Distributed Files

Since we started our business over a year ago I have been trying to work out how to manage file across multiple computers without a formal file server. This is important since the concept of the office network is a fairly fluid affair, using a laptops and wireless networks both at the office and at home.

Until now this has resulted in three separate PC’s with shared file access, but no single location of file storage that I could backup easily. It also meant that files were getting duplicated on the different machines since the transient nature of the network meant that I couldn’t know for sure that I could access a network share when I needed a particular file.

Yesterday I loaded up ‘FolderShare’ that goes a long way to resolving this issue. It creates a complete copy of all of the files in the shared folder on each system that needs to have access to it. Although this uses 3 times the storage space it provides a fantastic level of redundancy as well. It then synchronises all of the changes to these files in real time whenever the systems can access each other. This may be locally within the network or remotely over the Internet.

Finally for backups I then just have to back up one location to have the latest copy of all 3 PC’s data. Very impressive and perfect for our current setup. It is great to stumble across a solution that perfectly meets your requirements and quietly exceeds them as well.

Will I upgrade from the 5 day trial and pay USD$50.00 for this service? Well I very rarely pay cash for software, since there is almost always a free solution out there, but this one looks like a winner. There will need to be a major deal breaker to prevent me from making that small investment.

Thanks for finding this goes to Rafe Needleman from ZDNet.

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