I Was In Support Of Sync 2.0, Right Up Till They Broke A Promise


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I'm pretty new to BTSync and I really understand why people are upset and I want to add my 2 cents (and something new).

Using softlinks you can get all your folders into one btsync-folder without changing anything.

Only shares with friends will then possibly exceed the limit of 10 connections.

I use this myself with Dropbox with its one folder limit.

The other thing is:

The pro allows selective sync which I didn't find in other projects for a cheaper price.

As I am going to use BTSync for about 2TB of data and want to connect a tablet this is a must have requirement.

So far I don't see a real competitor for this use case, even considered the hefty price.

Do you?

Thalon

As I seem not to be able to edit:

I wanted to mention to, that BTSync has to run relay servers for the easy connection from external (or with friends) despite changing IP addresses, so there are permanent costs even for the free users.

But the price tag is really a bit high though.

I would find 30$ once and 10$ per year enough, new versions should be charged extra.

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I'm pretty new to BTSync and I really understand why people are upset and I want to add my 2 cents (and something new).

Using softlinks you can get all your folders into one btsync-folder without changing anything.

Only shares with friends will then possibly exceed the limit of 10 connections.

I use this myself with Dropbox with its one folder limit.

The other thing is:

The pro allows selective sync which I didn't find in other projects for a cheaper price.

As I am going to use BTSync for about 2TB of data and want to connect a tablet this is a must have requirement.

So far I don't see a real competitor for this use case, even considered the hefty price.

Do you?

Thalon

As I seem not to be able to edit:

I wanted to mention to, that BTSync has to run relay servers for the easy connection from external (or with friends) despite changing IP addresses, so there are permanent costs even for the free users.

But the price tag is really a bit high though.

I would find 30$ once and 10$ per year enough, new versions should be charged extra.

 

You bought up a very good point "selective sync" as a useful function, and not a purposely placed limitation on the software (10 folders limit). This is exactly what many people have talked about, if you want to make a pro version and charge for it, that is fine, but do add more functionalities to the software, instead of going back on their promise and limit the software.

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Some commenters have suggested that the people posting here are the noisy minority.  Why don't we have a poll to see what a larger number are thinking?

 

I have just spent 2 weeks testing syncthing which is unfortunately not ready to handle my requirements.  I sync 5TB of data over 14 nodes and syncthing couldn't handle it.  Development seems very active on the project but on identical hardware it couldn't keep up with the data. 

 

My guess is that Bittorrent feel that there is no real competitor on the market yet who offer exactly the functionality of btsync.  They have a captive market and this release is calculated risk. 

 

Lost trust and disappointment are the key issues here.  All the time invested into setting up btsync and getting friends and family into it now feels like a betrayal to them as well, except I am responsible.

 

1. The new limitations should have been announced ages ago.

2. The arguments about 10 folders being a feature or not are semantic, pedantic, and don't make me feel better.

3. Paying a subscription for upgrades that may or may not appear is crazy, the software already does what I want. 

4. Saying that we can keep using 1.4 for free is only good until the first security flaw is not patched.

5. Sending all our shares via Bittorrent's servers in a post Edward Snowdon world is nuts.

 

I am another angry user who couldn't stay quiet.

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Some commenters have suggested that the people posting here are the noisy minority.  Why don't we have a poll to see what a larger number are thinking?

 

I have just spent 2 weeks testing syncthing which is unfortunately not ready to handle my requirements.  I sync 5TB of data over 14 nodes and syncthing couldn't handle it.  Development seems very active on the project but on identical hardware it couldn't keep up with the data. 

 

My guess is that Bittorrent feel that there is no real competitor on the market yet who offer exactly the functionality of btsync.  They have a captive market and this release is calculated risk. 

 

Lost trust and disappointment are the key issues here.  All the time invested into setting up btsync and getting friends and family into it now feels like a betrayal to them as well, except I am responsible.

 

1. The new limitations should have been announced ages ago.

2. The arguments about 10 folders being a feature or not are semantic, pedantic, and don't make me feel better.

3. Paying a subscription for upgrades that may or may not appear is crazy, the software already does what I want. 

4. Saying that we can keep using 1.4 for free is only good until the first security flaw is not patched.

5. Sending all our shares via Bittorrent's servers in a post Edward Snowdon world is nuts.

 

I am another angry user who couldn't stay quiet.

 

Could you briefly describe when you say syncthing can't handle the 5TB and 14 nodes? Just curious.

 

I will admit that syncthing isn't as ready as Btsync.

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I had 3 major problems

 

One node couldn't complete indexing. I suspect the problem was related to it being the only node running a 32bit executable as the machine was far more powerful than some others in the network. 

 

The web gui is extremely slow probably due to the indexes being stored in flat files rather than some sort of database. This also makes indexing large numbers of files very slow.  I have somewhere in the order of 500,000 files of all sorts of sizes.  A fully indexed node was using ~ 1Gb of resident memory.  Rather than keeping a stats table the gui scans the entire index to get the current status. During indexing the index is constantly changing so using the gui was nearly impossible during indexing.

 

The real killer was the lack of deletion protection.  I had read about it and turned on the staggered backup keeping files for 30 days after deletion.  2 days after I did this one node dropped a disk whilst scanning.  The node announced that the files were deleted and wiped a 1.6TB share from the network.  I tried to go to the staggered backup but all the files are renamed in there.  There is a 'sed' command to reverse the renaming so I ran that and restored the files on the one node where I was using staggered backup.  

On another node I restored from backup and on the node that dropped a disk, I managed to get the disk back. 

 

The backup node and the restored disk node both contained the same data, the staggered backup node did not and was missing ~ 100GB of data.....

 

I will take another look at syncthing when it has had some more testing, meanwhile I will use it for some less important data. Restoring 1.6TB across 14 nodes is not as fast as deleting it :)

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BTSync is very good, I've used it extensively (see http://blog.bittorrent.com/2014/06/24/sync-hacks-waking-up-some-very-old-instruments/ ).

Now using a 1.3 version but leaving BTSync at the end of the academic year. The limitation to 10 folders in academic projects with diverse teams and students makes it unusable for similar purposes. It's really bad to see die such a good piece of software because, from my point of view, an unfortunate commercial decision. Exactly the opposite that often less can be more... Very sorry to leave BTSync.

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Some commenters have suggested that the people posting here are the noisy minority.  Why don't we have a poll to see what a larger number are thinking?

 

I have just spent 2 weeks testing syncthing which is unfortunately not ready to handle my requirements.  I sync 5TB of data over 14 nodes and syncthing couldn't handle it.  Development seems very active on the project but on identical hardware it couldn't keep up with the data. 

 

My guess is that Bittorrent feel that there is no real competitor on the market yet who offer exactly the functionality of btsync.  They have a captive market and this release is calculated risk. 

 

Lost trust and disappointment are the key issues here.  All the time invested into setting up btsync and getting friends and family into it now feels like a betrayal to them as well, except I am responsible.

 

1. The new limitations should have been announced ages ago.

2. The arguments about 10 folders being a feature or not are semantic, pedantic, and don't make me feel better.

3. Paying a subscription for upgrades that may or may not appear is crazy, the software already does what I want. 

4. Saying that we can keep using 1.4 for free is only good until the first security flaw is not patched.

5. Sending all our shares via Bittorrent's servers in a post Edward Snowdon world is nuts.

 

I am another angry user who couldn't stay quiet.

Exactly. But that would probably not be representative, since only people caring about how many people actually are in favor btsync and against are relevant for that. Most users who don't care would probably not even consider checking out the forums.

That said, the only really relevant indicator would probably be the sales numbers, that only bittorrent inc. knows of.

 

Don't know, but i've read about performance issues as well, when it comes to high numbers of files.

 

My opinion as well.

 

Yes, that's my concern as well. That includes, as already stated from various other people here, lost trust generally means lost trust in security as well since it is closed source. (backdoor, nsa, ...)

 

1. yes

2. i don't know what you mean here.

3. not agreeing with this.

4. yes

5. well, if you think that way, then you should probably not use any american software at all and go back to the stone age. there are quite a few articles stating the way bittorrent sync works. and that includes encrypted data from bittorrent sync to the servers. so bittorrent sync will not know what s being send. (requirement would be that the encryption is safe from any institutions; keyword: RSA scandal) also you can set your own relay host, i believe -> correct me if i m wrong, but you certainly can select not to use it.

 

 

Btw, i want to say, that i think bittorrent inc. should soon say something about this issue. just my thinking.

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@carsten.uhlig

 

2. Lots of comments talk about the 10 folder restriction.  Some people are saying that it is ok because it is not the removal of a "feature/function"  others are saying that it is.   I was trying to say that the definition of "feature" can be argued forever and it won't make any difference.  A "feature" of a new processor is that it can do 2 things at once instead of 1....or is that not a feature...

5. it is possible to have secure transmissions and sharing without going through a central server. I don't mean to generalize on American software at all.  It is not a nationality issue, it is a design issue.   Syncthing and btsync 1.4 offer a private way of sending shares.

 

I totally agree with your last statement, what are they waiting for?

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@HobbledGrubs

 

2. mmh. well i think it depends on the definition of folders. since bittorrent inc argues the way that you still can synchronize unlimited folders, just that you are not able to have them in more than 10 different places. and that is the point where they "cheated" before you could do that. have unlimited separate places to save your files in. now  just maximum 10 without any ways like symlinks etc.

but to compare you could see dropbox or onedrive or google drive which all have just one separate folder. and people never complaint about them.

well to be fair you can share unlimited files with them which you cant with bittorrent sync since you re just allowed 10 shares maximum. (am i right here? or are the 10 folders are just the maximum separate owner folders? and shared folders are unlimited?)

 

i already suggested to increase that separate folder limit to a reasonable size by e.g. calculating the separate folder limit between normal users and power users. or removing that limit. and minimum explaining themselves including apologizing.

 

5. yep true. i think that you can easily generalize on nationality. most people dont see that america has huge problems because of the parot act thingie. every american company has to give information out. that s what i thought. (open source, closed source, encryption standards, blabla)

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I had 3 major problems

 

One node couldn't complete indexing. I suspect the problem was related to it being the only node running a 32bit executable as the machine was far more powerful than some others in the network. 

 

The web gui is extremely slow probably due to the indexes being stored in flat files rather than some sort of database. This also makes indexing large numbers of files very slow.  I have somewhere in the order of 500,000 files of all sorts of sizes.  A fully indexed node was using ~ 1Gb of resident memory.  Rather than keeping a stats table the gui scans the entire index to get the current status. During indexing the index is constantly changing so using the gui was nearly impossible during indexing.

 

The real killer was the lack of deletion protection.  I had read about it and turned on the staggered backup keeping files for 30 days after deletion.  2 days after I did this one node dropped a disk whilst scanning.  The node announced that the files were deleted and wiped a 1.6TB share from the network.  I tried to go to the staggered backup but all the files are renamed in there.  There is a 'sed' command to reverse the renaming so I ran that and restored the files on the one node where I was using staggered backup.  

On another node I restored from backup and on the node that dropped a disk, I managed to get the disk back. 

 

The backup node and the restored disk node both contained the same data, the staggered backup node did not and was missing ~ 100GB of data.....

 

I will take another look at syncthing when it has had some more testing, meanwhile I will use it for some less important data. Restoring 1.6TB across 14 nodes is not as fast as deleting it :)

I have been using SyncThing exclusively lately. You don't have to use the web gui either, there are a few "stand-alone" guis available now. This one works great.

https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-gtk

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  • 2 weeks later...

Based on this thread started to look at syncthing, i'm getting all excited again! 

It's opensource! You can actually dig in the software and find the exact codelines where the connections are being handled.

THAT is what  i really like! 

 

Syncthing seems to me the way to go!

On top of all of that, not sure where they spend 40 bucks per year on to make sure i can sync between my raspberry pi and my laptop... Not cool guys...

 

Since the silent minority probably does not take the time to create an account here and comment, let me do that in give my 2c: I see Syncthing being mentioned here a couple of times, but it is not really an alternative in most scenarios, since it requires you to open ports on a firewall. Even if you can do this at home (I can't, since we have an IPv6 connection and IPv4 is tunnelled over DS-Lite, so we do not have a unique IPv4 address), if you are on the go (work, hotels, conference venues, etc.) this is normally not an option.

 

As for the subscription fees, Bittorrent Inc. does maintain infrastructure that is often necessary for non-local sync, such as relay and tracker servers. These cost money and bandwidth. Also, for me there are many useful features in 2.0 (sync all folders of my identity) and the Pro version (changing access rights for existing shares). Given that they have to maintain the infrastructure and software $30 or $40 per month seems to be a fair price. Of course, I would have preferred a one-time purchase, but that does not really help to cover ongoing costs.

 

Comparing with the competition, the pricing is pretty good. I run a permanent peer (Raspberry Pi), which has a large disk. Getting the equivalent amount of storage at e.g. Dropbox would be 10 Euro per month, plus trusting them with my data. (Sure, there are caveats here, since Sync is closed-source, but at the very least it's better than storing all data in the cloud rightaway.)

 

I would switch to a good open source program with the same functionality, but I am fairly skeptical that would work without charging for the necessary infrastructure.

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I have registered to add my voice - between the issues this product and uTorrent are having Bittorrent inc have completely lost my trust. As an intermidiate step in moving to Syncthing I decided to roll back to V1.4, however, the 1.4.111/ link now has an Android version that is higher - 1.465x. Guess I'll be scouring the internet to find the 1.4.111 version.

 

I have been using BTSync since the first beta and would have gladly have paid for it, however, their pricing model is badly thought out. Doesn't matter now though, as I will be avoiding their products.

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I have registered to add my voice - between the issues this product and uTorrent are having Bittorrent inc have completely lost my trust. As an intermidiate step in moving to Syncthing I decided to roll back to V1.4, however, the 1.4.111/ link now has an Android version that is higher - 1.465x. Guess I'll be scouring the internet to find the 1.4.111 version.

 

I have been using BTSync since the first beta and would have gladly have paid for it, however, their pricing model is badly thought out. Doesn't matter now though, as I will be avoiding their products.

 

That isn't a higher version for Android. 65 < 111. There is no 1.4.111 for Android, and if you find one I wouldn't install it. Do be warned that Google Play will try and upgrade to 2.x shortly after you install, so if you have updates set to auto in GP you should go in and change it for BTsync as soon as you install it. (There are tools that can unregister it from GP, but I'm not sure they would work unless you're rooted.)

 

Agreed about the lack of trust. I'm almost done with my initial trial phase with SyncThing. I'll be expanding to some of the larger folder soon and will hopefully have BTsync phased out in the near future.

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Just checked the forum after being away for a year or so, to decide if I have to upgrade to new btsync version (I was sporadically using 1.3 or so) to find _THIS_. I'd reckon I'd pay 40 bucks or so for a software, but I'm not buying subscription.

 

I was using btsync to keep backups of my photos, so I'll be moving to rsync for now. Need to consider Amazon's unlimited cloud drive offer too.

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I was using btsync to keep backups of my photos, so I'll be moving to rsync for now. Need to consider Amazon's unlimited cloud drive offer too.

 

Amazon's cloud drive is fine for a backup, since it will store the original files. Last time I checked they didn't have a utility so you had to use a somewhat buggy web interface to upload everything. Sharing can only be done one photo at a time. Took me a few tries to get all of my 30k photos up there.

 

If you have Prime, there really isn't a downside if all you want is a cloud backup. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

The worst (by far) for me is that they don't even bother to seriously address our concerns! I am in the process of removing BTsync everywhere, including at all friends and family. I'll make certain they know how unreliable Bittorrent is as an entity, and to not trust them.

Sure, they may say our data is safe, but how *do* I know they don't store a copy of everything (or at the least any traffic that passes their servers, including keys, etc.) we share for any (government) entity that asks for it?

In the past I would have been willing to take their word for it, but since they've shown their word to be worthless, I am not taking any chances with them, and will advise anyone I know to heed that warning and spread the word: "Do not use BTsync!"

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Syncthing continues development, has a great gui now (use to be only browser based), is opne sourced and free, and has been awesome for me for a few months now. I was one of the many testers of Bit Torrent Sync (all the way back when it was in alpha) and I won't touch it again. They have made bad decisons, under-handed moved behind the scenes, and are not continuing the quality rhat they had 2 years ago. Ha!

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Syncthing continues development, has a great gui now (use to be only browser based), is opne sourced and free, and has been awesome for me for a few months now.

 

I looked at SyncThing. Problems:

 

  • It does not have trackers/relay servers. So, it doesn't work when both peers happen to be behind a NAT/firewall where uPnP does not work and port-forwarding is not an option.
  • It's currently not something I can tell my parents to install and configure (whereas BTSync hasn't been a problem).
  • It does not have a link sharing facility.
  • No selective sync.

I guess that most advocating SyncThing here use it in limited scenarios (e.g. synchronizing two computers on the same network), because I can't see how it can currently be e.g. a Dropbox replacement with full sharing capabilities and selective sync.

 

I also wonder why people who don't like Sync have to come back here everytime to promote SyncThing. It's wouldn't be awfully productive if people who like Sync would go to the SyncThing issue tracker all the time posting messages how it's bad compared to Sync.

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@iswrong

Yes, Syncthing is no alternative for more than basic syncing scenarios.

I'm going to test AeroFS this weekend.

BTSync wasn't usable on my tablet (no context-menu-options) and didn't sync behind our company's firewall.

There is no support from the team, even I was sure to buy the pro version when my problems were solved (as I need selective sync).

 

40$ is too expensive for not responding to support requests.

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You can sync unlimited data (based on the storage capacity of the devices), between an unlimited number of devices (I haven't seen any device limits mentioned anywhere) regardless of OS across the globe . . . that seems like a pretty damn sexy service to me.

 

Excuse me, but this has got to be one of the silliest comments I've seen on this thread.

 

It's YOUR data, going direct from YOUR machine to one or more other machines, using YOUR paid broadband to someone else's paid broadband. Your data does not go to or through servers run by BTS.

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I also wonder why people who don't like Sync have to come back here everytime to promote SyncThing. It's wouldn't be awfully productive if people who like Sync would go to the SyncThing issue tracker all the time posting messages how it's bad compared to Sync.

 

Well, it lets people know there might be an alternative that fits with their usage.  I found out about BT Sync from the Cubby forums when they had their meltdown. People were advocating for BT's unlimited sync back then, directing people here and, well, here we are in this very thread about that very subject. History tends to repeat itself, I suppose.

 

FWIW, distributed trackers are being looked at for ST. They are about where we were here several versions ago.

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I also wonder why people who don't like Sync have to come back here everytime to promote SyncThing. It's wouldn't be awfully productive if people who like Sync would go to the SyncThing issue tracker all the time posting messages how it's bad compared to Sync.

 

I don't think calling it promotion is the right world. No body is making money off of telling people to use Syncthing. This is simply a community of people who like to discuss and share, and so it is with every discussion people offer advice and or alternative ways of doing things. It just happened that Syncthings is one of such solution. 

 

Actually, I think it would be quite productive for Syncthings to model their software after Sync (in terms of functionality). I have no problem with people making comparison, credit is giving where credit is due and in this case I would admit that currently Sync does have the upper hand when compared to Syncthings. Some people (myself included), have no issues with Sync as a software, but the company Bittorrent, I think that's what gets to people.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This is simply greed. We are quickly reaching a point where choices like this won't be an option for software developers.

 

You don't charge for features. You charge for infrastructure.

 

Anyone and their brother (or sister) can create a GitHub account, gather some likeminded coders, and re-create your project BETTER than you. If this was a web-service, then I would get it... but a downloadable app, that doesn't tax bittorrents resources one iota to offer things like unlimited folders, to charge is ridiculous.

 

I'm already researching SyncThing and plan on finding an open source solution soon.

 

Bad move Bit Torrent. This doesn't just push away the users that like the product, it kills your user loyalty. I've been selling your product to family and friends since I first stumbled across it. That ends now.

 

Peace out

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