Keeping Collections in Sync?

[bjshively]

I have a MacBook Air that I travel with and use a lot of the time. However, when I'm home I do some DJing and production on my iMac.

Does anyone have tips for keeping Traktor libraries in sync between multiple systems? Ideally, I'd like my track libraries, traktor tags, etc. to automagically sync up whenever the two machines are on the same LAN together. If there is some sort of backup/sync process I have to kickoff, that wouldn't be terrible.

Anyone have a solution/similar problem?

[dual citizen]

What if you set the folders to sync via Dropbox? Set your music and library folders to sync and Dropbox would upload/download automatically. Assuming you have more than 2GB of music, you would have to pay for it.

[ekwipt]

Dropbox world be perfect for the nml files but not for tracks unless you buy the pro account

[bjshively]

Yeah, my library is in the 15 gig range and rapidly growing, so I'd definitely have to pony up for Dropbox pro. Another concern is that I use my Dropbox on my work laptop as well, and probably don't want to be pushing 20 gigs of mp3s to that. I mean, my company wouldn't REALLY care, just seems like it could be a bit of a nuisance since I'd rarely use the files on that machine.

I do like the idea of possibly using it to sync config files, etc. though

[djproben]

I have a sync disc and I run a program (FoldersSynchronizer but there's also SynKit and Synchronizer Pro) periodically syncing up my desktop to my laptop. I also have folders I sync with my computer at work. It's not automatic but it's pretty simple. Doing it automatically would be nice, tho it seems like a waste of bandwidth to copy large files around all the time... then again I guess after the first big sync it wouldnt be doing it nearly as often.

[rgtb]

Another concern is that I use my Dropbox on my work laptop as well, and probably don't want to be pushing 20 gigs of mp3s to that. I mean, my company wouldn't REALLY care, just seems like it could be a bit of a nuisance since I'd rarely use the files on that machine.

that's not an issue as dropbox allows for selective sync. that is, you can tell it which folders are synced on which machine(s).

Yeah, my library is in the 15 gig range and rapidly growing, so I'd definitely have to pony up for Dropbox pro.

i do think that online hosting is the future. i don't think it's ready for prime time just yet. it certainly will be in the not-too-distant future. i mean, dropbox can also sync over the local network which helps. having a small library helps (but i'm not even a pro and have over 100gb). having fast internet connections (particularly upload) helps.

personally, i'll wait another year or two before putting my music library online. you're on a mac so you could use rsync. if you have elementary knowledge of bash, it shouldn't take you more than half an hour to set everything up.

[WTFumbles]

I solved this issue with my Windows systems in this order:

[Desktop] -> [Internal Backup] -> [External Backup] -> [Laptop]

This only solves the issue if you do ALL your hardwork (Beatgridding / Hotcues / New songs / Playlist rearrangements, etc) on your desktop... I'm not sure where the beatgrid / hotcue / playlist information is stored, so I can't really tell you if setting it to "synchronize" certain files will have adverse effects... If someone can tell me what files are used to govern these functions, it would be appreciated.

[Kaek]

The problem with traktor is that some information is written as tags to the files, while other information is written to your preferences.

Despite beatgridding etc all my tracks on my desktop it still wants to analyse them when I copy the tracks from my desktop to my mbp (and set a new beatgrid which I have to modify!). I haven't tried copying the preferences over yet as the preferences I use for my PC desktop is different to my mac.

What I do currently is, I create a network connection from my mbp to the PC's shared music folder and just copy the stuff across periodically.

I use rsync so that only changed files get copied.

Whenever you load a file into traktor though it gets "changed" so it tends to copy a lot!

EDIT: for PC to PC copies, I would use Robocopy. It is a tool included with all windows computers, used by sysadmins to do massive copy operations.

[WTFumbles]

^^ Some of the files I copy over prevent this issue from occurring (re-analyzing) but it's Windows-to-Windows, if I knew what files controlled it (located in C:\users\<userprofile>\Documents\Native Instruments\Traktor 2.0.3 by default), then I could probably help better...

I'm using syncback from 2brightsparks, but am highly familiar with robocopy, as well.

[djoverzero]

The problem with traktor is that some information is written as tags to the files, while other information is written to your preferences.

I have both my Music Library and my Traktor settings folder synced to multiple computers using Dropbox. It has worked out great for me. If you have Traktor running on both machines at the same time, you may end up with conflicts that you need to manually resolve. If you start seeing something like "(laptop's conflicted copy 2011-12-30)" added to filenames, that is what is up.