Change location of synced folder (from internal to external hard drive)

[illold3chordme]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to move a syncing folder from my internal HD drive to to an external hard drive. To do this, can I simply drag the syncing folder to my external HD? This seems like it would be an easy thing to do, but when I emailed Resilio directly for help, they gave me a very convoluted solution, so I wonder if they misunderstood what I wanted to do.

A related question: My bandmate and I both record audio files for the same projects and save them to our synced folder, where are project files are also stored. This lets us access the same project file and see each other's recordings in it, allowing us to collaborate on the same songs long distance.  If I change the location of the syncing folder on my end, will our in-progress project files no longer be able to find our audio files? We have many short audio files that make up longer takes, so it might be a hassle to redirect the program to the new location of each individual audio file. Would it be easier to just remove the syncing folder from my system and then have my band mate share the folder with me again, at which point I would set it up to be located on my external HD? 

[Helen]

No, moving sync share to a different drive is not supported. You need to disconnect the folder from Sync and reconnect pointing it to a directory on external drive. 

[Cugel]

What does "disconnect" mean here? I just move the folder in question, when Sync complains it now can't be found, I point it at the new location.

[Helen]

that's also an option.

Disconnect means : 

 

[Cugel]

Aah, mine says "Remove".

[Helen]

yeah, in Sync Free you need to remove and re-share it again. Your way is also good enough.

[jdrch]

On 8/7/2018 at 12:47 AM, Helen said:

No, moving sync share to a different drive is not supported. You need to disconnect the folder from Sync and reconnect pointing it to a directory on external drive. 

I thought that might be the case, but came to search the forum just to make sure. On my end I'm about to move to an SSD for my OS drive and migrate my documents folders to separate HDD.

Is it possible Sync might add support within the Sync UI for moving folders in the futre? I imagine this might work by copying the files to the new destination, hashing to checking they match the source folder and then deleting the source folder.

The current method is time consuming and prone to error, not to mention is uses up network bandwidth by forcing a resync of the entire folder.

[Helen]

Files won't be re-synced provided their timestamp and/or size (which hash calculating relies on)  don't change. 

[jdrch]

18 minutes ago, Helen said:

Files won't be re-synced provided their timestamp and/or size (which hash calculating relies on)  don't change. 

On Windows, which timestamp is that? Date Modified, or Date Created, or ... ?

[Helen]

modified. 

[jdrch]

1 hour ago, Helen said:

modified. 

Alright good to know. I just cloned my main HDD to a (smaller capacity) SSD last night and am in the process of moving my personal files off the latter to the (now repurposed and reformatted) HDD. This includes a relatively small (in terms of number of files) Sync folder with non-critical files on it; I'll try reconnecting the folder to its swarm with the files in it a priori and see what happens. Hopefully it syncs up just fine without me having to refill the folder from scratch over my LAN from the other peers. ??