How to sync with a pre-seeded directory

[seren]

Is there a way to sync two folders that already have almost identical contents without BTSync transferring everything?

I have two computers with 200gb directories that have slowly gotten out of sync over time. I'd like to put them into a BTSynced folder and have them transfer just the changes.

From experimentation though, it seems that if I try this, the clients try to transfer the entire contents of their own copy to the remote computer.

Is there a way to let the client generate all the hashs for the the files (which are named the same) and then allow them to sync just the files that need it?

Thanks a lot!

[seren]

Actually, an even simpler version of this question is: how do you begin syncing two identical folders without transferring the contents? Is this even possible since the timestamps of when the folders were added to BTSync won't be the same?

 

Thanks.

[nils]

I had a similar situation, and when I added them with the same Secret both directories were indexed, and while that was happening it looked as if some data was going to be transferred, but in the end no data was.

 

[dragon2611]

I had a OVF export from a linux virtual machine that I wanted to BTsync with a few locations but the machine it was generated on is sitting on an ADSL line with terrible upload.

 

I ended up taking a copy Home on a USB drive being careful not to include the .sync files when I dumped the file from the USB drive into the BTsync dir on my Home machine Btsync re-indexed the folder and worked out the files were the same.

 

This also Vastly sped up the transfer speeds to the remaining Locations as my Home machine is on a VDSL2 line with 20Mbit/s upload.

[ChrisH]

I agree it only looks like BTSync transfers the whole file, when it actually compares chunk checksums and transfers only the differences.

 

But be aware that BTSync will not compare file dates to establish who has the newest version of a file - it compares the "file added to BTSync" timestamps instead. So you could end up overwriting new with old versions.