Transporter Sync: Installed!

I ordered a couple of Transporter Sync units after hearing it mentioned on Mac Power Users. It was icing that they offered a 2-for-1 Transporter Sync Mother’s Day special. I felt that Connected Data site sold the strengths of their products well, and I was ready to take some control of my data.

I’ll share my initial thoughts and experience.

I only had a 120 GB USB hard drive, so I ordered a 1 TB Toshiba Canvio Basics USB 3.0 Portable hard drive.

Setup was really easy. Plug in the Ethernet cable, hard drive, then power. And wait.

• 120 GB hard drive: the Transporter sync took 22 minutes before the light turned solid blue. 100 GB available.
• 1 TB hard drive: 17 minutes.

So much room for more activities!

A couple of missteps happened during the account setup process. Their site didn’t recognize my Transporter Sync as active, so I had to claim it manually ny entering a couple of fields from the bottom of the device. (For my convenience, I took a photo of information on the bottom of the device.) Secondly, the password length is limited to 32 characters.

I added a couple of Shared Folders with Amy, who doesnt have a Transporter for herself. Yet. Like Dropbox, she’ll need to create an account, then add the apps to her devices befofe she can use the Shared Folders.

On my laptop, I’ll use Selective Sync to uncheck these Shared Folders. I want the data in her folders sync’d to the Transporter Sync hard drive, but the files won’t be copied onto my laptop.

I started moving folders from Dropbox to my Transporter. Aside from on-the-fly organizing, it was simple moving my files. I also added some movie files that weren’t on Dropbox, and was pleased that those would finally be sync’d.

Testing a couple of apps was painless. In nvALT, I switched the folder to my Transporter, then tested a few edits to see if they sync’d. In Alfred, I also had to change the sync folder location from its settings.

Fast forwarding to the present, I have 19.1 GB sync’d to my Transporter, not much left on Dropbox, and looking for more to “migrate”!

I’m stoked because:

• Transporter for iOS has automatic upload enabled with my camera roll to start when I’m at home and on WiFi. I usually import photos with Lightroom, and delete them from my iPhone with Image Capture. Now any photos that were in limbo won’t be anymore.
• I have access to my hard drive.
• I don’t have to worry about my hard drive.
• Data is encrypted during transfer.
• Nobody else sees that data unless I allow it.

I’m not sure if I’ll use the Transporter Library, as my laptop hard drive is spacious, but I’m glad I have the option. (Confession: Access speed would be slower.)

I’ll post a follow up sometime to describe some quirks that are super minor, and wanted to publish this right away because I’m pretty stoked. :)