I don’t know if these are uncommon but I have a few cool usecases besides the regular 1:1 folder syncing, maybe someone else finds them useful.
Also you should know that the way I have all of this setup is that I have a container that hosts a bunch of SMB Network drives and a syncthing container that stores all of the fodlers on that drive. Having them also easily accessible through smb is great when I just wanna quickly copy something or back the folders up.
So here are some of my maybe unorthodoz usecases :
Music - As a fan of offline music, I have it setup that music I acquire gets synced onto the server and re-encoded as opus through a script into a second folder which then through syncthing gets sent out my mobile devices. There I rather have smaller files than lossless quality. Said script also sorts the music into folders based on artist and album metadata.
I also sync my Newpipe Subscriptions between phones (unfortunately by manually exporting my settings and re-importing them)
I also used to have a setup that would sync Minecraft Bedrock and Stardew Valley saves between devices (where Windows and Android saves are compatible) but Android 11 introduced a stupid restriction that prevents synching from accessing the the saves are located on Android.
I have a site to site VPN between my house and my mother’s house. I keep a raspberry pi at her house with a 2TB drive running syncthing. My photo library and important documents sync to her house as an offsite backup in case my house ever burned to the ground.
as far as syncing files between PC and laptop, I would think ownCloud would be better suited for that.
because synching runs all the time. any change that I make is nearly immediately updated offsite. and if you think that is my only backup of my photos, you would be wrong :-) This is only a “if I lost all my physical possessions” type backup, not an “oops, I am a dummy and deleted something I shouldn’t have” backup. I have multiple snapshot backups and also run incremental backups every hour. Storage is so cheap any more that I don’t hesitate to have 5 backups of the REALLY important stuff. Most of my server storage is also raid5 in case of hardware failure. I have pushover set up to check for disk failures and push alerts to my phone if one is ever detected.
I mod my games on my PC and sync it to my SteamDeck. I also sync the save files back and fourth, to continue playing on different devices. Mostly non-steam games.
I also sync my eBook collection to my eink reader with syncthing.
Everything is also mirrored to my always-on NAS, so syncing always works.
I’ve got a couple of Raspberry Pi Zero’s that emulate a mass storage device (basically it acts like a USB drive) that I have connected to 3D printers and my wife’s embroidery machine.
Instead of using it with a network share like in the link, I share the folder with SyncThing.
It’s super convenient to not have to move a USB drive around and can just leave it connected and get the files on there seamlessly.
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I don’t know if these are uncommon but I have a few cool usecases besides the regular 1:1 folder syncing, maybe someone else finds them useful.
Also you should know that the way I have all of this setup is that I have a container that hosts a bunch of SMB Network drives and a syncthing container that stores all of the fodlers on that drive. Having them also easily accessible through smb is great when I just wanna quickly copy something or back the folders up.
So here are some of my maybe unorthodoz usecases :
I also used to have a setup that would sync Minecraft Bedrock and Stardew Valley saves between devices (where Windows and Android saves are compatible) but Android 11 introduced a stupid restriction that prevents synching from accessing the the saves are located on Android.
Syncing save games across multiple users, for games like Valhiem or Minecraft without the need for an always on server.
I use syncthing to sync the sysvol folder between my two samba ad domain controllers.
Working for a sip provider.
We used syncthing to sync sound files between sip servers. Things like voicemail, call recordings, hold music, menu options.
I have a site to site VPN between my house and my mother’s house. I keep a raspberry pi at her house with a 2TB drive running syncthing. My photo library and important documents sync to her house as an offsite backup in case my house ever burned to the ground.
as far as syncing files between PC and laptop, I would think ownCloud would be better suited for that.
Ok, why syncthing and not rsync? Also, duplication should not be threated as backup.
because synching runs all the time. any change that I make is nearly immediately updated offsite. and if you think that is my only backup of my photos, you would be wrong :-) This is only a “if I lost all my physical possessions” type backup, not an “oops, I am a dummy and deleted something I shouldn’t have” backup. I have multiple snapshot backups and also run incremental backups every hour. Storage is so cheap any more that I don’t hesitate to have 5 backups of the REALLY important stuff. Most of my server storage is also raid5 in case of hardware failure. I have pushover set up to check for disk failures and push alerts to my phone if one is ever detected.
Oh, okay! thanks for the clarification. What are you using for incremental backups?
I mod my games on my PC and sync it to my SteamDeck. I also sync the save files back and fourth, to continue playing on different devices. Mostly non-steam games.
I also sync my eBook collection to my eink reader with syncthing.
Everything is also mirrored to my always-on NAS, so syncing always works.
I’ve got a couple of Raspberry Pi Zero’s that emulate a mass storage device (basically it acts like a USB drive) that I have connected to 3D printers and my wife’s embroidery machine.
Instead of using it with a network share like in the link, I share the folder with SyncThing.
It’s super convenient to not have to move a USB drive around and can just leave it connected and get the files on there seamlessly.