Which nodes to connect?

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#1

Hello everyone.

I’m running syncthing on four nodes; two portable computers, one desktop computer, and one raspberry pi. The only node that’s always online—or at least, should be—is the raspberry pi.

Does it make any sense to connect the three not always online computers to each other? Or is it good that all three computers only talk to the raspberry pi?

PS: Probably worth mentioning: the three computers will probably seldom be used at the same time in parallel, at least in regards working on the synced documents.

Maybe someone here can answer this, as I can only wrap my head around this question.

#2

It’s not a lot of devices, you should connect them all.

The fact that multiple are editing the same files is not ideal, you’ll end up with conflicts. The connectivity doesn’t have much affect on this.

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#3

Might I ask you to please shortly elaborate on why connecting them all makes synching better/faster/more stable?

Oh, and I am normally NOT working in the machines or files in parallel; sorry if I wrote that in a misunderstandable way before.

#4

Faster because modified files can be sent directly from the device with the modified files to the rest. More stable because syncing does not depend on a single “hub”, the raspberry pi.

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#5

I totally get that; though that only applies if all machines would always be in an active or powered-on state, I guess?

The raspberry pi, running some network services as well as Syncthing, is ideally always on. The computers tend to hibernate/sleep when not being used, and seldom are they actively being used at the same time.

That’s why I thought it would make most sense if all let’s say independent computers would just and only connect to the one device that’s always on and which therefore always should have the newest version of data (in case the last active computer finished syncing before going to sleep).

Interesting question to think about at least.

#6

It doesn’t really matter, it would just improve latency in case two machines are actually on, as they can talk directly, instead of waiting for files to be downloaded on RPI etc.

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