Microsoft’s Live Sync vs Microsoft’s Live Mesh
Uncategorized May 15th, 2009Are you trying to figure out a way to keep certain files in sync on two or more computers? For instance, do you have a folder that you save school/work documents in at home? But then have to also save them to a flash drive, or even email them to yourself so you can continue to work on them at work or on your laptop? If so, then keep reading!!!
Microsoft has a product that may solve all your needs for keeping your digital life in sync. Live Mesh is a program that you install onto your computers that you’re trying to keep in sync. You simply create a free “live” account, install the program Live Mesh and then tell it which folder(s) you want to sync. Then you do the same on the rest of your computers that you want to sync (you only have to create one free account). Now, Live Mesh will sync the contents of this folder.
So you’re saying “how does it work?” Well, magic of course! It will send your data up to the clouds that is your “Live Mesh desktop” that gives you 5GB of online storage, then syncs your data back down to the rest of you computers that you have setup.
Snazzy aint it?
However, in big government fashion they have a redundant service called “Live Sync” that does something very similar. It installs like the Live Mesh and does syncs like Live Mesh. However, with Live Sync you do not get the handy dandy cloud storage of 5GB’s. And you’re probably saying, “well what’s the point of Live Sync then? Why don’t I just go with Live Mesh and get the handy dandy cloud storage thingy?” Well, if you’d keep your questions till the end of our presentation we’d tell you, and next time raise your hand!
Live Sync gives you virtually unlimited amounts of data it can sync, but just not a single file larger than 4GB’s. So you can have 200gb’s of data it syncs, as long as none of those files are singularly larger than 4GB’s.
I use this one since I need to sync more than 5gb.
So, which one is the right one for you? Well, Live Sync is great for simple, quick sync across multiple computers. Live Mesh does that too, but limits you to only 5GB’s of constant file syncs. Live Mesh also is more resource hungry and thus requires more horsepower from your computer.
The really cool thing is both of them sync between Windows based PC’s and Macs!!
One Response to “Microsoft’s Live Sync vs Microsoft’s Live Mesh”
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July 5th, 2009 at 1:20 am
One useful feature Mesh has that Sync doesn’t is that you can connect to a remote computer (that’s on the net) from your desktop (like GotomyPC.com, etc).
Personally, I don’t like all the status update messages you get with Mesh, or that it changes your synced folders’ display in Windows Explorer. Just sync the folder I told you to, and no extra fluff, thanks!
On the other hand, if you were sharing this folder with another person (not just yourself on another machine), this info could be pretty useful.
I use Sync at the moment, because I got sick of the extra Mesh noise. But I used it happily for 6 months, and sometimes miss visiting my work desktop from home some nights.