Using NT on two computers

[DEHoldback]

Hi,
I spend 5 hours a day in an office where I would like to use my NT account, however when get home I would like to continue using my NT account from my home desktop computer. Which is the best way to sync my chart data between the two computers? Should I save data to a USB hard drive and simply move that with me?

Thank you

[QuantKey_Bruce]

The "best" way? Run NinjaTrader on a VPS, and connect to the VPS from both your office and your home. The other ways are possible but have a lot of moving parts and ways to fail.

[bltdavid]

Welcome to the forums!

The absolute best way?

Subscribe to a VPS service and do a remote login to the
VPS machine from work and later, from home.

Most VPS services use RDP, and all versions of Windows,
(and Linux, and Mac, and phones) have RDP clients that
allow you a full-screen/multi-monitor experience which makes
using a VPS machine appear the same as if it was your local
desktop.

I have 6 monitors. My VPS also "has" 6 monitors, because I
told it to mirror my real monitor configuration. Or, I could make
the VPS use 2 or 3, up to whatever max number of real moinitors
exist in your local setup.

So, one machine, probably located remotely somewhere in a
Chicago data center becomes dedicated to you -- it's a virtual
machine, but who cares, you won't be able to tell -- and it
stays up 24/7.

You log in from where ever you like, leave trades running via
automated strategy or manual, however you want. Your charts
never need to come down, because you will leave NT running
24/7 as well.

When you go to work, you login to your VPS, and trade away,
switching from local desktop to remote desktop is fast. Log out
of the VPS when you leave work, but leave all your charts up.

When you get home, log back into the VPS and see everything
running, just as it was when you left work.

Now, here's the real joy & super emotional rush -- if you can set
up the exact same monitor configuration at home and at work,
then all of this back & forth is made super nice & easy -- because
then it really will be super seamless between the two locations.

Doing all this may feel pricey, even on the low end at $25 to $50
per month. But if you can afford to do this, and you can dictate
your 2 or 3 (or more) monitor setup at work, and then duplicate
that exact setup at home (same number of screens with exact
same resolutions) -- then you will be very happy logging into
your VPS from either location and experience even greater
joy at the 'seamless' transition between work & home.

Heck, your home could be a Mac, your work could be Linux,
but if the screens are the same, your VPS (running Windows,
of course) you will not know the difference. Or if your Home
is Win10, and work is Win11, same thing, the RDP software
logging into the VPS, it will make your local desktop machine
somewhat immaterial -- because all your trading is being done
on the remote desktop of your VPS.

Hint: Ok, so exact same monitor configs in both places may be
hard. I have 6 at home and had 4 at work. When logged into
the VPS, I told it to use 2 monitors, so that this 2-screen setup
to the VPS was precisely mirrored at home & at work -- that left
the other monitors free to get local work done.

Like I said, you want the absolute best way?

Use a VPS.
Make sure the VPS is running Windows,
Install NinjaTrader to the VPS.
Configure all your connections.
Leave NT running 24/7.

They're not just for running automated strategies in a kind of
semi-unattended way. Subscribe to a good enough machine
config that looks and feels fast from both locations (that's why
you do the trial, to check out the speed from both work and
home, you do not want mouse latency, so check both locations
using their trial period)

There are many VPS services, and several that cater to traders.
Start your research here.

I used SpeedyTradingServers.com. Sam is a great guy and the
support was excellent -- but there is plenty of competition out there
and so price (absent real experience with VPS setups) is usually
a big deciding factor.

Good luck!

[bltdavid]

The "best" way? Run NinjaTrader on a VPS, and connect to the VPS from both your office and your home. The other ways are possible but have a lot of moving parts and ways to fail.

You beat me to it ... I was typing like a banshee, and had
no idea we posted with almost the exact same opening
line.

Yep, a VPS, hands down, is the perfect solution.

Totally agreed.

[DEHoldback]

Thanks for your detailed response. Rather than a VPS, could I just leave my home computer running and connect to that via a remote desktop?

[bltdavid]

Thanks for your detailed response. Rather than a VPS, could I just leave my home computer running and connect to that via a remote desktop?

Absolutely.

[backtester831]

For VPS I recommend ninjamobiletrader.com, very happy with it. Running it now for over 2 years and has never crashed and performance is as good now as it was on day 1. For price, it's a fraction of the cost of speedy, and doesn't crash like chartvps did for me all the time, causing me to get stuck in trades.