You're now free to choose between all storage

Added on by Jeff Lin.

This past weekend, I replaced a fan on my Drobo FS, a NAS unit that has been part of my digital life for over four years.  As I waded through tiny screws and cramped steel casing to get to the internals, I kept thinking to myself "why am I wasting my time with this?" And "why haven't I moved everything (mostly photos) to one of those recent free unlimited storage providers like Google Photos or Amazon Cloud Drive?"

 Attribution: Sergiodlarosa | Wikimedia Commons

 Attribution: Sergiodlarosa | Wikimedia Commons

My NAS, My Mastodon

For years, I've been lovingly referring to my NAS as a mastodon.  A powerful, strong, useful beast... that will eventually become extinct.  Cloud storage would surely win.  No hardware to personally maintain.  Ultimate elasticity and redundancy.  Much lower total cost of ownership.  A NAS with disks could cost upwards of $600 or $700, which could instead be user to pay for many years of unlimited cloud storage.  The cost of cloud storage has essentially been a big fat race to zero.  So what's my problem, and why am I living in the past?

Ultimately, I'm still anxious about privacy and skeptical about some of the true costs of free storage.  For example, Google Photos has a powerful search feature for my uploaded photos where I was able to enter a search for "watermelon" and find a picture from last year of my little girl wearing a watermelon dress.  While this is a killer feature for end-users, I also find it to be a bit unnerving.

Projecting into the future, Google will have yet an even better idea of where I've been and what I've been doing.  Demographic and psychographic marketing will be considered child's play compared to having total individual information about me.  If I upload camping pictures every month of me in an Arcteryx jacket, sipping on a can of Pepsi, then I'm probably going to be served Pepsi ads all day until my laptop gets diabetes.  I won't be able to go a day without seeing jackets, tents, and other gear from REI, The North Face, and Patagonia on sale. I won't be able to escape my consumer self.

Not everybody is squeamish about these kinds of things.  Today, for much of my data, it doesn't really matter.  But tomorrow may be a different story--when is too much information too much power?  I'm very interested in seeing how cloud storage and privacy evolve over the next decade.  There may be paid services that grow out of backlash against information harvesting.  Encryption, security, and two-factor authentication may quickly become more of a concern in the near future, at least for certain personal files and work files.

When it comes to storage, I am Pro-choice

Fortunately, in a multiverse of both storage options and user needs, a product like odrive can level the playing field and facilitate choices.  Without odrive, it would be painful to use multiple storage sources for content with different needs and contexts (e.g. OneDrive for my documents, Amazon Cloud Drive for my photos, a Google Drive account for work files, a personal Google Drive account, etc.).  With odrive it's simple... you can tailor a blended storage strategy according to the specific needs of your data--be it privacy, security, cost, accessibility features, reliability, compliance, or anything else.

So for now, I will keep my mastodon and move my photo archive to Amazon Cloud Drive (sorry, Google).  Fortunately, I have odrive File Server running on another computer at home so I can conveniently access my Drobo's contents as well.  Will there ever be a one-size-fits-all solution for all of my data?  I don't think so.  And with odrive, it doesn't matter.  Every provider can be a winner by providing the best solution for a particular use case, and every user can be a winner by using a combination of the best tools available.

Storage providers will come and go, but with odrive you can fluidly combine and organize your files so you're never forced to choose just one.

- Jeff

Save more time and disk space with new sync controls

Added on by Aric Johnson.

Where did all the Hard Drives go?

Some claimed cloud storage was the answer to longer disk life. Save your money, buy a small HD, and just store the rest in the cloud, they said. Free up space on your computer, they said. That is until you need to actually use that stuff, then you have to download everything in your cloud just to get to the one thing you want. What's the point of using cloud storage if you still need to take up tons of space on your computer and network bandwidth just to make it useful?

If you've ever run out of space on your computer's hard drive, we feel your pain. If you've ever received an error telling you that you can't sync items from the cloud to your computer because you lack sufficient hard drive space, your day is about to get a lot better.

Control what you sync with the new "Auto download limit"

With the addition of our new "Auto download limit" option you have full control over exactly what files are downloaded (if any at all). When you set the auto download limit then open a folder, you'll notice that only files under the limit you set fully sync automatically. Everything else will appear as a file or folder stub (.cloudx / .cloudfx).

 
 

 

Optimize your sync experience with the "Never download" option

My personal preference is to set my auto download limit to “Never Download”. I work on a lot of media files – videos, large photos, Photoshop, etc. I've got folders with tons of copies and tons of versions of each photo or video. As you can imagine, downloading larger video or Photoshop files can take a while if I have several in a single folder. With the limit set as "Never download", I can quickly browse through all the folders becauseall my files are presented as stubs. That way I can then find the file(s) I need and choose which ones to sync. 

(Pro Tip: If you set "Never Download" as your limit, you can right-click "Sync All" on any folder, which would expand the entire directory so everything in that folder is searchable with Explorer or Finder. Preview, however, is disabled until you sync the file down.)

Select "Always download" to make sure you have everything

If you want all your stuff in your cloud on your computer, you can simply set your auto download limit to “Always Download”. Selecting 10MB, 100MB, or 500MB tells odrive to automatically download all files that are under the size you specify. You can always change your Auto Download Limit anytime depending on the kind of files you are working on. 

Pause sync if you're in a bandwidth pinch

Maybe you travel a lot and rely on crumby internet connections. Maybe you are syncing a ton of HD photos to your Amazon Cloud Drive but want to watch the latest episode of Brooklyn Nine Nine on Hulu. The "Pause Sync" feature is another new addition you'll love. Pausing sync will temporarily stop everything that's uploading and downloading in odrive which will maximize your bandwidth for the other things you're doing. odrive will still track any changes or updates in the background, but will only sync those changes once you allow it to resume by clicking "Start sync" from the menu. 

 
odrive-pausesync.png
 

Try it now!

Both the Auto download limit and Pause sync features have been released to both Mac and Windows, so give them a try and let us know what you think. Better yet, let us know how it makes your life better and easier!

- Aric Johnson

To read more about odrive sync:

https://medium.odrive.com/sync-differently-b993694e1544#.y8823rsvw

https://medium.odrive.com/unsync-is-the-missing-link-to-cloud-storage-539493c384c1#.egwnn2gpq

Top 5 Free Apps To Organize Your Daily Life

Added on by Aric Johnson.

If your New Year's resolution is to be more organized, then you've come to the right place. Even if it's not, it’s safe to say we all could be a little bit more organized at times. From work to personal matters, it’s easy for things to get chaotic quickly. That’s why I’ve created this list to help you get off on the right foot this new year. Let the organization transformation begin!

5. Mint - Financial Manager

Managing all of your finances and budgeting your expenses can be a bit of a daunting task. The good news is with Mint, it doesn't have to be. Whether you want insight into your cash flow, investments, bills, or just create a budget that works for you, Mint gives you a comprehensive view of it all. You can even customize alerts, so you can stay up-to-date on what’s happening with your money.

mint.png

4. KeePass - Password Manager

Let’s face it. We all have trouble remembering our passwords for each of the different apps we use online. I know I’ve clicked the “Forgot Password” link more than enough times. To spare yourself from writing down all of your passwords, KeePass allows you to manage them all in a secure way. Your usernames and passwords are safely stored in an encrypted database and can only be decrypted with one master password or key-disk. Now, you only have to remember one password or just insert the key-disk in your computer. Hurray!

3. Trello - Task Manager

If you’re anything like me, you have a hard time remembering each task unless you write it all down somewhere in some type of organized fashion. That’s why I like Trello. Whether you have an immediate set of items to check off, or have ones that need to be completed before the end of the week, Trello helps you stay on top of it all. Also, if you like to create lists, categories, color code, and set due dates for each of your tasks, Trello is the app for you!

trello.png

2. Flipboard - News Manager

It’s easy to get your news fix with so many different sites out there, but who has the time to scroll through each one? For world news, you might go to CNN, but for technology news, you might go to TechCrunch. Flipboard simplifies this process by bringing all of the news you care about to one place. Just pick the topics you’re interested in and related articles in that category are instantly brought to your fingertips. From world politics to fine dining, Flipboard is the perfect app for you to discover new things and share them with others.

Flipboard.png

1. odrive - App & Storage Manager

We all have a lot of data out there and the problem is that it’s scattered everywhere. With photos on Facebook and Instagram, music on Dropbox, personal documents on Google Drive, work files on Box, Salesforce, and company file servers, we’ve created this digital chaos for ourselves. odrive aims to solve this by bringing all of your files from different apps and storage together in a folder. Instead of offering another form of cloud storage, odrive simply provides you a better way to access all of your stuff.

odrive.png

So there you have it. 5 free apps to help you get everything in order this year. If you happen find other apps that work well for you along the way, feel free to tweet me about them. Here’s to an awesome and less chaotic 2015!

- Michelle

Create your own Dropbox to NAS, Mac, Linux, & more in just 2 painless steps

Added on by Tony Magliulo.

Everyone wants the “Dropbox experience”: Native file browsing, offline access, and full bidirectional sync. Dropbox is a great service, but it is also plain to see that users desperately want to extend that experience to their own storage. A simple Google search for “build your own Dropbox” gives pages upon pages of results. Unfortunately, the steps required to pull this off are often time-consuming, complex, and can ultimately result in a lackluster experience.

odrive makes it simple

So simple, in fact, that your storage is very likely ready to go, right now. The key is SFTP. SFTP stands for SSH File Transfer Protocol. This is significant because if your box supports SSH it supports SFTP, and SSH capable systems are literally everywhere.

SFTP.png

odrive now fully supports SFTP linking, giving you the “Dropbox experience” with your own storage…only better. Native file browsing, offline access, full bidirectional sync, conflict handling, granular sync and unsync, multi-link capabilities, and in-line editing are all available through odrive.

Do you have a NAS like Synology, FreeNAS, QNAP, ReadyNAS, Drobo, WD My Cloud, LaCie? Then you are good to go. Linux? Of course. OS X? Yup. Even my little Raspberry Pi? Absolutely. Heck you can even install SSH on Windows with freesshd. odrive will be able to link them all.

2 easy steps to get started

Make sure SSH is enabled on your box. If it is, then the two following steps are all that stands between you and the storage experience you've been waiting for:

1.  Sign up for odrive and install the odrive desktop client.

http://www.odrive.com

2.  Select the SFTP link and enter your server info and credentials. odrive supports both password and private key authentication.

To link SFTP to odrive, just click on the odrive icon in your tray menu, select "Add Link".

To link SFTP to odrive, just click on the odrive icon in your tray menu, select "Add Link".

Once you enter in your server info and credentials, you're all set!

Once you enter in your server info and credentials, you're all set!

That's it!

Simple, free, and immensely powerful. Give it a shot and let us know what you think.

- Tony

SFTP, FTP, and WebDAV, evolved

Added on by Tony Magliulo.

Here at odrive we pride ourselves on pushing our technology further, continually coming up with new ways to give you access to all of the files you have scattered across the cloud-o-sphere. Despite our penchant for the bleeding edge, we also recognize that there are some oldies but goldies in the realm of file access. Time-tested and battle-hardened, SFTP, FTP, and WebDAV still have a lot to offer the discerning user and we just made them better than ever.

 
odrive-attachestoSFTP.png
odrive-attachestoWebDAV.png
odrive-attachestoFTP.png
 

Our newest release of odrive comes with full SFTP, WebDAV, and FTP linking capabilities. This greatly expands your reach to storage services, applications, and private storage sources. The odrive SFTP integration supports standard authentication as well as private key (including passphrase) authentication. WebDAV supports basic authentication over SSL/TLS, with digest authentication support coming soon. Full FTP and FTPS support rounds out the list, covering all the bases.

Teaching old dogs some new tricks. FTP and WebDAV like you’ve never seen.

Those already familiar with FTP and WebDAV will probably agree that their typical interfaces leave something to be desired. When compared to today’s cloud storage solutions, FTP and WebDAV use can be quite clunky, needing separate, non-native clients instead of allowing direct access in Explorer or Finder. This can lead to cumbersome workflows as you try to interact with your data, especially when editing existing content. User adoption can also be an issue, because of the learning curve involved.

 
odrive-FTP-view.png
 

odrive solves these issues by allowing you to interact natively, through standard folders on your desktop. With odrive’s lightweight progressive sync engine driving things, FTP and WebDAV sources are instantly made much more powerful with full bi-directional sync, granular sync and unsync, offline access, in-line editing, and conflict resolution. odrive brings FTP and WebDAV right to the cutting edge.

Sync everything

Adding FTP and WebDAV to odrive significantly broadens the access you have to your data. Here are some examples of what is now easily accessible through these new integrations with odrive:

  • All standard FTP and WebDAV servers (of course)
  • All SSH-enabled systems
  • Home Storage
    • Owncloud
    • Synology
    • ReadyNAS
    • Drobo
    • FreeNAS
    • QNAP
  • Web Hosting
  • Web Commerce
  • Cloud storage
    • ShareFile
    • Livedrive
    • IDriveSync
  • Enterprise services
    • Alfresco
    • Confluence
    • Exavault
 
odrive-everythinginoneplace.png
 

With SFTP, FTP, FTPS, and WebDAV joining Dropbox, Facebook, Box, OneDrive, GoogleDrive, Instagram, odrive File Server, OxygenCloud, Gmail, and Salesforce, there is, quite literally, something for everyone with odrive.



Tips & Tricks for Using odrive

Added on by Aric Johnson.

Did you know that there are a ton of cool things you can do with odrive that you may not have known about? Well, here are some tips and tricks to better utilize odrive, so you can be the envy of all your friends!

1. Download hashtags from Instagram

Have a hashtag on Instagram that you created or are just obsessed with? Instantly get all of those photos by right-clicking and selecting “Add Hashtag Folder” within your Instagram folder on odrive.

To give you a better experience, we sync 100 photos at a time for you. If you want to see more than that, just open up the “More Posts” folder to sync the next 100 photos.

(Please note that we have recently updated odrive and have temporarily disabled our hashtag feature. We will be adding it back in as soon as possible though!)

To get photos from a hashtag on Instagram, right-click and select "Add Hashtag Folder" from the odrive menu.

To get photos from a hashtag on Instagram, right-click and select "Add Hashtag Folder" from the odrive menu.

To read more about how odrive makes Instagram more useful:

https://medium.odrive.com/instagram-is-more-than-just-a-pretty-face-b98b07534413#.85kywvwa6

2. Share files and folders from Dropbox

If you’d like to share one of your Dropbox files or folders, just right-click what you’d like to share and select “Share” from the odrive menu. A Dropbox share link will be copied to your clipboard, so you have the freedom to share them wherever you’d like.

3. View Gmail attachments in their original email

As mentioned in one of our Gmail blogs, having an email attachment without any context can be a challenge at times to understand. With odrive, you can right-click an attachment and select “Open In Gmail” from the odrive menu. Your original email message containing the attachment within Gmail will automatically open for you. 

(Our "Open in Gmail" feature has also been temporarily disabled.   We'll be adding it back in as soon as possible!)

To get more context into a Gmail attachment, right-click and select "Open in Gmail" from the odrive menu.

To get more context into a Gmail attachment, right-click and select "Open in Gmail" from the odrive menu.

To read more about how odrive improves your workflow with Gmail: https://medium.odrive.com/email-is-dead-long-live-email-a5f2393c1319#.4s7z92wrb

4. Open files directly in Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, and OneDrive

If you need to manage or edit your files directly in the Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, or OneDrive web client, you can do so by right-clicking a file and selecting “Open in…” from the odrive menu.

(Our recent update to odrive has temporarily disabled this feature as well. Don't worry though, it'll be back!)

5. Sync or unsync your files and folders all at once

Working with a lot of files and want to do a lot of stuff quickly? odrive lets you highlight everything you want and select “Sync” or “Unsync” from the right-click odrive menu to get what you need done faster.

To read more about odrive sync:

https://medium.odrive.com/sync-differently-b993694e1544#.6ovb5b5o6

https://medium.odrive.com/unsync-is-the-missing-link-to-cloud-storage-539493c384c1#.xkdslseo0

6. See the amount of data processing on odrive

By clicking on the the odrive tray menu, you can see the exact amount of data processing at that time from each app.

Click on the odrive icon in your tray menu and see the exact amount of data processing.

Click on the odrive icon in your tray menu and see the exact amount of data processing.

7. Add multiple accounts from the same app

Have more than one Dropbox or Google Drive account? You can easily add all of your accounts by going to the odrive tray menu and selecting “Add Link”. For Dropbox, be sure to log out of your account on your web browser and login again with your second account’s credentials, so you don’t link the same account twice.

8. Rename folders the way you want to

No matter which application or storage you have linked to, you can easily rename folders to keep your existing organizational structure or create one that works for you.

9. Remove your apps & storage from odrive

If you ever want to remove your stuff from a specific app or storage, just right-click and select “Unlink” from the odrive menu. Your files will be removed from your computer, but remain safely stored in your app or storage.

unlink.png

10. Share your tips on how you use odrive on our forum

Do you have other tips on how you use odrive? Have questions or want to give us feedback? You can always reach out to us on our forum!

Now that you’re about to become a big deal knowing all of these odrive tips and tricks, it’s time to go spread the word and impress others with your knowledge! Happy syncing! :)

- Michelle

 

 

What is Progressive Sync?

Added on by Aric Johnson.

Building sync is really, really hard.

When we started building sync on Oxygen, we ran into a lot of challenges along the way. How can sync work smoothly when there is a ton of data? How can it still be easy and usable without adding a million configurations to your settings? How can we make it just “work” without creating additional obstacles to manage all the different stuff you are syncing?

We created Progressive Sync with the mission to let you sync a lot of things quickly and in the most effortless way possible.

It’s unlimited - sync as much as you want 

Typically with traditional sync, you are limited by how much physical storage space you have. In other words, you can only sync as much as your hard drive can fit.

But with Progressive Sync, it is unlimited and you can use it to sync as much data as you want. The key with Progressive Sync is that it doesn't automatically download entire folders or directories right away. It is progressive because it only “syncs as you go” - it will only download the folders you are browsing and not everything else at the same time.

So on odrive, a .cloudfx is an unsynced folder stub. Once it is synced, you can click through and view or edit everything inside. 

Similarly for files, unsynced files are displayed with a .cloudx stub. A synced file on the other hand, has a normal extension and a check mark, letting you know the file is local and available. 

virtual-and-synced.png

It’s automatic - it always syncs what you want

There are some applications that give you the option to do selective sync, so you can manage your settings and change your configurations to figure out what specific folders you want or don’t want.

We took that one step further with Progressive Sync and made it automatic. It syncs as you browse, so you don’t have to configure anything. Double-click on the files and folders you need and we will automatically sync it for you, so it’s seamless as you interact with the system. 

Progressive Sync also prioritizes what you want at the moment over what might be syncing in the background. If you right-click to sync a file, and there is already a folder with tons of other stuff syncing at the same time, we will re-prioritize the sync jobs to sync the file you want first, so you don’t have to wait.

To help save on bandwidth and disk space, odrive will also skip the large files until you choose to sync them. That way your odrive stays fast and doesn’t bog down your network.

It’s flexible - sync what you want and unsync what you don't

You can choose to sync just a file or a whole folder with one-click. Not only can you sync, but you can also unsync anything you don’t want. Done working on a project? Easily unsync the whole project folder through the right-click. Unsync will remove the files from your local computer without deleting them from their original storage location. You don’t need to configure anything either. We will continue to show you a stub of the anything that has been unsynced, so if you need it again in the future, just double-click and they will instantly sync back.

unsyncfolder.png

It works with everything!

Because we just want to help you get all your sh*t together.

As we develop progressive sync, we created a foundation that allows us to extend our sync model beyond Oxygen to other content storage sources as well. That’s really how odrive was born – we built a really awesome sync platform to sync everything.

Okay, so maybe it doesn’t work with absolutely everything everything... yet. But we’re getting there. We’re adding new apps all the time so you can really #synceverything. Right now you can use odrive to sync Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, OneDrive, Oxygen Cloud, Facebook photos, Instagram, Salesforce, Gmail, FTP, WebDAV and even your file servers. You can also link multiple accounts if you have more than one for some apps.

We’re always in the process of adding more stuff to sync – so if there is something you want to sync, tell us! As long as there is a high demand and there is an API, we will try our best to make it happen for you. :)

- Julia

To read more about odrive sync:

https://medium.odrive.com/sync-differently-b993694e1544#.y8823rsvw

https://medium.odrive.com/unsync-is-the-missing-link-to-cloud-storage-539493c384c1#.egwnn2gpq

 

How to Get The Most Out of Your Unlimited OneDrive Storage

Added on by Aric Johnson.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that Office 365 subscribers will get unlimited OneDrive storage at no extra cost. While this is exciting news for all Office 365 subscribers, the reality of the situation is all of that storage just doesn’t fit on a person’s computer when using OneDrive.

About a year and a half ago when I first started working in marketing here, I was given a brand new Windows laptop. At this point in time, Microsoft had started pre-installing SkyDrive (now OneDrive) on all Windows computers. Since it was already on my laptop and I had 7GB of free storage to use, I figured I’d give it a try.

I really enjoyed the responsiveness of the desktop client when I started to use OneDrive, but I noticed it got to be a bit of a pain when I wanted to access my shared documents. Instead of being able to access them locally from my OneDrive folder, I had to go to my browser and login to the web client. I ideally wanted my files and my shared files in one place without having to use the web client every time. That’s why I now use odrive to access all of my stuff from OneDrive!

View shared files right from your desktop with odrive

odrive gives you access to all of your files on OneDrive in a single sync folder right on your desktop. There’s no more need to log into the web client just to view the files that someone has shared with you. Just double-click the “Shared With Me” folder within your OneDrive folder using odrive and all of your shared files are ready for instant viewing!

odrive mirrors all of your files, even the ones shared with you, within OneDrive.

odrive mirrors all of your files, even the ones shared with you, within OneDrive.

Save disk space by unsyncing the files you no longer need

Since you now have unlimited OneDrive storage, you’re faced with a bit of a dilemma because your computer can only hold so much of it. That’s why using odrive to access your stuff from OneDrive is so useful! Unlike OneDrive which syncs all of your files locally to your computer, odrive lets you sync only what you need.

If you’re done working on some files and no longer need them, just remove them from your computer by selecting “Unsync Folder” from the odrive menu. Don’t panic though, all of your files remain safely in your OneDrive storage when you unsync them. You’re just able to save a ton of space on your computer now! :) You can also access any of your unsynced files again just by double-clicking them.

You can easily unsync folders to save space by right-clicking and selecting "Unsync Folder" from the odrive menu.

You can easily unsync folders to save space by right-clicking and selecting "Unsync Folder" from the odrive menu.

Once your folder has successfully unsynced, odrive will let you know just how much disk space you have saved.

Once your folder has successfully unsynced, odrive will let you know just how much disk space you have saved.

Download odrive and start taking full advantage of your newfound unlimited OneDrive storage!

-Michelle

To read more about odrive sync:

https://medium.odrive.com/sync-differently-b993694e1544#.y8823rsvw

https://medium.odrive.com/unsync-is-the-missing-link-to-cloud-storage-539493c384c1#.egwnn2gpq