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.
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.
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".
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
