I have several different folders syncing to Amazon Cloud Drive. But how do I know when everything is synced? Meaning all files on my local HD are found in their respective Amazon Cloud folders?
Not only do I just want to know this in general, but it’s very important that I confirm this at this time because my external HD where the files are stored is corrupt (and in read-only mode now). I will need to reformat the drive to fix the problem. So long as everything is synced to Amazon, I should be fine. How can I tell?
Hi @lshupp,
odrive will always try to upload any files that have not yet been synced to the cloud. If everything has been uploaded you should see a green checkmark on the folder and you will not see anything listed in the odrive menu under waiting or not allowed. You will also not see anything actively syncing.
If you would like to send a diagnostic from the odrive menu, I can take a look from that perspective too.
Does the green checkmark mean all subfolders are synced as well?
What do you mean by “under waiting”? I don’t see such a label in the menu. I do, however, see “Ready to sync new changes” and “sync to odrive” there. Which do you mean?
I sent a diagnostic for you. My HD from which it’s syncing is failing so it’s not attached when I sent the diagnostic. I’ll restart my machine now to get the HD to show up again and resend just in case.
Once I reformat the HD from which I was syncing, how can I re-download my content to it and then would I need to re-setup the syncing from it?
Thank you!
Oh, you know what… there aren’t any green checks because under “sync to odrive” the folders all have “[missing]” next to them. The HD is in a read-only state because of it’s recent malfunction, so that must be why. I can browse through the files on the HD just fine though. The error message I get when I load the drive after a restart is telling me that it’s unable to load properly, that it’s in read-only for now and to consider reformatting it. I don’t have the exact words in front of me, but disk utility isn’t fixing it.
Hi @lshupp,
I think the issue is the read-only status. Unfortunately “sync to odrive” doesn’t function properly if it doesn’t have write-access to the drive. Are you able to get another drive that you can migrate the data onto so you can make sure that all of that data is safely synced?
Oh I see. This HD is a 4T. I have another 2T HD I could use, but I can’t sync all the files in one go. I would need to do about half then the second half. Would that work? Can you list the steps I should take to move and rexondifure odrive along the way?
Hi @lshupp,
You could move half of the files over and sync, then the other half. You will want to use two different folders on the external drive when you do this, so it doesn’t look like files have been deleted. You can merge those folders after everything is synced up.
So the basic steps would be:
Move half of the files over to the other external drive in folder “A”
“sync to odrive” folder “A” and wait for it to complete (it will take quite a while)
remove sync from folder “A” (right-click->remove sync).
Remove folder “A” from the external drive
Copy over the second half of the files to folder “B” on the second drive
“sync to odrive” folder “B” and wait for it to complete
remove sync from folder “B” (right-click->remove sync)
Let me know if you have any questions about the above steps.
Thanks. I’ll try this. Meanwhile, can you tell me if the syncing process replaces each file (and that’s why it takes so long)? I’m concerned that the more times files are moved / replaced the bigger the risk is for files getting corrupted. Or does it check if the file is the same first and skip it if it is? Is there a way to tell it, only upload if it’s newer or not there yet on the Amazon cloud drive?
I @lshupp,
odrive tries not to sync files that are already synced, if they are the same exact file. So you were to “sync to odrive” a folder, and point it to a folder that already files in it on Amazon, odrive will try to only sync the files/folders that have not yet been synced or differ.
If the files on your external drive have already been synced to odrive and you are trying to make sure everything is synced on that drive we can probably modify the instructions a bit:
Move half of the files over from the bad drive to the other external drive. Put these files in a folder that has the same exact name as the folder on Amazon Drive that you want to sync these files to.
Right-click->“sync to odrive” the folder and choose the corresponding folder with the same name (see 1.) on the remote side, and and wait for it to complete (it will take quite a while)
Remove sync from the local folder (right-click->remove sync). This step is important because, without it, odrive will think you’ve deleted all of the files in this folder when you go to the next step.
Replace the content in the local folder with the second half of the files from the bad drive, keeping the same folder name.
“sync to odrive” folder this folder again, choosing the same remote folder as before, and wait for it to complete
Remove sync from the folder (right-click->remove sync)
At this point the content that was on the bad external drive should all be synced to that remote folder that you chose.
Thanks Tony. There are some older files on the 2T that I’ll have to delete to make room for this transition. If I sync those just-in-case will they only sync if they are newer modification dates than what is on Amazon Cloud Drive? In other words, will odrive skip syncing files of the same name and type that are older for me? I want this to be the case so that I can sync them, then delete them, but know that Amazon Drive has the latest if they were modified later on the 4T I was using primarily since.
Hi @lshupp,
odrive will consider anything local that is different in size or date as an intentional change that needs to be uploaded to the remote storage. If you have files that are older they will overwrite the newer files on the remote side, unfortunately.