this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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Ugh, Syncthing. I bet it works well for syncing between Linux boxes or even MacOS, but when I tried using it to sync between Windows and a couple of Android devices, it was incredibly clunky. I found it confusing and obtuse even though I've been a software engineer for over 20 years.
Rant over.
I keep hundreds of gigs in sync between 4 windows computers and about 5 phones, including iOS (on iOS it's Möbius). SyncTrayzor for Windows is really helpful.
It rarely has issues, when it does it notifies you of a sync conflict (it's always a result of me doing something that's bad practice, such as disabling sync for weeks on one device and making a bunch of changes).
Give it a try again. I especially recommend Syncthing-Fork for Android, it moves sync conditions into the individual sync jobs/folders. This enables me to have my DCIM folder sync to home, regardless of network or power conditions, so I never lose pictures, while allowing me to set my media sync folder (music, videos, etc from my home desktop) to only sync while on wifi, and other jobs to only run while connected to power and wifi.
Resilio is another great sync tool, works differently than Syncthing by using the bittorrent protocol. It has Sync-on-demand, which is great for grabbing media from my desktop from anywhere, Syncthing would only permit Syncthing the entire folder, with Resilio you can browse the share from your phone, pick files, and have it sync them right now.
I'd use Resilio more, just for that feature, but it kills memory on a phone because it keeps the sync database in ram when running, while Syncthing relies on files for indexing. So ST is my daily driver, and load up Resilio when I need to grab specific files.
I ended up using a combination of Obsidian sync and Google drive to do what I wanted, and it was much easier.
I'm all for people using Syncthing in cases where it meets their needs, but when you're mainly syncing notes, I think it's overkill and doesn't pull its weight in terms of its learning curve and the potential to screw things up with an incorrect configuration.
Another issue I ran into was that the devices have to be awake at the same time to sync between them. Using a cloud based solution makes that problem go away. Syncthing might be worth it for me if I ever get around to setting up a Linux media server, but I've been resisting it because I don't want another machine to maintain. I still can't help but think of an old job I had where we were almost unable to do a big demo because it relied on a server at a coworker's house that was accidentally unplugged.
Good point about being awake at the same time, and have sync conditions met.
I deal with that by using a computer at home as the always-on cloud.
Definitely something to consider for sync jobs.
Interesting, because my experience with it has been smooth, no problem at all. I let it running on my phone and laptop basically all the time.