Establishing A "base" For Sync

[Turoab]

Computer A has huge amount of data that computer B likes to be in sync with.

Is it recommended to copy the whole data once (via copy command) from A to B (they are in the same subnet), to establish what can be considered a "base" and then let them start syncing thereafter. Does this speed up the initial synchronization?

Thanks.

[Harold Feit]

It does speed up initial synchronization but is not necessary.

[Journeyman]

When you copy, often the modified date will change on the copied set. At least in my experience. This will result in it syncing anyway. A workaround is to zip it, and then extract it to the destination. Some people have said using robocopy with certain switches will do the trick. Something to keep in mind.

[RomanZ]

@Journeyman

 

BTSync does not rely only on mtime when syncing files. It also checks the hash of the file - and if it hasn't been changed, no sync will occur - it will just adjust mtimes.

[Journeyman]

@RomanZ

 

Oh.  Has it always been that way?  I seem to remember copying a folder a while back that was several hundred GB's to speed up the syncing process when I moved the hard drive over to another machine.  After I put the drive the other PC and starting BTSync, I remember being very frustrated that everything was not only taking hours to sync what was already supposed to be synchronized, but also that everything was being copied back to the original machine.  I assumed this was because the mtime was newer.  Perhaps I did something wrong.

[RomanZ]

@Journeyman

 

There might be some issues/bugs, but the idea was there from the very beginning: if the relative location of the file as well as hashsum is the same - do not transfer it.