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I recently started playing around with Dropbox for some smaller folders than my entire home directory and haven't yet run into any major problems. And the versioning it provides is nice as well, and as a plus they don't consider the deleted files that they still retain versions of as part of the quota.

Strictly speaking this isn't about my "home directories", but I use a combination of things to sync the information I need between my desktop and laptop:

1. Windows Live Sync (formerly known as Foldershare). Yeah, I know, it's from Microsoft, and only available for Windows and OS X, but it works pretty seamlessly and without much intervention on my part. I sync specific directories of projects I am working on using this; it's a set it and forget it tool.

2. Foxmarks for bookmarks.

3. Zotero, version 1.5 of which has the ability to sync resources between multiple computers. This is a godsend.

• If you're keeping track of code, use a code repository. Subversion, GIT, Bazaar, etc.
• If you're trying to keep config files, documents, pictures, etc synced, use DropBox [getdropbox.com].
• For bookmarks, use one of the numerous Firefox bookmark syncing extensions, or the Del.icio.us extension (or use DropBox to sync your .mozilla/firefox folder).
• For multi-GB files, use a portable hard drive, or rsync with a file server in your house/office

I wouldn't recommend using one tool for every purpose. I wouldn't want to store multi-GB files in SVN, and I wouldn't want to store all my code on an external hard drive. Maybe using DropBox, or rsyncing with a server somewhere would work.

For small backups, every ten minutes, I use backintime (based on rsync). For larger, nightly or more rare backups, I use rdiff-backup. Both work over the LAN, or to locally-mounted hard drives.

On the windows side there is a great utility called Beyond Compare, around $30, that I have used to do this. I even had a small client once that could not afford a real backup software, so we faked the backup using portable USB hard drives and the Beyond Compare utility to sync her server and desktop to the drives. Worked quite great and the while thing was done for under $200.

I spent a long time tackling this, as I am situated at different locations on different days.

I have 2 desktops and a laptop which must remain sync'd and encrypted. I use TrueCrypt for the encryption.

On my Windows boxes - SyncBack handles it. It can be triggered on write or on insertion, or just periodically. Has version control support. Will sync over FTP (poorly) and can create zip files or burn Cds etc. It's a swiss army knife of sync tools.

The key for getting the most out of a sync program is granularity. Inevitably, you'll have exceptions, and you don't want a PASS/FAIL result for your entire backup set. It works much better to sort files into categories and sync the individual groups than to try to make one profile that does your entire disk array. My 2 cents.

At home, I've got a Linux server hosting an LDAP structure to mimic MacOS X Server's config. It is sharing my home directory via NFS. My Macs sync this home directory on login and logout, so all my personnal data is centalized for easy backup and available on any Mac I happen to add to my home network.

For items that are larger, or that do not change so often, I use iDisk. This is just a fancy Webdav server that I do not have to manage.

I keep programs on an external hard disk. This is where I also keep my photo library and music and videos. I use one machine for Photos, so I do not really have anything to sync there. My music is not synced either, but I have used some third party software to hel with that.

It is getting to the point where if something goes wrong with a machine, I can have new one set up will all my data in a day. In normal circumstances, I can use any one of three machines and prety much have up to date information.

Doubletake software makes an enterprise ready, real time replication suite.

It does block level replication, so only the changed bits of, say, a 10Gb databse gets changed.. It uses on the fly en/decryption so that the data streams are somewhat smaller than they would be otherwise..

I work for a Fortune 10 company, and when we have a need for real-time data replication, this is what we use.

I don't share EVERYTHING, but I share some things:

• If I just need to go one way, I use rsync.
• If I need 2-way sync but no versioning info, I use unison.
• If I need n-way sync but no versioning info, I use unison with a central "untouchable" folder.
• If I need versioning info, I use git.

My Linux home directory is pretty tiny - only the dot files for my Linux environment (.gnome etc). I keep all my work documents and files on my OpenSolaris fileserver where ZFS provides resilience using RAID1 and point in time restores using the snapshot capabilities. I NFS mount the ZFS filesystem to my Linux box and CIFS share the same filesystem to my Windows PC and Mac.

My MP3 collection and photo albums are handled by iTunes and iPhoto respectively, syncing with my iPhone. The Mac backs these up to a Time Machine disk which in reality is a ZVol on my OpenSolaris server published as a LUN using iSCSI.

The ZFS filesystems and volumes are backed up to external USB drive using the "zfs send" command.

Blatant plug: I've documented most of the above experience on my blog.

For bookmarks, I use Xmarks to synchronise with the cloud, and take notes using Evernote.

Currently? Just unison -quiet, running from cron. (I have it wrapped in a script that does locking, since Unison doesn't seem to lock against itself reliably, for reasons I don't understand.) I've had two problems worth watching out for:
1) Try to avoid running it against NFS. It walks the entire synced area every time you sync. Local disk will be two orders of magnitude faster.
2) Be careful syncing between case-sensitive and case-insensitive filesystems. Unison will start failing out if you ever create two files differing only in case.

Beyond that, I'm looking to start using git to version both my code and my textual data. I'm not intending to use git itself to sync the repositories; I'm going to use it for versioning only, and keep syncing using Unison. The reason is because I'm the only user, and for my own convenience I'd like the working copy to be synced. All I really need out of git is versioning anyway; I already have a workable solution for syncing.

Nighly (or more frequently, if you like) rsync to an OpenSolaris server running ZFS w/ Time Slider.

Quality versioned backups with little effort, plus data integrity (checksums built into the filesystem), compression, and (if desired) RAID-Z(2) goodness! In addition, the provided time slider interface allows easy browsing of versions.

Just my 2c...

I use shfs mounts by ( to make sure it stays mounted even if connection is interrupted) and ssh tunnels for everything else, with preshared keys to a central server / proxy, and rsnapshots for backup on the central server with hot swap drives.

This works on desktops, remote office, and for notebooks. I essentially don't trust my employees or myself to remember to encrypt everything or use "secure" protocals all the time, and so I remove the need to remember from the whole process. I can then focus on securing one system. Great if everything else is secure, but just in case. Very good for notebooks jumping from open wireless to open wireless systems, and also keeping track of employees activity in one location. I can log fairly easily everything they do or don't do (yea, the 2 hour coffee break sticks out like sore thumb in the logs).

Among other things this also has the nice side effect that should say a notebook or desktop be stolen, it will phone home as soon as it is connected to the internet and send detailed information about what it is doing.

I have found that using Subversion (svn) with the aid of a bash script that is run manually actually works really well and provides a number of special advantages. Here's how I have it constructed:

First, I don't actually make my whole home directory a svn checkout. I have a subdirectory in it that is the checkout, and my bash script ensures there are symlinks into it for the things I want sync'd. This makes it easy to have some differences between locations. In particular, I can have a different .bashrc for one machine than another, but keep them both in svn as separate files; it is just a matter of making the symlink point to the one I want to use in each location. My bash script will make the symlink if the file doesn't exist, and warn if the file does exist but isn't a symlink. It does this for a number of files.

Another benefit of this method is that I don't put all my files in one checkout. The core files I'll want in all my home directories (e.g. .bashrc, .vimrc, ssh .config and public keys, etc.) go in a checkout called "homedir". But my documents go elsewhere. And my sensitive files (e.g. private keys) go somewhere else still. I choose what is appropriate to install at each location (usually just the "homedir" checkout on boxes I don't own). My bash script detects which checkouts I have and does the appropriate steps.

The bash script not only sets up the symlinks but it also does an "svn status" on each checkout so I'll know if there are any files I've created that I haven't added, or any files I've modified that I haven't committed. I prefer not to automate adds and commits. I'll definitely see any pending things when I run my sync script, and can simply do an "svn add" or "svn commit" as necessary.

I also prefer not to automate the running of the sync script. I like being in control of my bandwidth usage, especially when connected via slow links (e.g. Verizon EV-DO, AT&T GPRS). Plus dealing with conflicts is much easier when it is interactive (although I can usually avoid that scenario). It also simplifies authentication to run it from my shell, as it can just use my ssh agent (which I forward, which is setup in my sync'd ssh config).

The sync bash script takes care of a few other edge-case issues, like dealing with files in ~/.ssh that have to have certain permissions and whatnot. And I've taken care to ensure that the script doesn't just blow away files; it will warn if things don't look right, and leaves it to me to fix it.

Using Subversion has another big advantage: it is likely to be installed already in many places. So when I'm given an account on someone's computer, I can usually get my environment just the way I like it in a few short steps:

svn co svn+ssh://my.server.tld/my/path/to/svn/trunk/homedir ~/homedir
~/homedir/bin/mysync # This is my bash script to do the syncing
# Correct any complains about .bashrc not being a symlink and whatnot
~/homedir/bin/mysync
# Log out and back in, or source .bashrc

No fuss, no muss. No downloading some sync package and building it just to get your .bashrc or .vimrc on a random box, or asking the admin to install something. Subversion is usually there, and even if it isn't, most admins are happy to install it. Subversion deals well with binary files, and even large files. For bulk things (like a music library), I'm more likely to rsync it, partly because it is bulk, partly because it doesn't benefit from versioning, and partly because it only needs to be a unidirectional sync. I could easily add that to my sync script.

I am simply in the habit of typing "mysync" from time to time (my .bashrc puts ~/bin/ in my $PATH). This works for me very nicely. Some people may prefer a little more automation, and of course my script could automatically do adds and commits, and even skip the log messages. But I prefer a bit more process; after all, this is my data we're talking about!

If there is interest, I may post my sync script.

I use a constellation of git repositories, and Joey Hess' mr [kitenet.net] tool to synchronize all of them. I have no automated commits -- I just remember to commit and update manually daily.

I've done exactly the same as you, used every single tool under the sun, eventually settling on Unison until I realised I was being silly...

Let's put it this way - just set up each computer how you want it, and sync the *data*, not the whole home directory.

For instance, my Documents are synced with Dropbox (though tempted to move them to UbuntuOne), my development directories are generally stored in some kind of revision control (svn/bzr/git) and either not synced or at worst, unison-ed, and everything else just stays on the machine it was created on, and backed up with duplicity to a central fileserver hosted in France.

When you realise that syncing home is *not* good, it suddenly becomes clear what you need, and what you want are completely different.