IT help please: Best way to access the same files from laptop and PC?

Hi all,

What I would like to achieve is have the same documents/ pictures/ videos/ music folders on both the laptop and PC.

The PC is my primary place of work and it would be nice for the files to be present on the laptop when working away but equally, update the PC with any new files or modifications made while working away (if that makes sense?!). The less manual intervention required the better to synchronize both.

I don’t need to access programs in this manner (mirroring???), just keep documents consistent between both machines. Both are Windows machines if this changes anything.

Would a NAS drive at home achieve this? Could both machines update (and download?) the same documents/ pictures/ videos/ music folders when on the home wifi network? It seems like this wouldn’t work for some reason I can’t put my finger on but then I don’t understand these types of things well at all! Perhaps some kind of cloud service is better suited but I’d rather not have ongoing costs if possible.

Any help or thoughts are much appreciated!

DanW

Cloud storage, Google Drive gives you a hell of a lot for not much cash and will update all locations. The access speed will be decent as it’s coming from a server not a dial in to your own network. You could do a NAS and pipe it to the outside but check you bandwidth and data allowances.

On top of that what do you need duplicated? Spotify/Pandora/Google Music etc. basically mean there is not much point in lugging round your music collection

What Mike said – Google Drive or Dropbox (but I prefer GD now)

On top of that what do you need duplicated?

It is mainly Word/ Excel documents that are changing day to day and I would like updated in both locations. Possibly also pictures. Music is less of an issue as I use Spotify as you suggest.

I find Dropbox ok for file sharing with customers but it is a bit clunky IMO, although I hadn’t really considered it as a way of achieving what I have in mind and can look in to it more.

How would Google Drive work in my example? Can you specify local folders from 2 machines which are used to update the same named folders on Google Drive? Would the reverse also be true? If there are modified docs on the Google drive would they automatically be updated locally when logged in to Google Drive?

Thanks!

Save the files in your my documents folder and enable MS OneDrive.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/software/how-use-onedrive-like-pro-3542044/%5B/url%5D

I recently switched from Google drive to onedrive, which is baked into windows 10 now. Ideally you need the latest version of office too, which uploads directly when you hit save. I tried to hang onto an older version of office with win10 but it didn’t work so well.

Seems to work, I’ve had fewer issues with that compared to Google drive, which sometimes would duplicate files if it didn’t sync properly. You do have to be patient with it and check the sync completes though.

We use it on 2 PCs for our business. One of them died, and we managed to get working straight away on a different machine because all the files were backed up to our Microsoft account.

Not sure I’d use either to store big files like music or media. Nothing stopping you but you’ll just be waiting longer for it to sync.

Another OneDrive user here. Had a couple of machines die and it takes no time at all to get a new machine up accessing the same data. The only difficulty is getting people to stop sticking ask their files on their desktop 🙂

You can also edit the files on-line in a browser if you aren’t at any of your machines

Funnily enough I bought a discounted Office 365 subscription with the new laptop…. however it is the one licence version which presumably doesn’t help share and backup from 2 machines

… or is the license linked to a Live account in which case can I set up the user profiles on each machine with the same Live account (hotmail email) and expect 1TB use of OneDrive on each?????

You’ve got Windows PCs – use OneDrive.

If you’ve upgraded to Windows 10 (remember it’s free for Win 7 or above), it’s built into the OS (and in Win 8).

Easiest one to use I find and generally get the best storage.

As for Office 365 – even if one licence for Office, it’s linked to your Microsoft account and the OneDrive store applies to that account so works on any machine you use with that account, likewise phones with OneDrive app (or Win Phones) and can access via the web also.

The single licence I think just applies to how many machines you can install Office itself on.

The single licence I think just applies to how many machines you can install Office itself on

That would be great, ta!

I find Dropbox ok for file sharing with customers but it is a bit clunky IMO

True for the web interface, but if you have the Dropbox software installed then it is effectively just a folder on your PC/laptop that syncs automatically when you save stuff to it.

Works very well for me and is free unless you need a lot of storage.

One Drive if you are on Windows

OneDrive. Taught teen1 how to save all his uni work on it before he left, for the inevitable… “Dad… lost my laptop” call.

Has the sync speed of one drive improved? It was dire and enough to move me back to Dropbox.

Guess it depends what you are syncing and the internet connection. At home, most average sized files, I stick it in a OneDrive folder and within a minute it’s on my tablet.

With my speedy broadband it’s been fast enough to let it sync 100Gb up to the cloud (mostly my entire photo collection), and seemed to be going a fair old speed. I sync a limited amount back to my tablet and that can be slow for large amounts but it’s more to do with the slow tablet combined with it storing the data on an SD card which is even slower.

Just having a quick play with Onedrive now… stupid question… do you just move your normal Documents/ Pictures/ Videos/ Music folders to be under “Onedrive” in the File Explorer rather than under “My PC” and ensure you are always working from those folders to keep everything synced and backed up? Is that the normal way of working with it (assuming you are under the 1TB limit with Office 365 of course)?

Has the sync speed of one drive improved?

Presumably it it only the changes or new files that take any time and it doesn’t take ages to scan all folders if there’s nothing to update (if that makes sense)??? Does it sync at intervals or automatically with every change on the local machine?

EDIT: Seems to sync with every change to the local folder which is great

I hope you have more luck with onedrive than me then.. We have onedrive for business at work and it’s the biggest heap of steaming carp I’ve ever had the misfortune to use. Frequent (daily) crashes of explorer, massive sync problems with no clue as to which file it’s choked on.. I’ve had to move all files off and back on it twice in the last 2 weeks to get it working again.
Frequent file lock issues trying to open something it’s updating..

I really wish we could use dropbox!

J

Interesting to hear.

Regardless of Dropbox or Onedrive, coming back to my last silly question… does this sound about right:

do you just move your normal Documents/ Pictures/ Videos/ Music folders to be under “Onedrive” in the File Explorer rather than under “My PC” and ensure you are always working from those folders to keep everything synced and backed up? Is that the normal way of working with it?

ffej – Member
I hope you have more luck with onedrive than me then.. We have onedrive for business at work and it’s the biggest heap of steaming carp I’ve ever had the misfortune to use

OneDrive for Business is an entirely different product, backend and client software. It’s based on SharePoint (which indeed is a heap of steaming crap).

It’s far less reliable and I’ve had files disappear when it gets confused and you have to force it to resync. Thankfully all my work files are also backed up elsewhere.

There has been talk of moving OneDrive for Business to the same technology as the consumer OneDrive, although it’s the legacy tie up with SharePoint that’s a problem as many businesses insist on using SharePoint and expect to see OneDrive folders in there.

DanW – Member
do you just move your normal Documents/ Pictures/ Videos/ Music folders to be under “Onedrive” in the File Explorer rather than under “My PC” and ensure you are always working from those folders to keep everything synced and backed up? Is that the normal way of working with it?

Works for me. In fact latest versions of Office default to OneDrive I think for document storage. MS try to push you towards it.

I have File History turned on and include OneDrive, and point it to my NAS, so I have a back up of anything that gets saved in the OneDrive folders.

Bloke at work recently bought a Synology NAS and it seems like a great solution.

I have a Synology, and it does include its own private “cloud”, but it’s not in the cloud, it’s just on your NAS. That’s okay so long as you realise if your NAS or house goes up in smoke, its all gone.

Thanks for the help everyone. I think I am finally getting somewhere with all of this and as ever STW has proved a great resource of knowledge 😀

deadkenny – you should always have a backup, even for cloud based stuff, so not really any different for a NAS.

Bloke at work had all his photos on a paid for cloud storage site specialising in photos and one day they all disappeared never to be seen again!
I think they sent him a compressed file with all his images on (low res) but he’s never managed to extract the files successfully.

stumpy01 – Member
Bloke at work recently bought a Synology NAS and it seems like a great solution.

Could be if you want to set up the public/private sharing etc. source everything from your home location and deal with any speed issues that involves. I have a NAS for home storage and backup 1.

For anything else it’s in Google Drive & Dropbox, people like Flickr offer 1TB of photo storage now too. The Drive/Dropbox way of working works really well and with the clients installed one of those that just works.

Back on this again I’m afraid!

I’m now set up with a PC and a Laptop both running Onedrive (1TB storage thanks to MS Office subscription)…

…. only problem is Onedrive doesn’t seem to like 2 machines synced to the same files which is the whole reason for me using it. I’ve used Dropbox before and that was pretty fool proof but Onedrive seems to have some quirks I haven’t gotten my head around yet.

What I am doing is logging in to a user account on both machines that share the same MS (Outlook) email address. Both machines have Onedrive installed and I’ve configured both to link Onedrive to the Doc/ Pic/ Vids/ Music folders so the Onedrive folders are the default docs folder etc (so it is almost impossible to save files anywhere else other than on Onedrive- if that makes sense?).

Both machines appear as configured devices when I log in to Onedrive via the web. Whenever I switch machines One drive asks me to log in again, then asks to either use existing Onedrive folder locations or choose new ones and then takes more than an hour (sometimes several) saying “processing changes” as it tries to process a few added files.

I suspect I am using it incorrectly so a point in the right direction would be much appreciated! Possibly the fact I am using the same profile (MS email address) on 2 separate machines although a quick Google suggests it should be possible???

Ta!

Sounds what I do. I’ve just saved a file in my onedrive document folder (Win 10 desktop) and it appears on my Win 8 tablet. Both use the same outlook log in.
Sorry can’t suggest anything.

One drive has been the easiest for me with two laptops, a surphace pro, a windows mobile and an android mobile. SharePoint has been OK at work but often very slow. I’m never sure whether to blame the software or the ancient hardware we have.

Big Dropbox user here. I pay for storage!

Sounds like I oughtbyo by embracing One Drive though.

If it’s work stuff, just check that you are comfortable with the DPA issues of having that data snooped by the nsa hosted on US servers.

I guess it could also be a Windows 10 bug…. Since “upgrading” I’ve found lots of aspects of the PC running slow, PC freezing at the log in screen, variable boot times… Lots of well documented bugs at the moment in 10 and it wouldn’t surprise me if this was another. Recent favourite was it now taking over 2 days to transfer 40gb from an external HDD to the PCs internal HDD!