readycloud windows app - PC sync destination folder

[rodcrit]

I am wanting to use the windows PC sync feature on the readycloud app for windows.

it would appear that there is no way to select the PC base folder where the syncs are going to be stored and it defaults to the C: drive user\documents folder.

my C drive is used only for the windows 10 operating system and is quite small.  all my data is stored on 3 extra large drives ( 😧 E: and F; ).  is there a way of selecting the folder where the PC syncs are going to be stored?

the current system is unusable for my situation.   the data size of all the folders I wish to sync is around 2.5 TB  -  my C: drive is only 450 GB.

if the folder selection is not part of the current cloud app, can Netgear be asked to include it in a not too distant update.

[JennC · Accepted solution]

Hello rodcrit,

There is really no option to select your secondary drive where ReadyCloud folder will be created so the shares of the NAS will be copied to it. ReadyCloud client app automatically creates the ReadyCloud folder in the C:\Users\<username>\ because the ReadyCloud app is also installed to the C drive which is your primary drive. That even if you delete this ReadyCloud folder and you sync one of the shares to your computer, it still will create a new ReadyCloud folder in the same directory where you deleted it.

Currently, that is how it is designed. You might want to contact support center and request this as a feature.

You may also post suggestions and ideas at Idea Exchange board. Adding kudos to the ideas will help as development team will be reviewing the post that has the most kudos for considering it to add to the product's future functionality.

Regards,

[StephenB]

You're not alone in wanting this, it has come up a number of times already.

You might try putting the desired sync folder into one of your "libraries" and see if that works.  There is a guide for that here: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/8811-library-include-folder-windows-10-a.html

[rodcrit]

I am sorry, but I do not see how this will help...   the pc sync folder is not selectable...  the readycloud app just defaults to  folder on the users \ <user> \ Readycloud \ <nas folder name>

even if I can put the Readycloud folder in my library on another drive  - readycloud will just create a new folder on the user <user> folder   -  or am I getting it wrong ?

ll this NAS stuff is rather strange to me still .

[JennC · Accepted solution]

Hello rodcrit,

There is really no option to select your secondary drive where ReadyCloud folder will be created so the shares of the NAS will be copied to it. ReadyCloud client app automatically creates the ReadyCloud folder in the C:\Users\<username>\ because the ReadyCloud app is also installed to the C drive which is your primary drive. That even if you delete this ReadyCloud folder and you sync one of the shares to your computer, it still will create a new ReadyCloud folder in the same directory where you deleted it.

Currently, that is how it is designed. You might want to contact support center and request this as a feature.

You may also post suggestions and ideas at Idea Exchange board. Adding kudos to the ideas will help as development team will be reviewing the post that has the most kudos for considering it to add to the product's future functionality.

Regards,

[rodcrit]

I did report this to the ideas exchange board, and eventually got a reply back from yzhang to say that vs 1.8 of the readycloud app does allow selection of destination folder.

so I tried it   -  and yes  -  clicking on the PC sync pop up does take one to a windows explorer window  -  but there is no controls to say how we actually select the folder to be used.

so question:    how does one select the destination folder ?

Rod

[swiv3d]

I use symbolic links in the ready cloud folder which point to the folders I want kept in sync, that way readynas thinks they are on the c drive when in fact they are on drives e and f. Be warned though that the readynas takes forever to set up it's syncing profiles when large amounts of data are involved.

[rodcrit]

Just returned from being away for few weeks and looking at this again.

firstly   -  I cannot set up the sync drop down box to select another folder when start sync  -  just goes to the one set up the first time and will not give any possibility to change it.   have looked for any config file with the setting in it , but not found.

secondly  -  I dont be seem to be able to set up a symbolic link in the C; drive folder which the sync facility will accept  -  just sets its own folder in the c: drive and ignores any symbolic link  (  tried this on a new PC sync folder );  then cannot change it  - see above.

any assistance on this would be appreciated.

Rod

[swiv3d]

There is a ReadyCLOUD folder in your user folder eg C:/Users/Jimmy/ReadyCLOUD. Your symbolic link must be in there. Can you give me an example of the symbolic link wording you are using, like me you can change the username you actually use ( Jimmy  is not my real username).

If you have a folder called Music on the Nas drive and you wish to link it to a Music folder on your E: drive you just need to use mklink command such as

mklink /D "C:\Users\Jimmy\ReadyCLOUD\Music" "E:\Music"

This will create a virtual folder called music in the ReadyCLOUD folder under the username Jimmy. You can then tell the readycloud app to sync using this link to the music folder on the NAS drive, it will then use this link and windows will automatically redirect it to the Music file on the E: drive. I always enclose the paths in quotes because a space anywhere in the path will kill the link. You must use the administrator command prompt window to create the symlinks.

[rodcrit]

Thanks very much for that excellent explanation....    I now understand what is necessary to set up the link ( didnt before )

Will try and set this up in the next few days, but I am sure there will be no problems.

once again  -  many thanks.

Rod

[swiv3d]

You should be aware that once the readycloud does start syncing it takes a really long time to set up its profiles before it starts transferring files, ok if it is just a few files but 600gb of music took forever, and it looks like nothing is happening so you are tempted to click things like the refresh button, which rstarts the whole process (dooh!). Try it on a linked folder which is relatively empty, then once you find it works you can add other files folders into your linked folder.

[rodcrit]

Hi swiv3d

yes I noticed that it was taking a long time for the process to complete on my media ( music and videos ) folder, but all the while the "lights" were flashing was happy to leave it ( it is still going after nearly 12 hours but is now synching not indexing ).

my camera upload folder completed in about 15 minutes.

OK  -  here is a question...   is there anyway of synching sub folders  -  that is folders under entries in the list which appears in readycloud app.  I dont want to sync the complete folder list, but just one or two. ( for instance - under "documents" I may have 10 folders. but I only want to sync 5   -  but dont want to have to put those 5 as main folders to sync them )  probably asking for the impossible.

cheers

Rod

[swiv3d]

You just need to meke individual symlinks to the individual folders, eg

mklink /D "C:\Users\Jimmy\ReadyCLOUD\Documents\Folder1" "C:\Users\Jimmy\Documents\Folderx"

Folder1 can be any name you like.

I use symlinks to sync a flac file folder, a MP3 file folder and a wma file folder which appear to be sitting in a music folder in the ReadyCLOUD folder.

[rodcrit]

Hi wiv3d

ok  - yes  -  I get that bit,  but how do you actually start the sync?   the sub folder is not shown in the PC app list of folders. So cannot get to the drop down to start the sync.  or am I missing something?

As you may have guessed I am rather new to all this   -  so some aspects of the overall system are taking a little while to sink into my old ( 73 ) brain.

thanks for you continued help

Rod.

[swiv3d]

You will have for example a documents folder in the ReadyCLOUD folder under your username, within this document folder there will be a number of symlinks to individual folders you want to sync with. You don't need to sync individual sub folders, syncing the main document folder will automatically sync the sub folders within it. So if any of the sub folder contents change a sync will occur to bring all of the folders into an up to date condition.

Do be careful about deleting stuff at either end of the symlinks, deleting something from the nas will delete it from the main computer too, and vice versa.

Ok old fella, so you got 6 years on me.

!

[rodcrit]

Yes  -  I think I got that  -  my media folder contains umpteen subs  -  and they are all being synced ok.

but I dont want to sync all the folders in for instance my documents folder  -  just 5 out of the 10 sub folders.  I can create symlinks to the sub folders under my users\rod\readycloud,   but if I then sync the main document folder, it creates that link and syncs the whole structure  -  doesnt it ?   havent tried it yet cos dont want to waste time.

Ahhh   but did you have 40 years as a communications software engineer?    I did - and I still get lost in some of todays technical stuff 😞

[swiv3d]

Only the folders specified in the symlinks will be synced. So I set up a series of symlinks to folders on my E: drive which show up as symbolic folders in my ready cloud folder. So I have in my ReadyCLOUD folder apparent folders called Music with sub folders flac, MP3, wma, these link to only some of the folders in the music folder on my E: drive so only these folders are checked and kept in sync. Remember as well that you must link to actual folders on the computer you cannot link to Windows libraries as these are already symlinks themselves. So my pictures sync folder links to E:\Photography, not E:\ Pictures which is Windows own symlinks to my photography folder. Symlinks to symlinks are not allowed, in fact they would be a disaster waiting to happen!

Good luck and I hope everything works for you.

[ottovonkopp]

Found this in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\ReadyNASRemote\cloud.config

<ReadyDropFolderPath z:Id="4">C:\new_path</ReadyDropFolderPath>

Changed the path from deafult to whatever and it seems to work.

[rodcrit]

Hey  - thats great.   will give it a try.

makes we wonder why the experts didnt know about this and tell me......

cheers

[swiv3d]

This solution is fine as long as everything you want to back up is in the new location, if you want selected folders to be backed up you will have to use symlinks.

[nikoniko]

I have the latest relase on both my ReadyNAS 6.4.1 and on my Remote applicaiotn but I never managed to sync anything. The application seems to run syncing or indexing forever and I meen several months now.

I finaly found the application from Microsoft SyncToy that does exactly what I want. You can setup a folder on your local pc ot sync against a folder on ReadyNAS.

For my androoid devices I use FolderSync.

Finally a year after I bought my ReadyNAS I managed to sync my devices.

Happy New Year

Nikolas