BleepingComputer.com: Computer Synchronization

Hi All,

I currently use Ubuntu 11.04 on my work PC, my netbook, and my girlfriend's laptop as well, the specs for each are below:

Work PC: HP Pavilion a1730n, 320gb SATA (primary), 120gb PATA (backup)
Netbook: Dell Inspiron Mini 10v, 16gb SSD (primary)
GF Laptop: HP 630, 120gb SATA (primary)

To give a little background, I do small business network consulting and use my laptop in the field, and I've finally set up an Ubuntu machine that I can work from at home as well. The laptop works great out and about, but 1.6ghz Atom / 1gb of RAM is limiting when I use a Virtualbox VM for XP along with everything else I run. I believe the proposed setup below will allow me to keep client files synchronized between the netbook and Work PC, as well as backup the data from each machine.

I am trying to figure out the best way to set up my network so that it achieves the following goals:

• 16gb SSD on netbook synchronizes with directory from 120gb PATA on Work PC once a day when in range (2-way), option for manual sync
• /home/user/documents/ in 320gb SATA on Work PC synchronizes with directory from 120gb PATA on Work PC when any changes are made
• /home/user/documents/ in GF Laptop synchronizes with directory from 120gb PATA on Work PC once a day when in range (2-way), option for manual sync
• USB thumb drive (32gb) synchronizes with directory from 120gb PATA when inserted into Work PC or Netbook when changes are detected (2-way)

The goal is to have it all work automatically unless I want to manually sync. I have reviewed the man pages for rsync and looked at a few of the GUIs available, but I feel like I'm in way over my head, does this sound like something difficult to setup? Can someone help me get started in the right direction?

After attempting a few different methods and dealing with hardware failures, I decided this project was a little too ambitious and no longer needed. The USB thumb drive bent a little too far and doesn't turn on anymore, the GF laptop broke at the hinge and the screen is falling off, but at least I learned a lot in the process. I cleared out the Netbook and just use ssh to access my files when I need them, although I would recommend Grsync or Unison as an alternative to command line rsync, they were both intuitive and easy to work with for backups.