Do I want one sync store for all databases, or one for each?

I am having looking for a solution / best practice.

I have set up my sync store via WebDAV on my Synology. It works fine, but I am not sure that I have done it correctly.

What I have done at this point is created a separate sync store for each of my several database.

However, I have noted that every database seems to be “available” in every sync store.

For example, suppose I have three databases, called (creatively) A, B, and C.

I create a sync store called “A-sync”. The sync setup process allows me to select which database to sync in A-sync, and naturally, I select only database A. I do the same for B-sync and C-sync, syncing B and C respectively.

Now, if I go to a second Mac and connect to A-sync, I have given the option of syncing remote databases A, B, and C. Since I had only sync’d A into A-sync, I would not expect B or C to also be available - and if I selected them, what we be getting sync’d since the databases on the first machine aren’t being sent to A-sync?

So my questions are:

a) Why do databases that I did not actually select to sync to A-sync appear available to other Macs when I connect them to A-sync? What happens if I select them on the second Mac to sync?

b) What is actually the best practice? Should I just create one sync store and sync all databases (and the global Inbox) to that, or is there a real or practical advantage to having a separate sync store for each database? (Note that the sync stores are all in the same location, on the Synology. Obviously I would have separate sync stores if I wanted each database to have its sync store in a different place.) It is certainly a lot more work to maintain a separate WebDAV connection for each database, but once it is set up it’s not a big deal, but as I add new databases it would be a lot easier to add them to the sync process if I had only one WebDAV connection to update.

Thanks!

I don’t think there is any significant benefit to having one sync store per database. In fact this could just add confusing overhead, juggling X number of sync store names, X number of encryption pass codes, etc.
I would not recommend the method you have chosen at least for the above reason: it’s confusing and offers no benefit.

The only reason why you might want to do this is if, for example, you had a small database that you synced using a store on Dropbox, and a large database that exceeded your Dropbox storage, and so you use your Synology to keep it off of dropbox. Or if you wanted to have a sync store with VERY different settings than another (eg., one encrypted, one not; one that does upload indexed files, one that doesn’t, etc).

As for why all your databases show up as “available” – I’m not sure where you are referring here, but any currently-open database on your Mac could be selected to sync via any sync store, and could be synced by multiple sync stores simultaneously. That is likely why you are seeing it as “available”.

So my recommendation would be to use only a single sync store unless you have some strong logistical reason why that’s not possible.

Multiple sync stores using different sync locations (e.g. a local sync store and a cloud sync store) or multiple sync stores using different encryption keys (e.g. one for your personal use and one for your work) make sense but creating one sync store for each database doesn’t have any benefits.