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I have 2 different laptops that I use for work, they're different so I use one or another depending on my needs. They're usually connected to the same home network (unless I go out and work from somewhere else, of course).

I have a folder in one of them where I keep the files of all my projects, so if I want to continue working from the other laptop I have to copy first the files that changed (which sometimes it's not easy to remember which ones changed), because copying everything every time I change the laptop I'm using would take too long.

So I would like to know if there's any way to keep those changes in sync. So for example, when I use the second laptop, I run whatever syncing process that copies only the files that changed in the first laptop since the last time I used the second one. And after working on it, if I want to go back to the first laptop, be able to sync those changes back from the second laptop.

I don't know what options are available to do this (online services or network services?). I know one option would be using a network hard drive, but then if I have to take one laptop with me and work away from the network that would be an issue...

Any ideas would be appreciated!

EDIT

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I use Windows 8 in both (but my revert to Windows 7 in my old one because I have some compatibility issues, I mention this in case it matters).

Also, if it can be done without an online service (like Dropbox) I would prefer that, some files might be too big or might have sensitive info that I would prefer not sending online

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An OS independent solution that I enjoy using is BitTorrent Sync. http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html

This allows you to select a folder on each machine to keep in synchronization.

I use this for my inlaws and my parents for new pictures of our daughter. I have my computer and laptop set up as the masters and their computers set up as read only. Whenever I add a picture to the master, it will automatically sync down to all other machines. The machines will work together in a private p2p environment to synchronize. No opening of firewalls needed. nice thing about this too is that if you're working remotely, it will in real time back up those files to the other locations wherever you have the sync enabled on.

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  • I prefer this method over dropbox, skydrive and google drive since these do not store important private information in the cloud. Rather, it is similar to those features with the sense of security of having your data locally stored and the only limitation of space is your own hardware and not a soft limit from a third party.
    – kobaltz
    Jun 3, 2013 at 18:22

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