Best way to instantly mirror/sync files from Windows to Linux server

Question

I have a directory on a Windows machine with a large number of files and folders that I need to watch and have the files mirrored/synced instantly (or as near to as possible), to a Linux machine over the local network.

I've investigated: - Rsync, not realtime enough - WinSCP 'Keep directories up to date' feature, which was OK but limited to 500 directories and the performance was pretty slow.

There are a bunch of results of shareware-style apps that claim to do this, but they are all pretty dubious looking. It seems there must be a good FOSS solution somewhere?

UPDATE: I'd be happy with a one-way transfer rather than a full sync, as long as it's instant and automatic.

Answer 1

Have a look at Unison (http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/). I successfully used it for Linux/Windows home directory mirroring.

Answer 2

I second eneset's proposal of the Unison software. Also if you care of looking for some alternatives Lifehacker has an interesting article on this subject http://lifehacker.com/372175/free-ways-to-synchronize-folders-between-computers

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Answer 3

It seems that what you want is to actually deal with the files on the linux server as if they were local files on your computer.

Did you consider looking for a tool to mount a remote ssh folder as a local drive?

Answer 4

Have you considered using Samba? It will let you mount windows shares under linux as well as accessing linux directorys from windows if you set them up as shares.