snlehton Posted October 18, 2014 Report Share Posted October 18, 2014 Hi, I use BTSync regularly to sync photos, projects and backups across different locations. My biggest issue with BTSync is that when doing a cold boot to Windows, it takes ages to index all the folders added to sync. I have hundreds of gigabytes of raw photos to index, so it takes ages to do the indexing every time the PC is started. In addition to the indexing, I also have virus scanner running, and both are accessing HD, furthermore pegging the computer down. Currently I have BTSync not to start automatically when computer is started because the computer is literally unusable for the 10 first minutes after boot, but this is not the ideal solution for me. I do use hibernation from time to time and this helps, but unfortunately that's not always possible. My feature request is that I could somehow configure the BTSync either delay the indexing, or somehow do the initial indexing much more slower (not lower process priority but have delays between file reads to allow other HD intensive processes to able to progress on the background). Even better solution would be to have an truly intelligent HD idle detection (not relying on CPU usage which has nothing to do with HD activity). Maybe BTSync could somehow measure the average HD read/write disk queue length Windows Resource Monitor is doing. Are others having similar issue? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatMarko Posted October 18, 2014 Report Share Posted October 18, 2014 Have you tried setting the advanced "disk_low_priority" setting to "true"? Whilst this won't prevent indexing (which Sync needs to do each time its run), it should help concede disk access to other applications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snlehton Posted October 18, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2014 Hi Marko, "true" is the default setting for "disk_low_priority". I've never set it to anything else as I really don't want BTSync to slow down the IO more. Should I try setting it to "false" instead?... I understand that the indexing is something needs to be done in order to sync, but for many sync folders I don't actually care if the sync happens immediately or at later point in time - as long as it happens eventually. It's more important to me to have a usable computer. BTW SSD would help, but then again having hundreds of gigabytes of photos on SSD drive makes little sense... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisH Posted October 20, 2014 Report Share Posted October 20, 2014 Sounds like someone needs a NAS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snlehton Posted October 20, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2014 Sounds like someone needs a NAS I already have two servers to which I sync everything. How would NAS help here? I need to access the files where ever I am (on the go on gigs etc). Accessing files remotely (NAS over Internet) definitely wouldn't work. One raw photo can take up to 80 megabytes... modifying that over 3G connection is not going to work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisH Posted October 20, 2014 Report Share Posted October 20, 2014 Ah, ok. It sounded like you had everything only on your PC and synced that somewhere, so I thought a NAS that runs all the time and does the syncing could relieve your PC from that. Off-topic and just wondering, because you probably know what you are doing: You really need to access ALL your RAW photos ALL the time? Maybe there could be an option to skip the startup indexing and just re-use the last known index? It should come with a big honking "I KNOW I CAN SHOOT MYSELF IN THE FOOT WITH THIS" warning dialog, but for users that can guarantee to have BTSync running all the time and not to change any files while it is not, re-indexing on every start is just a waste of time and resources. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snlehton Posted October 20, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2014 Thanks for reply. The problem is that I don't know before-hand what photos I'm going to need (usually for reference). I could offload some of the photos into archived catalog (using Lightroom here) and I do, eventually (photos older than few years). But the set I need to have is still quite large. And I do have the disk space, so that's not the problem either. It would be just fine if I could say that delay indexing for 10 mins or so. As if BTSync was started later on for certain folders. I don't know how BTSync works internally, but your suggestion makes sense. I think many (if not all) file systems support modification journals / hierarchical time-stamps, so BTSync could somewhat easily catch up indexing if there were changes since last time. This would be the ideal solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daishi4u Posted October 26, 2014 Report Share Posted October 26, 2014 +1 for a delayed start or some way to index faster. Btsync is quite the hard drive thrasher when you first turn on the computer. Anymore if I want to use the computer I have to turn it on then do something else before I actually come back to start using itSent from my SCH-S738C using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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