Documents that live on one computer are out of reach everywhere else. The fix is a server that keeps your devices up to date with each other — and that server is yours to place: the NAS in the cupboard, an old desktop, or a VPS you rent by the month.
In practice you stop thinking about it. Import something, rename it, tag it, throw it away — on whichever device you happen to be at — and every other device has it. There is never a question of which machine holds the latest version, because there is only one version.
What it solves
- No more "which copy is the newest one?" — there is one document, everywhere
- No copying between computers, no USB stick, no mailing files to yourself
- You pick where it runs, and you can change your mind — move the server and the archive comes along
- A computer that was switched off is not a problem — it catches up when you start it
- A failed disk is not a disaster: the same archive is sitting on your other machines
What is instant, and what can lag
- A change on one device, seen on another that is on
- Right away — normally within a second
- Large files, like a thick scan
- The document appears immediately; the file itself lands shortly after
- A device that was switched off, or had no network
- Everything keeps working locally in the meantime, and it catches up when it comes back. Nothing is lost
- Between two locations, server to server
- Seconds, depending on the connection between them
- A brand-new device
- The first fetch takes a while for a large archive; after that it is like the others
When two devices change the same thing
It happens, especially if one of them has been offline for a while. Jodoc merges the changes rather than picking one and discarding the other: rename a document on your laptop while tagging it on your phone and you get both the new name and the tag.
What you will not get is a second copy, a file called "invoice (2)", or a folder of conflict files to clean up afterwards. And when you delete something it is gone everywhere, not just on the device you were standing at — after a stay in the trash, so a wrong click is easy to undo.
Keep everything locally, or nothing at all
The whole archive on the device
A complete copy on the machine. You can search and read with no network at all, and you have a real second copy of your archive. This is how the desktop client normally runs.
Only what you open
Nothing is stored on the device; it fetches from the server as you use it. Right for a phone or a borrowed computer — quick to set up, nothing left behind.
On each machine you also decide whether your original files stay exactly where you put them or get moved into the Jodoc archive. That is a per-machine choice, so a tidy desktop and an untouched working folder on the laptop can be the same archive.
More than one place: your own small network
One server covers most people. But if you have more than one place — home and the summer house, home and the office, or a family spread across several households — you can put a server in each place and let them keep each other up to date.
The first thing you get is speed: everyone at a location works at local network speed, even if the link between locations is slow or down for a day.
Redundancy comes with it
The second thing is arguably the bigger one. Each server holds a complete copy of the archive, so the same documents sit at several addresses at once, current to within seconds. If a disk dies, a computer is stolen, or something happens to the house, the archive is already somewhere else — and it is not last night's version, it is this afternoon's.
It is about as close to a live backup as you get. It does not replace the scheduled ones, though: a copy that keeps in step also mirrors what you do, so going back in time is still what backups are for. Deleting something by mistake is covered either way, since it waits in the trash first.
- Home and the summer house: the same archive in both places, with nothing to connect to remotely
- Home and a small cloud server: always reachable from outside without opening up your home network
- A family in several households: everyone has their own server, the documents are shared
- Office and home: work documents in both places, and they still work when the connection does not
- A second site that just ticks along: nobody sits at it, but the archive is there if something happens at home
The shape is up to you. A star is the usual one: a server in the middle that every other location follows, as in the picture above. Chains work just as well — the office can follow the home server, which in turn follows the one in the cloud. The only rule is that each server follows one other server and never two, which is what keeps a clear route between any two places. Connecting one is an address and a key in the server's admin panel.
Reaching your server from outside the house
Home network only
The simplest and most private. Devices sync when they are home, and anything you changed while out goes through the moment you walk in the door.
Your own address
Publish the server through your router and sync from anywhere — the train, the office, someone else's wifi.