How to get multiple folders on external hard drive content to sync?

I Have a Question
1

I have my files on Amazon Drive and an external hard drive, I would like them to sync so when I add a file to the external hard drive it “uploads” the same file to Amazon Drive. I have been able to do the Sync to odrive folder by folder but can not have it do more then one at a time. If I select multiple folders it only syncs one of them. Am I missing something?

2

Hi @mark3,

Yes, you can only mount single local folder to single remote folder but you can create unlimited mounts to sync your other folder using “Sync to odrive” option.

I believe, better way to do it is; If you move all your desired folder into single parent folder and do “Sync to odrive” against parent folder, then it should allow you to sync all your folders using single mount.

Let suppose:

External HDD Root: (current structure)
—> Photos (root folder)
—> Documents (root folder)
—> Videos (root folder)
—> Other folders (your don’t want to sync)

External HDD Root: (Recommended structure)
—> odrive Sync folder (create new parent folder and move other folders into it)
-----------> Photos (sub-folder of odrive Sync folder)
-----------> Documents (sub-folder of odrive Sync folder)
-----------> Videos (sub-folder of odrive Sync folder)
—> Other folders (your don’t want to sync)

Now, if you right-click “Sync to odrive” against “odrive Sync folder” it should allow you to have all your contents to sync to your desired cloud storage (e.g. ACD)

Thanks,
Asif

3

I figured I could do that but it will mess up my backups on CrashPlan, it will see the folder as something new and try to backup all its content again, about 5 TB, plus all other connections to this external hard drive and its path would need to be reconfigured, not an easy task, includes droplets made for customers.

What I don’t understand is why it lets me pick several folders and proceed with the “sync to odrive” and then only does one folder. Bad UI?

4

Sorry, yes unfortunately that would make the things more complicated and therefore inefficient to move the folders.

In our current simplified app design it is not supported to select multiple folders and sync to odrive. Either it has to be done individually per folder or move folders into single parent and then sync to odrive. How many individual folders do you have to sync with your ACD cloud storage?

I’ll forward your feedback to our relevant department for further review.

Thanks,
Asif

5

I have 3,679 folders I want to sync.

6

Hi @mark3,
the odrive local folder to remote folder relationship is a 1 to 1 mapping, currently. There isn’t a supported way to sync all of those folders at the same time without consolidating them into a single folder, as @AsifNisarr suggested above.

I took a quick look at the Crashplan documentation, and it looks like it supports restructuring without re-upload, so this may still be doable. https://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/4/Configuring/Moving_And_Renaming_Files_In_Your_Backup_Selection

7

Couldn’t you select the external drive as your odrive sync root instead of picking sub-folders?

So that it doesn’t upload your files again, you would probably have to do something like this (unless @Tony or @AsifNisarr have a better suggestion)

  • Unsync the existing folder(s)
  • Quit odrive
  • Create a new “ExternalDrive” folder on the Amazon Drive site
  • Move the existing folders into the ExternalDrive folder
  • Start odrive
  • Add a Sync of the external drive folder and point it to the ExternalDrive folder on Amazon

odrive will need to re-analyze the files but it should see they already exist on Amazon.

Now any new files or folders you create on the external drive will be synced to Amazon, not just the folders you have picked.

8

Thanks for the suggestion @Smudge.

We do not officially support putting the odrive main/root folder on an external drive. It can be done, but there are potential issues and unexpected side effects which is why @AsifNisarr and myself can’t recommend it. Even if you do this, odrive needs to operate out of an “odrive” folder, which means it would create a new odrive folder in the root of the external drive, so you end up in the same situation.

9

Sounds like there is a customer need for this feature some day. Many of us large volume file hoarders do not use internal disks for storage, probably using external RAID units too, like a Drobo.

10

Hi @mark3,
Technically “sync to odrive” will do this, but it is a 1 to 1 mapping, as stated above. If you were to take the top-level folders on the external drive, place them into a subfolder, and then use “sync to odrive” on that it would achieve the goal of sync that data to your remote storage.

Realistically, sync may not the best solution for large volume hoarders (multi-terabyte levels); traditional backup is probably a better solution. I put some thoughts on that here in this post, if you are interested: Backup (one-way sync)