Network folders linked to Windows username

[skot4th]

Currently we have two Windows devices in the house, a gaming PC and a low-end laptop for browsing, etc.  We're building a new gaming PC soon for our eldests 9th birthday and want to be able to sync the users shared folders across devices, i.e.

 

My Network folders (Docs, Pictures, etc.)

Partners folder (Docs, Pictures)

Childs folder (Homework).

 

Is there an easy way to do this, which does not require manually logging in to each user account on each device to set up and map the folders?

We would also like to keep each mapped folder private if possible and have it act as a network location.

 

All devices have windows pro, but I don't really want the hassle of setting up active directory and the learning curve that takes, for a home enviroment.

 

Thanks

[TimTheSettler]

Sounds like syncthing might be the way to go for you.  Install that on all the Windows machines and your unRAID server (I assume you have unRAID since you're here although it's not explicitly mentioned).

 

Hard drive space gets to be the issue here.  You can connect all the devices together so that all data is shared on all devices and you can even encrypt data on certain devices.  For example, you could have it do a four-way sync between all devices where the docs and pics show up as encrypted on the child's device.

 

The other option is to sync all devices to the unRAID server.  This is what I do.  All phones and devices see and sync to the unRAID server.  They don't see or sync among themselves since they don't have the space for all that data.

 

In the example below I have a number of folders (27) shared across seven devices.  The "Audio" folder is encrypted and the "Pictures (Phone)" folder is a send-only folder.  The syncthing01/02/03/04 devices are my main file/backup servers so all folders are synced among those machines.  Only certain folders are synced to syncthing05 (limited space) and only a couple folders (camera/pics) are shared with the phone/tablet devices.  When you set all this up you need to think about where you want the data to be on each device and will there be space for that data on those devices.

 

The only other option is to use regular SMB shares.