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.
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.
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