FAQ about syncing

In the SURFdrive software you can set a maximum size for folders that you want to synchronize to your computer. These will not end up on your computer, but will be on the SURFdrive server. You can then access it via https://surfdrive.surf.nl/files. Here is how you do that:

1. Open the SURFdrive desktop client.
2. Click on the 'Settings' tab in the upper task bar.
3. Go to the 'Advanced - Approval of folder sync' column and change the amount of MB's a folder should contain to ask permission before synchronizing automatically.
4. Do you want to synchronize a folder larger than the maximum amount? Then place a check mark next to the relevant folder in the desktop client settings.
   

You can easily change your synchronization folder by following these steps:

1. Go to settings via the SURFdrive icon (cloud)
2. On the first tab, click on the icon with the three dots on the right. Select 'Remove Folder Sync Connection'
3. You will be asked if you really want to delete the connection. Click on 'yes'
4. Now you see the option to add a folder sync connection 
5. Select a new folder. Via 'Choose' you can browse through your PC and select a folder

You can easily install SURFdrive in addition to your personal cloud storage service you previously used. Install the desktop client on your computer and then copy the files you want on SURFdrive to the SURFdrive folder. The desktop client now synchronizes these files to SURFdrive. When syncing is complete, you can delete the files from the personal cloud storage service you used before. Always check the synchronization before deleting your data elsewhere.

This new version gives Windows users the possibility to work with a VFS. This stands for Virtual File System. This means that you do see files locally, but it only concerns a representation of the files. This means you need less local storage. Users can share files through the file manager even if the files are not stored locally. The client shows the file and folder structure of the server, regardless of whether the data is fully available locally. If a file is needed locally, it can be downloaded and opened with one click. Of course, files can still be fully synchronized.

In some cases, users or institutions choose to place the sync folder on a network drive. This is not impossible, but SURFdrive advises against it and only supports it to a limited extent. This causes the following issues:

1. Once the network is not accessible, your files will not be available. The advantage of SURFdrive is precisely that files are available, even when there is no network connection.
2. Local changes are not always noticed, so these changes are not synchronized to the server. This has to do with the fact that in certain environments no so-called 'filesystem events/filesystem handlers' come from the network drive.

Workaround
For the second problem, there is a workaround by force synchronizing. To do this, the surfdrive.cfg file must be modified.

By default, this is in the following location:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\SURFdrive\surfdrive.cfg

This should be put in:
[SURF drive]
remotePollInterval=30000
forceSyncInterval=40000
fullLocalDiscoveryInterval=120000
notificationRefreshInterval=120000

For more information about this topic, see: https://doc.owncloud.com/desktop/advanced_usage/configuration_file.html

Solution
We therefore advise not to use the network drive. If there is little space available locally, you can also choose to sync only a part to your local work PC. You can uncheck folders within the SURFdrive client. These folders then remain in the web interface (and on any other desktops), but are no longer present on your work PC.

There is no maximum length. To optimally sync files on all supported operating systems, avoid:

     Characters: (`\, /, :, ?, *, ", >, <, |`)
     spaces at the beginning or end of a file or folder name