
A few weeks ago, I spoke at Case Western at a two-day symposium about “Exploring Collaboration in Digital Scholarship.” The talks were engaging and the subject—collaboration—is something that’s dear to our hearts here at ProfHacker. (Ever wanted to know how to run a group-authored blog?) Perhaps symbolic of this need for collaboration, the speakers were each presented with a flash drive, along with some other branded swag.
I remember getting my first flash drive. The ability to carry 256 MB around on something the size of a pack of gum was clear evidence that, as William Gibson puts it, “the future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed.” I could fit all of my graduate work and a lot more besides on that single flash drive which cost only $60.
Of course, that flash drive became immediately obsolete once I discovered Dropbox in 2008. Why should I bother carrying my files around on a stick or emailing them to myself when all of my files could be synced automatically between multiple computers as well as the cloud? We’ve covered Dropbox extensively for how it can be used in your research, teaching, and more. And when Dropbox had some privacy snafus in 2011, Mark introduced you to SpiderOak, a secure alternative to Dropbox. Google even got into the act last year with Drive, its platform for syncing your stuff. The only thing those flash drives are good for these days? Running portable apps.
Dropbox is dead simple, relatively fast, and super reliable. But there is a problem with it and similar services: limited storage. Dropbox and SpiderOak give you 2GB for free, and Google provides 5GB. And that’s a lot of space—up to 20x more than my first flash drive held. Alas, it’s not 2004 any more, and many of us work with much larger files these days, especially if you’re juggling data. Of course, all of these companies will be happy to sell you more space.
But what if there was an option that allowed you unlimited syncing for free? That synced files faster than Dropbox? And that didn’t involve any third-party company who might jeopardize your data? That’s exactly what you get with BitTorrent Sync, a new tool from BitTorrent Labs. BitTorrent Sync (BTS, not to be confused with Built to Spill) works in a very similar manner to Dropbox: you install a small application and you choose a folder that you would like to sync. When you do, you’re given a “secret,” a multi-character passkey. When you install BTS on a second computer, you install the software and then paste that key into the client. You choose the destination folder on that second computer, and your files immediately start syncing.
So far, this sounds pretty similar to Dropbox. The difference is that there’s no third-party. Instead of Dropbox’s servers handling files and making sure they are kept in sync, it’s simply the BTS software that does this. Your files are not in the cloud, they only live on the devices where you’ve chosen them to sync. This means a couple of different things:
- First, because there are no third-party servers, you can sync as much information as you want…for free. Forget 2GB limits: I just synced a 2GB folder and created several others equally large.
- Second, because there are no third-party servers, there’s no chance that your information could be shared, accidentally compromised, or terms-of-serviced into a new relationship with that third party.
- Third, because BTS uses the BitTorrent file sharing protocol, it’s amazingly fast. That 2GB folder synced in just 20 minutes, averaging 1MB/s. It would have taken much longer on Dropbox. (Granted, you could perhaps do this just as quickly with a flash drive, but then it wouldn’t be kept in sync.) And because of how BitTorrent works, the more computers involved in the sync (“seeds” in BitTorrent lingo), the faster it will go.
It’s not quite as convenient to share BTS folders with friends as it is in Dropbox, where you can simply email them an invite to a folder from the interface. But it’s not hard, either. With BitTorrent Sync, you simply email them the “secret” and they paste it into their interface and choose which folder that they want to host the new files in.
BTS also provides some options that Dropbox doesn’t. You can create one-way synchronization, where you are the only person who can add or remove things from the folder. It’s ideal for sharing photos or videos with your family. You can also create a “one-time secret” that works for only 24 hours.
It’s worth saying that there are some disadvantages for BTS compared to other services. It doesn’t offer version control like Dropbox. It also doesn’t have a web interface since, again, your files aren’t living on someone else’s server. What’s perhaps more important is that the lack of a third-party server means the software can’t recover files that you’ve deleted. (If you’ve deleted them, however, they should be in your computer’s trash can.) This means that BTS can’t be used quite as reliably as a redundant backup solution…but Dropbox shouldn’t be used for this anyway. You do have a backup plan, right?
I’ve been using BTS for a few weeks now, and it’s been very reliable and a great addition to my sync solutions. I love knowing that I’m limited in my sharing only by the size of the hard drives I’m using, and the speed is amazing. I’m not going to abandon Dropbox altogether, as it’s easier for working with other people simply because they already have that software installed. BTS isn’t any harder to install, but it is one more piece of software and overcoming inertia can be difficult.
Could you use more sync-able storage? Will you give BitTorrent Sync a try? What’s your preferred sync solution? Let us know in the comments!
Lead image: Wheat field / CC BY-SA 2.0