Possible to sync iDisk without copying it to desktop??

[anthonymoody]

Hi,

I want to use iDisk primarily to backup my entire Documents folder. Space is not the issue - I have under 20 gigs locally (and could always buy more space on iDisk if needed).

The files are crucial - and I back them up locally on my network, with lots of redundancy. But you know what they say - there's no such thing as too much redundancy.

I've copied my entire Documents folder to iDisk, no problem (though it took a while).

Now, I want it to constantly sync any differences between what's on my laptop locally and what's in the cloud.

However, it seems the only way to do that is to enable the syncing, which places a copy of the iDisk on my desktop. So the files take 2x the amount of space locally. I don't want that if at all possible as my laptop HD is not that large unfortunately.

Is there any way to have one (sync) without the other (copying the files locally)?

TIA
TM

 

[BaldiMac]

Why not just enable syncing and store your files on the iDisk rather than in your document folder? Then you would only have one local copy and the documents would be synced to the cloud.

 

[BroadcastDoc]

I agree with BaldiMac - I do the same thing. All my documents live on the local copy of the iDisk so they automatically sync.

While the iDisk is good about failing (in the rare case that iDisk syncing fails, the result is usually a dmg of the old iDisk) you absolutely want to make regular backups of your docs, which you should be doing anyway...

 

[anthonymoody]

Thanks guys. I considered that, but somehow became nervous that if the cloud went down, so would my local copy (I assume) which would then make my life miserable.

Question - if I do what you suggest, would the local copy of the iDisk be included in my Time Machine backups?

Thanks again,
TM

 

[BroadcastDoc]

If MM goes down, your local iDisk will still be available. The whole reason for iDisk sync's being is to be able to access your stuff if MobileMe is unavailable or offline. As soon as it's back online, your stuff syncs up!

I've been doing it this way successfully for years.

If for some reason there's a problem with your account or whatever, your iDisk just converts to a DMG and your stuff is still there.

As for Time Machine, hopefully someone else will answer...I don't really know.

 

[boston04and07]

Yeah, I'm also really interested to see if Time Machine backs up local iDisk copies. I was thinking of just having everything live in my iDisk folder, but creating aliases to my iDisk's Documents folder in my home folder (if that makes sense), just to be able to access them like I normally do. However, I definitely want Time Machine to keep backing these things up!

I kind of wish you could just tag certain folders on your hard drive to always be synced with iDisk, instead of having to keep them on the iDisk itself. But this also works.

 

[Macsterguy]

Yes...

Yes, Time Machine does backup your local iDisk (which is located in your user / library / FileSync folder) as a iDisk.sparsebundle.

I like redundancy too so I also use SuperDuper to copy and save my entire iDisk nightly...

On top of that I use dropbox...

I sync 3 mac's - home, work, laptop with TimeMachine, SuperDuper (bootable copy), Dropbox and online... all automatically... My backups are backed up

 

[boston04and07]

Yes, Time Machine does backup your local iDisk (which is located in your user / library / FileSync folder) as a iDisk.sparsebundle.

I like redundancy too so I also use SuperDuper to copy and save my entire iDisk nightly...

On top of that I use dropbox...

I sync 3 mac's - home, work, laptop with TimeMachine, SuperDuper (bootable copy), Dropbox and online... all automatically... My backups are backed up

That's good to know! I might do it then. Just one more question - if I needed to recover just one file from Time Machine, how easy is it? Can I pick just one file from TM, or do I need to recover the entire iDisk sparsebundle? Sorry, I'm not very familiar with this

 

[Macsterguy]

That's good to know! I might do it then. Just one more question - if I needed to recover just one file from Time Machine, how easy is it? Can I pick just one file from TM, or do I need to recover the entire iDisk sparsebundle? Sorry, I'm not very familiar with this

That is the draw back... the entire sparsebundle...

That is why I use SuperDuper to backup my entire iDisk nightly and automatically. That way if I need just one file - there it is

I suppose you could do this with dropbox too... Just isn't my workflow...

 

[boston04and07]

Ahh that's frustrating. I would really like to keep all my documents in sync across my computers, but that Time Machine thing is definitely an issue. Might look into using Superduper. Macsterguy - do you keep multiple versions of your backed-up folder (like TM does) or just the most recent copy?

 

[VirtualRain]

As other's suggest, you can achieve what you want simply by using your iDisk as the only file store and setting up aliases from the folders therein and putting those in your "Home > Documents" so you can continue working with your familiar documents path.

Better explained here (see post #11)... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/807655/

 

[Macsterguy]

Ahh that's frustrating. I would really like to keep all my documents in sync across my computers, but that Time Machine thing is definitely an issue. Might look into using Superduper. Macsterguy - do you keep multiple versions of your backed-up folder (like TM does) or just the most recent copy?

Just the most recent copy... my backups occur nightly so I loose anything prior. I have 3 Macs in sync that are each backed up so backups are very redundant... To get where I think you want to go you might want to look into dropbox. I use dropbox as yet another backup for important files which is cloud based and yes - backed up by both superduper and time machine.

 

[boston04and07]

Just the most recent copy... my backups occur nightly so I loose anything prior. I have 3 Macs in sync that are each backed up so backups are very redundant... To get where I think you want to go you might want to look into dropbox. I use dropbox as yet another backup for important files which is cloud based and yes - backed up by both superduper and time machine.

All right, I think I'm going to use Superduper to back up my iDisk files then. How can i exclude Time Machine from backing up the iDisk sparsebundle? I don't need two copies of the same thing I'm not sure what folder to exclude in order to do this.

EDIT: Also, as of right now I've only used my one external disk as a Time Machine backup. I know that I can add files to the hard drive alongside the Backups folder, but will scheduling Superduper to always copy my iDisk to that drive mess up the Time Machine backups at all?? Just wanna make sure before I start!

 

[boston04and07]

As other's suggest, you can achieve what you want simply by using your iDisk as the only file store and setting up aliases from the folders therein and putting those in your "Home > Documents" so you can continue working with your familiar documents path.

Better explained here (see post #11)... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/807655/

This post was actually very helpful to me - I ended up doing what VirtualRain suggested.

 

[Davebkk]

One quick point, and I'm actually not sure about this so if someone can confirm it'd be great.

When a mac syncs with Mobileme via iDisk, I believe everything is sent in the clear. There is no encryption, so if anyone is monitoring the network, and you're sending your entire Documents folder to Mobileme, it's all in the clear during the transfer.

 

[Macsterguy]

All right, I think I'm going to use Superduper to back up my iDisk files then. How can i exclude Time Machine from backing up the iDisk sparsebundle? I don't need two copies of the same thing I'm not sure what folder to exclude in order to do this.

EDIT: Also, as of right now I've only used my one external disk as a Time Machine backup. I know that I can add files to the hard drive alongside the Backups folder, but will scheduling Superduper to always copy my iDisk to that drive mess up the Time Machine backups at all?? Just wanna make sure before I start!

Open TimeMachine Prefs. Select Options - there you can choose what TimeMachine excludes. In this case: Home / Library / FileSync Folder is where the iDisk sparcebundle lives.

 

[boston04and07]

Open TimeMachine Prefs. Select Options - there you can choose what TimeMachine excludes. In this case: Home / Library / FileSync Folder is where the iDisk sparcebundle lives.

Thank you!! That's exactly what I was looking for.