[ale] Dropbox, Transporter, Bittorrent Sync, Owncloud, oh my ..

[Mike Martin]

I've been wrestling with the TRANSPORTERS from CONNECTED DATA for a while.
The concept is  -- a personal "Dropbox".  You control the media and the
physical devices, you have clients on all your devices that connect to the
"service" and supposedly all stays in sync with the world.  That was the
idea.

The only "Creepy" part of the service is that they (Connected data) had to
maintain an external management website and connection proxy to allow for
the management of the devices, and to have a "dyndns" like service for
connection endpoints to know how to connect to the servers correctly.  You
had to register as a user with their portal -- whether you owned a device,
or if you wanted someone to share, so there's this concept of them keeping
a LDAP on all potential users of their solution.  Not too happy about
having someone else having any ability to be able to connect to my content
if there was a security breach (not if .. when..).

Connected Data has since refocused and gone upmarket. They are now
concentrating to move to the SMB space, and are de-emphasizing the Consumer
space.  I expect that its a question of time before they bow out of this
space completely.  So, I'm looking for an alternative.

Benchmark is Dropbox.  I want to be able to have a synched data folder
across multiple platforms (mac, win, linux).  So far, I've put a finger on
OwnCloud, BitTorrent Sync. Protection, access, synch resiliency, and manage
my own infrastructure is key.

So, I'm looking for some suggestions -- to either adopt or avoid -- for
this "personally managed cloud sync service".

Options for data health (NAS drive units for endpoints) would be welcomed
as well (using a Drobo 5N now).

TIA for your advice.

Mike
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