Preload folders for first sync.

[rhegyi]

Have two locations I want to backup/ synchronize external drives at both locations but have 8TB of information that only small portions of which change frequently.   

 

Can I load up all the files in the shared folders locally then take the drive out to it’s remote location so that it doesn’t have to sync 7TB of data initially , the info will all ready be in the folder.  Does this work?

 

Sorry for the elementary type question.

 

Thanks,

Rick

 

 

[siridas]

When I did this a couple years ago, when I started up sync, it began indexing...which went on for maybe 8 hours, and then it began downloading files from peers - even though there was actually nothing new to download.

It took over a week to reach synchronization (about 600 GB of data), even though nothing should have needed to be downloaded.

To my knowledge, this has not changed...but I hope I'm wrong.

[rhegyi]

Thank you for the reply, so with 8TB of data???  

 

Thank You....

[GreatMarko]

@rhegyiYes, you can "pre-load" folders, and whilst Sync will index them when you add them to Sync (which may take a little time depending upon the number and size of files), nothing should actually transfer provided that the files at either location are identical in terms of their content and time stamps.

I suspect that perhaps in @siridas's case when he manually "copied" files across to a second device, time stamps were not preserved, which will have meant that when added to Sync, sync won't have perceived the files as being "identical", triggering a re-sync.

As I say though, provided the two folder locations contain truly identical files, then nothing should transfer when you add them to sync.