How's the dual boot feature?

#1

hello all.

how are you finding the dual boot support feature? is it useful?

thanks in advance!

1 Like
#2
#3

I think it’s great, although the stealth release of it in 3.6(.1) might have escaped notice. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while; it seems to be functioning well so far. I really appreciate this having been implemented - it’s something you should shout about more widely, as I don’t think this is in any way possible with other clients.

1 Like
#4

Hi @philstopford,

Thanks for the feedback! Good point on the release; dual boot was originally deployed in 3.6.0, however you’ll notice that we didn’t have a 3.6.0 forums post. We had to deploy some additional fixes (not related to dual boot) and included it in 3.6.1 (which was posted a few days back). We’ll definitely keep these things in mind to ensure that new features on the application are explicitly shown to our users.

Could you let me know if you’re using Linux as one of the OSes on your machine?

#5

I have a very mixed environment. Some machines are single boot, some are dual and a few are three-way. Most machines run Windows primarily, but there are several running different Linux variants (Linux Mint, Kubuntu, Arch) and the main 3-way machine generally runs Linux Mint, but shares an NTFS Bitlocker volume (including the Google Drive folder on that partition) across Win10, Mint and a Hackintosh Big Sur environment.

2 Likes
#6

@philstopford That’s awesome! Thank you for sharing what your setups look like :raised_hands:

#7

Hi, how do I use it? I don’t see any mention of dual boot support in the 3.6.1.50206 Windows installer or setup process. I’m quite afraid to start a new scan on my D:\OneDrive folder because I have many folders selectively unsynced, and I don’t want Insync to go “oh, hey, this data’s missing, it must have been deleted! Let’s delete it on the cloud!” again. (That’s happened to me twice before.)
I also don’t see anything related to dual boot anywhere in the settings on my Linux install. Is it meant to just automagically work between two separate installs, without any user configuration?

Edit: I see the guide now on the help page - and it seems to imply that it’s the latter (Automagically knowing that it’s in a dual booting system). Could you explain how it works in concept, please? I’ll feel much more comfortable with starting the process if I know how it’s done and can verify that it’s not going to accidentally screw up my files again.

#8

Hi @Drakinite! :slight_smile: We apologize for the seemingly silent release (mentioned above too).

This guide (which I assume is what you saw) shows users how to use dual boot - basically, two OSes on the same machine will be using the same sync folder. You can, for example, make local changes on OS A and let that sync up to the cloud. When switching to OS B, you’ll see that said changes will also be synced locally.

There are some common use cases that we list down here, and deletion behaviors are described here.

Are there any particular flows you had in mind if you were to use dual boot with Insync? Perhaps you can share that with me and I’d be happy to discuss that with our engineers so we can guide you further :slight_smile:

#9

I just noticed that the dual boot seems to need a new license (developer instead of personal). I’ve been quietly running assuming dual boot was fine using my existing license. Insync hasn’t shown any issues, so I’m curious. Has the sync been failing quietly on either side?

#10

Would still welcome clarification here.

#11

Hey @philstopford!

So sorry for not posting an update here sooner. Yes, you’d need a Developer Plan to be able to use dual boot on Insync. Right now, the app doesn’t recognize off the bat that your dual boot setup is also intended for the app too, that’s why if you’re on dual boot and have a Personal Plan, it’s not showing any issues or errors.

We recommend upgrading to Developer Sync to avoid any troubles in the future if you’d like to keep using dual boot with Insync :slight_smile: