Bludot
Level 1
(4 points)
Q: Home iMac OS X El Capitan Home Networking
I want to know where I can find good instructions on how to setup a home network for three apple computers. The iMac OS X El Capitan 10.11.3 will be the main computer where time machine backups will occur. My other 2 MacBook pros are always in transit. When I return home, I want the laptops to automatically update iMac directories with new and edited files from the laptops. Likewise, I want the laptops to be refreshed with new and edited content data that may have occurred on the iMac.
iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), OS X El Capitan (10.11.3), null
dwb
Level 7
(24,053 points)
Having owned a notebook and a desktop ever since Apple introduced its first real notebook, figuring out a way to keep everything in sync has been my search for nerdvana. Thanks to Apple and DropBox I’ve reached that zen state. (DropBox isn’t the only solution but it is the one that works best for me.)
For a long time I used to use networking and a folder syncing program to keep my documents in sync. That was fine except I had to remember to do it, it was sometimes a pain in the neck, and when I skipped a couple days I sometimes found that I had edited the same document on both computers which meant I had to manually resolve those edits. Unfortunately that system was even more imperfect when it came to keeping my contacts and calendars in sync.Apple’s cloud technology came to my rescue for keeping contacts, photos, calendars, todo lists and passwords in sync. If you don’t already have an iCloud account, make one. It is free and includes a minimal amount of iCloud drive space. But the important thing is what I’ve described above.
Now for documents. In the early days I found Apple’s iCloud too slow and unreliable for document syncing and DropBox was fast and free for a reasonable large amount of space (back in the day). Early adopters also had the chance to add extra free space and I did. Eventually I purchased a subscription and because it is so popular iOS developers have also adopted it as one of the defacto cloud services their programs support. There are other choices including Box, Google, Microsoft’s cloud etc. Take a look around at the various services. The thing to look for is a service that includes software that automatically syncs the folders you choose to the cloud and then from the cloud syncs them to your other devices. So that’s your documents sorted.
Now for backups. I don’t consider DropBox a backup service even though it does hold about 80% of my documents. In my opinion TimeMachine over the net is a good idea that in real practice doesn’t work out as well as it should in theory. The problem is that even if backing up works flawlessly all the time if/when it comes to restoring the hard drive, it has to be done over the network. WiFi is too slow to restore more than a few files and even though a fast Ethernet connection should work well I’ve seen TimeMachines stall all too often with an Ethernet connection. For this reason my preference is the low tech fast external drive.
