PC-2-PC File Sync Over Amazon S3

syncframe1After you have an Amazon S3 account, you can connect and access it at work. You can also connect and access it when you are on the road. It can now be used as a bridge to synchronize your files and folders between your office PC and your mobile laptop PC.
This article discuss steps to setup PC-2-PC file synchronization among your PCs.
First you need to activate your Amazon S3 account. If you are already an Amazon user, this step is fairly easy. You just need to visit http://aws.amazon.com and sign up for Amazon Web Services.
After that, you can install Gladinet Cloud Desktop on your PCs.

Step 1 – Planning

In this step, you will see whether you want to have a brand new folder so you can drop files into it for sync purpose. Or if you already have multiple folders sitting locally that you want to sync. Based on what you want to do, you can create your Amazon S3 buckets first.
For example, if you already have 3 separate local folders that you want to sync separately, you can create 3 separate amazon S3 buckets for each one. For example, c:\FolderA sync with PC1, c:\FolderB sync with PC2, c:\FolderC sync with PC3, you can create 3 Amazon S3 buckets such as FolderA-PC1, FolderB-PC2, FolderC-PC3.
If you only need to have a brand new sync folder that you can start drag and drop files into for sync purpose, you can create just one Amazon S3 bucket for it. For example, if you still have 3 local folders that you want to sync but sync as one single unit, you can have one single bucket for this sync purpose.
For example, the following picture shows 3 buckets created inside the Amazon Web Service Management Console.
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Step 2 – Mount the Buckets & Setup Sync

You can use the familiar Gladinet Cloud Desktop mounting wizard to mount the Amazon S3 buckets in, optionally you can setup the sync folder.  (The following UI is for version 3.2)
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As part of the mounting wizard, you can turn on the Cloud Sync Folder now. This will create a new cloud sync folder for you to drag and drop files into it for sync. If you have existing local folders to sync, you will need to uncheck the Enable Sync Folder now and enable it later with the option of picking a local folder.
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Step 3 – Sync with Existing Local Folder

As discussed in the previous paragraph, if you have existing local folder to start file sync, you need to delay enable the Cloud Sync Folder.
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Now you can associate your local folder with an Amazon S3 bucket and setup the cloud sync folder. the basic idea is that for each Amazon S3 bucket you mounted, you can pick and choose one of your local folder as the sync folder. Any existing files inside that local folder will be available to sync.
As compared to the way when you enable the cloud sync folder during the mounting wizard, it will create the cloud sync folder by default under your user profile if you enable it there. When you enable the cloud sync folder here, you have one more choice of choosing a local sync folder.
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Now it is all set, whatever local directory you assigned and associated with your Amazon S3 bucket will be a cloud sync folder. Any files you put into this local folder will be able to sync to your other PCs that mounts the same Amazon S3 bucket.

Related Posts

How to Sync Folder over Amazon S3
Password Protect Amazon S3 Folders
On-Premise Gateway to Amazon S3
An Encrypted Network Drive to Amazon S3

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