How to Setup Two Computers with External HDD

[MaybeGreat]

Hey,

I'm fighting with a setup of a version controlled backup on an external hdd. I have 2 computers I switch between for work. I'd love to work locally off the computer hdd and then checkout to the external hdd. Then pickup where I left off on the other computer.

In my head this seems like a very regular thing, but for some reason after hours of googling and trial & error can't find a solution. I'm failing at having two separate servers running on each machine not seeing the repositories. Any guidance would be welcome! Thank you.

[David Yang]

Hi MaybeGreat,

I'm just a user (not Plastic staff), but it sounds like you might be trying to do something similar to what I was trying to do before.

It's just yourself but you'd like to work between 2 computers (eg, home and office), right?

An easy way to do this:

1. Install Plastic on both computers (using localhost server and local storage for both).
2. When finished with one computer, follow the backup procedure and backup to external HDD or OneDrive / DropBox (very easy for default Jet database: just stop service, copy files, then restart service).
3. At new computer, restore the backup before resuming work (ie, stop service, copy files, restart service).

At first I tried to simply move the repo storage to OneDrive and just checkin there directly, but couldn't get that working for some reason. But the above is pretty quick and easy if it's just yourself and you're not changing computers frequently (besides, it's a good idea to regularly backup your repos anyway, and this way you'll always have a pretty recent backup!)

David

[calbzam]

Hi,

Why don't you use the Plastic replica operation to keep both Plastic servers synced?

https://www.plasticscm.com/documentation/gui/plastic-scm-version-control-gui-guide#Chapter23:TheSynchronizationview

You can also use our Plastic Cloud service so both servers can be connected and push/pull their changes to a central server;

Making a backup of your Jet databases and then restore them in the other server should also work but I think is more prone to errors and you can't work in parallel in both servers.

Regards,

Carlos.

[David Yang]

30 minutes ago, calbzam said:

Why don't you use the Plastic replica operation to keep both Plastic servers synced?

For me, it was because (a) I didn't have a static IP address and (b) would have needed to keep both computers running.

But yes, only really something to consider for purely solo projects (where you don't need to be able to work in parallel). Otherwise definitely Plastic Cloud or a computer/server that is always on.

[MaybeGreat]

Thank you very much for the options.

I'm being cheap for now so not investing even into the affordable Cloud solution. Maybe more so I don't want to be internet dependent at all times.

I'll look into the replica.