iDisk syncing

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

I am keeping my precious project in my iDisk folder - to be able to access it from other computers, but mainly to have an automatic backup performed frequently (I only use TimeMachine every couple of days or so). However, it doesn’t seem to work - I get a message “last sync failed” for my iDisk, all other files are backed up, only the Scrivener project isn’t. My questions:

  • Does the sync work for other people?

  • When it works - does it only update the stuff that has been changed, or will it upload the whole project each time? I have a lot of pdf documents in mine, and it’s grown to a couple of hundred MB.

Thank you!

2

I as well used iDisk, but I used it along with Hazel, which automatically syncs my Writing folder contents to a Writing folder on iDisk and Vise Versa. Anyway, I have had syncing problems but primarily with larger files (100 megabytes plus). Because of this and because of suggestions from these lovely forums, I have added Dropbox to my backup/upload needs. I added new rules to Hazel to sync my writing folder to iDisk AND Dropbox. The point, Dropbox seems to be faster and more reliable than iDisk for most files (and is free for 2.0 gigs) but it lacks the simplicity and compatibility of iDisk.

3

Thanks for the hint with Hazel! My Scrivner project is around 130 MB right now, that might be the reason why the sync failed.

So you keep your project in a folder that is different from the local iDisk and DropBox folders? Maybe that’s a good idea, I have a slightly uneasy feeling with keeping mine in a folder that is being synced - means, the content is being messed with automatically …

4

I as well feel uncomfortable having my primary copy of my work “in the cloud” so I therefore always work off the copy on my harddrive, and just keep that copy synced to the upload services. I listen to MacBreak Weekly, which is the podcast that introduced me to Scrivener, and one of the hosts on that show, Alex Lindsay, had a great quote which was, “A file does not exist, unless it is in two places.” My backup process is a bit redundant, but here it is. I use Time Capsule to sync my entire computer every hour, I have various SuperDuper! (a fantastic backup program) images of my computer, I use Hazel to constantly sync my writing folder to two off site locations (Dropbox and iDisk), and once a week I use SuperDuper! to image my writing folder and smart update it to a second network storage drive and to iDisk. A bit off topic, but I think you can never be too prepared for the worse.