New Feature - Central Sync DB catalog for external drives

Discuss new features and functions
Posts: 2
Joined: 9 Dec 2023

clifford641

I have been searching for quite a while, but can't seem to find a software that exists already that does this. I originally bought FFS because I thought it was so great. I have a NAS with about 10TB right now and it's still growing. It's a media library. In order to protect my data, I have multiple backups. Of which include, copying files to an external drive. I ran into a problem of the external drive I have is only 8TB. I could buy a larger one, but I will run into the same problem down the road eventually. I really like this method because it's a file level backup that doesn't rely on backup software. I literally just plug in a drive and copy the files back. If one of the drives dies, I don't lose the entire backup that requires all drives to be healthy to restore. I only lose the files on that drive. It's better than nothing and it's cost effective.

I am working on a powershell script to do this for me, but figured I'd throw the idea out here to see if it might fit in with this because I also think the GUI is great.

REQUEST: have FFS keep a central DB of files synced in a sync set including source and destination. So it could keep track of the files copied from the NAS and keep track of which drive they have been copied to. If external hard drive 1 fills up, then I could just plug in external hard drive 2. The central DB would keep track of files that have already been copied. If a file copied to HDD 1 changes on the NAS, it marks it for deletion and either copies it to HDD 2 or says plug back in HDD 1.
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Posts: 2286
Joined: 22 Aug 2012

Plerry

> REQUEST: have FFS keep a central DB of files synced in a sync set including source and destination.

FFS uses a database in each of its left and right base locations, not a central database.
The reasons why are clear, and explained several times in this forum, upon the request of others to have a single and/or self selected location for FFS to store its database(s).
So, if you really want/need a sync tool that uses a single database for all its syncs, FFS is probably not the tool for you.
It is ultimately up to the Zenju, the developer of FFS, but I would not hold my breath until FFS would change its present approach.
Posts: 2
Joined: 9 Dec 2023

clifford641

Unfortunately, that many sub folders to define which goes to which external drive would be a nightmare to manage. And the files are mostly mkv, so I wouldn't be able to to split them at a file level.

It seems I will just be continuing with my own method of powershell and a central CSV.