If I am a suspenders and belt kinda guy, you're just not wearing any pants at all. Anyone who owns a box they refer to as “the abandon ship [p]ack” is probably not a person who spends a lot of time consumed with the thought of risk.

Have you ever considered backup up to a USB thumb drive and mailing it to yourself back home (or a friend who could Fedex back to you when you need it) when you stop somewhere? I know it's not very frequent, but at least you get the data off the boat and it wouldn't cost too much – your really critical data should fit in a 16GB thumb drive I'd suspect.

I understand what you’re trying to do and I’m sure something does it, I just don’t know what it is. There are so many changes to PST files undere the covers, that I would be worry that something didn’t sync up before I shut down and I would be propagating incomplete data to another machine and beyond.

Have you looked at SherWeb? They do Exchange hosting for $8.95/month with a 3GB mailbox. It’s not free, but it’s reasonable. I have used them for over a years and I’m pretty happy with them. Their uptime is great and their speed is reasonable. No one comes close to their price as far as I know. he only downside is they use Barracuda for spam filtering which stinks. They don’t even have contextual filtering, just bayes and blacklists. I am not affiliates with the company FWIW.

The other reason to use Exchange instead of trying to sync PST files is that you can easily coordinate with mobile devices when you use Exchange.

Good luck. If you find anything that does the trick for you, please pass it along.

I understand what you’re trying to do and I’m sure something does it, I just don’t know what it is. There are so many changes to PST files undere the covers, that I would be worry that something didn’t sync up before I shut down and I would be propagating incomplete data to another machine and beyond.

Have you looked at SherWeb? They do Exchange hosting for $8.95/month with a 3GB mailbox. It’s not free, but it’s reasonable. I have used them for over a years and I’m pretty happy with them. Their uptime is great and their speed is reasonable. No one comes close to their price as far as I know. he only downside is they use Barracuda for spam filtering which stinks. They don’t even have contextual filtering, just bayes and blacklists. I am not affiliates with the company FWIW.

The other reason to use Exchange instead of trying to sync PST files is that you can easily coordinate with mobile devices when you use Exchange.

Good luck. If you find anything that does the trick for you, please pass it along.

Maybe I’m wearing shorts.. with a stainless steel cage for underwear. I am consumed with the thought of risk, it’s just easier to plan for because it is so final. There is no maybe someone can recover my lost data.. it’s gone!!

I sync critical data to thumb drive(s) on a daily basis, so my work ALWAYS lives in at least two places. We usually use DVDs to send home because 1GB sticks are NEW where we travel. We just have way too much “critical” data, last time we were home we left a 500 GB drive filled with photos, video, journals etc.. and I think that would be small for the average person.

How many “average people” don’t back up their data anywhere? If they do, are they saving monthly backups off-site? Seems like a pretty HUGE untapped market, especially for solutions that are seamless and unobtrusive; i.e. my Dad could use it .. or better yet, he didn’t even know he was.

I’ll leave you to the topic at hand and sorry for the detour. I just find it all so fascinating.. Maybe I’ll start a new blog called “It’s all new to me” – “Technology reviews and observations from a high tech cast away”. Think anyone would read it? The first post would be “Observations from a Twitter Virgin”.

Maybe I’m wearing shorts.. with a stainless steel cage for underwear. I am consumed with the thought of risk, it’s just easier to plan for because it is so final. There is no maybe someone can recover my lost data.. it’s gone!!

I sync critical data to thumb drive(s) on a daily basis, so my work ALWAYS lives in at least two places. We usually use DVDs to send home because 1GB sticks are NEW where we travel. We just have way too much “critical” data, last time we were home we left a 500 GB drive filled with photos, video, journals etc.. and I think that would be small for the average person.

How many “average people” don’t back up their data anywhere? If they do, are they saving monthly backups off-site? Seems like a pretty HUGE untapped market, especially for solutions that are seamless and unobtrusive; i.e. my Dad could use it .. or better yet, he didn’t even know he was.

I’ll leave you to the topic at hand and sorry for the detour. I just find it all so fascinating.. Maybe I’ll start a new blog called “It’s all new to me” – “Technology reviews and observations from a high tech cast away”. Think anyone would read it? The first post would be “Observations from a Twitter Virgin”.

I don’t know about DropBox, but it’s pretty similar to SyncPlicity. The “block” level syncing may help with syncing PST files, but I wouldn’t bank on it. Depending on how you use Outlook, your PST file may be changing constantly and that may cause problems – even if they’re not major, you may not know if you’re completely in sync at any particular time. However, the differential syncing is a nice feature that SyncPlicity does not yet have.

I think you can pretty easily get donw what you’re looking for with respect to different size drives. I’ll speak to SyncPlicity, although it appears that DropBox does the same thing. Sync *everything* you may be interested in sharing with the SyncPlicity server from your biggest machine. Then, from every other machine, specify which files and directories you want synced with that particular machine. you don’t have to sync all files/directories with every machine. Even if you don’t know what you want at any time, you can sync different files/directories at different times. That said, depending on the amount of data, this could take some real time. It’s be cheaper to get a bigger disk on those small machines

Both SyncPlicity and DropBox have 2GB trial accounts. Download them both and give ‘em a try.

Hope that helps.

I don’t know about DropBox, but it’s pretty similar to SyncPlicity. The “block” level syncing may help with syncing PST files, but I wouldn’t bank on it. Depending on how you use Outlook, your PST file may be changing constantly and that may cause problems – even if they’re not major, you may not know if you’re completely in sync at any particular time. However, the differential syncing is a nice feature that SyncPlicity does not yet have.

I think you can pretty easily get donw what you’re looking for with respect to different size drives. I’ll speak to SyncPlicity, although it appears that DropBox does the same thing. Sync *everything* you may be interested in sharing with the SyncPlicity server from your biggest machine. Then, from every other machine, specify which files and directories you want synced with that particular machine. you don’t have to sync all files/directories with every machine. Even if you don’t know what you want at any time, you can sync different files/directories at different times. That said, depending on the amount of data, this could take some real time. It’s be cheaper to get a bigger disk on those small machines

Both SyncPlicity and DropBox have 2GB trial accounts. Download them both and give ‘em a try.

Hope that helps.

If I am a suspenders and belt kinda guy, you’re just not wearing any pants at all. Anyone who owns a box they refer to as “the abandon ship [p]ack” is probably not a person who spends a lot of time consumed with the thought of risk.

Have you ever considered backup up to a USB thumb drive and mailing it to yourself back home (or a friend who could Fedex back to you when you need it) when you stop somewhere? I know it’s not very frequent, but at least you get the data off the boat and it wouldn’t cost too much – your really critical data should fit in a 16GB thumb drive I’d suspect.