgnore file are that they are a "general" set of rules to exclude the most common types of files/folder that you wouldn't normally wish to sync, such as temporary files, etc.

Most user's won't be Syncing their ENTIRE root drive, and therefore excluding the recycle bin and/or sys vol info/pagefile/swapfile etc wouldn't be needed!

...so really, as yours is quite a specific-use case, such rules are unlikely to be considered "general" enough to added to every single Sync user's default .SyncIgnore files!

[laurens]

I disagree; I think that you nearly NEVER want to sync those files, so I think those files SHOULD be part of the general set of files NOT to sync.

In what use case WOULD it make sense to sync these files across machines or back them up with the purpose to restore them?

[GreatMarko]

I disagree; I think that you nearly NEVER want to sync those files, so I think those files SHOULD be part of the general set of files NOT to sync.

You misunderstand, I'm not for one minute saying that you would want to sync these files, only that for the vast majority of users of Sync, this wouldn't even be an issue because either 1) They don't use Windows, or 2) They do use Windows, but are not Syncing their ENTIRE system drive!!

That's why it would be wrong to include these rules as "default" for EVERY user as they will only be applicable to the very very small sub-set of users who 1) use Windows, AND 2) wish to sync their ENTIRE system drive!! ...and those users can add these rules to their .SyncIgnore files themselves!

Remember, the purpose of the "default" .SyncIgnore rules is not to account for EVERY possible case of things to ignore, just provide a handful of general rules that would be applicable to the MAJORITY of Sync user's typical syncing scenarios.

[laurens]

I see your point, and agree that it probably won't benefit the majority of the bt sync users. However, I am of the opinion that it will do more good than bad to have these settings in there: it will help users who do sync there entire drive, and it will do nothing for people who don't.

Also, the majority of users also won't be using OSX, and yet there are by default specific entries for osx, too.

But: I'm happy to agree to disagree, just expressing my personal opinion.

[systemshock]

Thank you for the replies.

I will try to answer the main points:

2) They do use Windows, but are not Syncing their ENTIRE system drive!!

Yes, this is exactly why I wrote that:

It is not the system drive, but a second drive used for storage of data.

It is *not* the system drive I am talking about. It is a second drive, which is used for archiving purposes. I do not know how many people have such a setup, but I usually keep my archive on a second partition/drive and there is always the question of how to back it up. One option is to use an external drive, but you can also do it over the network in real time and this can be quite handy.

That's why it would be wrong to include these rules as "default" for EVERY user as they will only be applicable to the very very small sub-set of users who 1) use Windows

I don't claim to know what is the share of Windows users for Bittorrent Sync, but with Windows getting nearly 90% of all desktop installations, I could easily imagine that Windows users are not that rare among your users :-)

So, yes, I agree that it remains an open question, whether there are many Windows users, who will want to backup their second drive/partition over the network with BitTorrent Sync.

However, then I see no more point in including .Trashes or .Spotlight-V100 (both created on a USB drive by a Mac), while at the same time omitting Windows's Recycle Bin and System Volume Information, which too get created on certain usb devices. Unless of course you are expecting to see loads of Mac users who share their USB drives :-)

[Jersey]

Hi systemshock etc. I started using BitTorrent Sync a couple of days ago and immediately hit upon this problem by attempting to sync an entire secondary drive. I have read all of the above and the other topic linked to above. I don't want to get into the debate as to whether Recycle Bin and System Volume Information should be permanently included in the default .SyncIgnore file/s (I'm kinda on the fence with that one) but I'm wondering if anyone actually tried this 'workaround'? I've tried it by adding the following line to the .SyncIgnore file in the root of the drive in question....

 

\System Volume Information

 

.... and various other iterations of the same text but it keeps failing to index all files due to the 'error 5' logged in the logs.

 

I've closed BitTorrent Sync before editing the .SyncIgnore file and avoided all the other gotchas with editing this file.

 

Kind regards,

 

James

[Guest proactiveservices]

I thought I'd add to this thread because, whilst my opinions are the same as some others, I will provide a bit more detail which may have been missed and is of material relevance.

 

The number of people who have posted on the forums saying they can't sync their Windows computer's entire drive - of any volume, not just the Windows volume - shows that excluding $RECYCLE.BIN and System Volume Information is in fact of common interest. For the record I have no interest in excluding iOS/Mac OS X-generated files etc., but I have no problem with them being .SyncIgnored by default - it makes sense to do so.

 

Please note that both of these folders are present on any fixed disk on Windows. pagefile.sys can also be on a non-system drive; Windows spreads the pagefile across multiple fixed disks if it thinks it is beneficial. This behaviour is a default, out-of-the-box feature, not one that only happens after someone's tweaked something.

 

$RECYCLE.BIN should not be synced as it cannot function as intended on another system (SID use, security permissions, Recycler settings may be different on other machines). System Volume Information cannot be synced as it is restricted to the SYSTEM user and is (machine + disk)-specific. pagefile.sys cannot be synced for obvious reasons.