As previously posted I bought a Transporter Sync, as after some review I could see a use case for it and felt it could be a good addition for me and my environment.
Below I am going to talk about my use case and provide insight on how I am using it, so that others might get an understanding of some of the capabilities of the device. This is merely a sample of the capabilities, as when you have 2 or more units you can sync data between them (including data contained in the Transporter Library folder).
First thing I should mention is the folders associated with the installation of the software, and this is something they cover on every client installation performed, however it can seem a bit confusing, but it’s really simple.
Below is a screen grab showing the welcome message from the installer.
Transporter Folder is files/folders that will exist on any computer where the client is installed, unless your use selective sync to turn them off to stop syncing on that computer.
It will also contain a folder called Transporter Library, which if any data is copied to this path will ONLY exist on the Transporter, and will not remain on your computer. So if your computer dies or the Transporter dies, data in the Transporter Library goes with it. HOWEVER, Transporter Library folder can be configured to sync to another Transporter device associated with your account.
Example below, on what this Transporter Folder might look like, note I have created several shared folders, hence I have a number of additional folders shown, blurred out for privacy reasons.
For example the folder above named Public, is a shared folder I created using the Web Portal that allows me to drop files into this location, and send web links to people so they can view the file and/or download the file.
The next screen from the Web Portal is the properties for the shared folder, you will note that it has Transporter Require: No, so I can create web links to any content from my Computer of any content on this shared folder.
Below is a demo showing me right clicking a file and showing the Transporter content menu for creating a link to a file.
Below is a link to the file as created above, so you can see what it looks like;
Created links can be viewed/managed from the Web Portal too, as shown below;
From here you can delete them, and set an expiring for it.
The feature of the product which I was most excited about, was Special Folders. Below is a screen capture as taken from the Transporter Windows Client where I am looking at the Preferences, where this is configured.
In this example, I have selected “My Documents” and what happens when I do this is that the existing files/folders in “My Documents” are moved to a folder that is named after my machines host name. Soon as that is complete, it starts to sync the entire contents to the Transporter hard drive.
At this point, if I save anything into the “My Documents” folder structure top level, and the newly created folder with my machines host name. It instantly syncs to the Transporter.
Now the magic happens when I install the client on another computer that I use, and enable this feature again on the next computer. It will again create a folder under “My Documents” that is based on the machines host name, and move all the data below this. It of course instantly syncs this data to the Transporter.
However, you will also see the folder and data from the first machine appear too. Like wise when I go back to the first computer, it will show the data from the 2nd computer’s “My Documents” folder.
The creation of the folder based on the machines host name, is stop file conflicts where both machines might have the same file name, and allows you to manually merge it all. i.e. move content back to the My Documents top level folder to create a true single pane.
Now when you save any files/folders into My Documents on either computer, both machines instantly see this due to an immediate sync, and transporter gets a sync too. Now you could access this data from the iOS and/or Android device too, once you log on with your user account used on the Transporter Desktop client installs.
Selective Sync is an option that can be used to limit what shared folders sync on other machines, so if you had 3 shared folders, you might not want all 3 shared folders to sync on your 2nd computer, so you could turn them all off, or just individual ones. As shown below;
I’ll post more info and screen captures in the coming days, but I wanted to post out something to account for what I have used so far.
