Safely move synchronized folder

[David.P]

Hi all,

I am rather paranoid about manually moving my synchronized folder (“sync target”) and then re-establishing synchronization between the sync source and that moved target folder. Specifically, I need to move my synchronized folder to another hard drive.

There’s already some threads about it, however I’m not entirely sure which way to go:

Safest way to move a synced folder to a external drive?

I would dare being a bit bolder, this is how I did move folders on my own server: Make sure the folder is up to date with the remote. (probably not strictly necessary) Stop Syncthing (Pausing the folder could be enough) Copy the folder to the external drive (e.g. using rsync or equivalent). Edit the path in syncthing config file (config.xml) Restart syncthing Wait for scanning and initial sync (exchanging and comparing metadata to be sure the contents are the same as on remote) to finish. if e…

Moving default Sync folder to another drive

Another approach, instead of the symlink, would be; Shut down syncthing. Move the folder where ever you like, including the .stfolder marker (or you need to create that again, as you discovered). Edit the folder path in the config.xml directly. Start syncthing. The index that is kept per folder is keyed on folder ID, not path, so this is relatively safe.

As far as I know, for example, the date of file folders is changed by Windows when they are moved, to the time they were moved, at least when moving to another hard drive.

Now I’m afraid that this will cause folders and possibly also files from the synchronization target to be overwritten in the synchronization source, because the target suddenly contains thousands of apparently brand-new folders.

Many thanks for all ideas on how to move a synchronized folder (sync target) so that there is no risk of damaging the sync source, especially not by mass-overwriting it with files/folders from the target.

[calmh (Jakob Borg)]

As you yourself point out this has been answered multiple times. If you are in sync before this maneuver there should be no risk of things being overwritten, as they are already the same.

[David.P]

Thanks Jakob,

there should be no risk

…“should” is still too risky for me in this case, because the source folder is on a c*mpany server and absolutely must not be damaged.

So are you saying that even when all (thousands) of the target folder dates are changed to “today” by moving the target folder, Syncthing will still not overwrite the source folders?

[calmh (Jakob Borg)]

Syncthing doesn’t sync directory times, and I’m not sure what overwriting a directory precisely means to begin with.

But:

@David.P

the source folder is on a c*mpany server and absolutely must not be damaged.

Clearly you must have excellent backups of this folder in triplicate, so do whatever and trust the backups to sort you out if something goes wrong.

You also have the send-only folder type which is your friend. Use that on the valuable server side.

[David.P]

Thank you.

Do you know of any setting or recommended setup between the “send-only folder type” and “full mass deletion risk” on the source folder (apart from versioning) – that I could use?