I want to paste all my files online. Right now I’m using Dropbox. Does this seem like a good idea to everyone or do you have a different method?
If you’re talking about hosting your source files/projects:
Do not use auto-refresh services like Dropbox or Google Drive or OneDrive. The can get your code/files corrupted. Use proper version control system.
GitHub has a good, free offer, as well as BitBucket and I’m sure there are others as well, not just git-based. So choose one and use it.
If you’re talking about hosting your files for games (like database, or updates or something), you may use it, but I don’t recommend it. Using proper CDN system or AWS is more performant for users (they have servers closer to users on average).
Depends on what files you’re talking about exactly.
Sure, what is your use case exactly?
I just wanted to put them online. That’s all.
I’m programming to learn Unity for game development. I tried GitHub and it seemed like too much for me and my little game development. Is BitBucket good for me? If it’s not are there any other options? I’m looking for something small…
I mean for what purpose? For back up? To share it with other people? To have it be the place where you edit your project?
The last one is a bit tricky and you need to be aware of conflicts, but at least it’s less painful than using collaborate.
It’s for backup. I want to backup every step.
Don’t host your project folder inside Dropbox. You can use it for backup by creating a zip file of your project folder and saving that to Dropbox. The issue is how Dropbox deals with changes and conflicts.
You make a change to your project, the change is pushed automatically to Dropbox. You can’t undo the change, so it isn’t actually a backup. You get conflicting changes from two different computers to the same file and instead of merging the changes Dropbox creates a separate file with a different name, which is very bad behavior for Unity.
Use version control, like Git or SVN, or make regular backups by making a zip file of the entire project folder (though you can skip the Library folder and a few other files Unity will recreate).
Dropbox is great for sharing builds. Use 7zip to make a self extracting executable archive of your build, throw that in Dropbox, and share a hyperlink to the file. Works great if you aren’t using Steam or similar.
You can just make a copy of your project in your HDD. Also, did you try Unity collaborate?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShL9N7MwP20
That’s not a backup. That’s just a copy. If you have data which should not be lost in case of problems, you need to store your copies on
- independent hardware (hardware failure)
- independent power supply (power outage, power surge, etc)
- separate geographical location (house fire, earthquake, other geographical problems)
This is why cloud is working exceptionally well for backup/version control and this is why your main machine but even home made, local server does not.
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Thanks, ninja for pointing backup location out. Sorry for my English.
Unless public repository, GitHub is not free. I was suggesting using, for a small project, Unity Collaborate cloud and also copy the project into a second (better ride 1) HDD as a copy in case there is a bug using the cloud. I remember me crushing Collaborate. Now looks pretty stable.
But I suspect you are indicating to use something else. Games cost lots of Gb. Can you expand: Using proper CDN system or AWS. Your answer was interesting.
Read the page you linked again. GitHub is free for private repos as well for a while now (I don’t remember since when, but not too long).
Actually GitHub and BitBucket are free for personal use. I will generalize a bit, obviously there are always exceptions, but for the purpose of a one-man team, the free tiers are usually enough. When you make something real big, you probably have a budget to pay for the storage.
I myself am using Unity Collaborate. And I’ve got 25Gb storage at some point, which is more than enough for me alone. So far it’s mostly painless experience.
But I also have a hosted server in Eastern Europe (I live in the US) so I store everything there as well as a backup. It cost me a couple of bucks per month to maintain although it’s not too fast to upload anything big, but well… (I, at least, support my home country’s economy as well). And I store the backup of my non-game projects as well.
Local, same HDD copies are great way to prevent mistakes (you can go back). Local, separate HDD copies are great against hardware failure, but if you want to have a safe environment, you look for something in the cloud.
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Unlimited private repositories. Fantastic!
@ did you try plastic?
No, I haven’t. Storing my source codes and backups are trust-based services. I do not know the company, nor the service. I work with Atlassian for like forever (Jira), I also work with Github for a while, I generally trust them with my code (and my clients’).
Trying new services like this is not a priority of mine, since I’m mostly satisfied with my current options and setup.
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