#Expandrive virtual drive for mac
#Expandrive virtual drive full

I would suggest browsing the ExpanDrive preferences though. There are more advanced options for many connection types, but there’s not much need to mess with them unless you really know what you want to achieve. Choose a the provider, enter the login credentials and a volume name, and you’re done. If you total up all of the free space you could get from every service, it more than pays for ExpanDrive.Ĭreating a new virtual disk is simple. The reason to spend $50 is to get everything else. Supported ServicesĮxpanDrive provides access to the old standards like S3, SFTP and WebDAV, but that’s no reason to buy it. It also provides support for mounting virtual disks for a huge variety of services. SFTP and FTP are no problem but anything that requires an API seems to be limited to syncing, except for ExpanDrive.ĮxpanDrive is available for both Mac and Windows. The same goes with many tools that are Fuse based, like Macfusion. Transmit, while being a terrific FTP client for the Mac, is limited to a a few basic service types and does not support Dropbox or Google Drive. It can create virtual disks of any connection type it supports.

#Expandrive virtual drive for mac

Transmit for Mac is great if you only need FTP, WebDAV and S3. I don’t have diverse experience in this category, but I know what works well for me.

File access is slower and requires an Internet connection.

The disadvantages I’ve encountered are minor in my day-to-day activities:

There’s never any question about which files are stored on-line.

You can login to more than one account at a time.

They don’t take up any space on the local disk.

Virtual drives have two major advantages over the typical Dropbox or Google Drive installation: They don’t have the performance or searchability of a local disk but they are well behaved as an external storage device. These virtual disks behave just like a drive mounted over USB. Instead of syncing local files to a service like Google Drive or Dropbox, you can treat the remote collection like a disk that you mount on the desktop as needed. There are a few different applications that can turn an Internet file service into a mounted disk. While there are ways to use these services for off-line storage, through selective sync and web browser access, it can be a pain to actually use the files.

#Expandrive virtual drive full

The disconnect between SSD pricing and storage service pricing can be a deterrent to taking full advantage of both.

Dropbox, Microsoft and Google are all competing for customers and driving down the price of syncing files to the Internet. Right now all of the major on-line syncing services charge $10 per month or under for 1TB of storage.

While the SSD in my laptop is still moderately priced, the cost of spinning disks and Internet-based storage seems to be dropping like a stone.