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Congratulations. Now, can you explain me, in dumbest possible terms: a) What is this? b) Why do I want to use this? What advantage does it give me over using

Congratulations. Now, can you explain me, in dumbest possible terms: a) What is this? b) Why do I want to use this? What advantage does it give me over using just Dropbox? c) Does it consume disk space? d) If it does not, does it have a cloud component? Probably not, but I'm not sure what's going on here. Your website doesn't really tell anything about your product—you might want to take a look on that.

igul222 13y ago
It's software that lets you mount Dropbox as if it were a network drive. It's advantageous to just Dropbox because it doesn't consume disk space. It doesn't have a cloud component; it uses the Dropbox API to interface with Dropbox's servers directly.
- madeofpalk 13y ago
  > It doesn't have a cloud component What is the 'cloud component' of Dropbox. Isnt that just the (storage) servers? Isnt the native Dropbox app using the "Dropbox API to interface with Dropbox's servers directly"?
- strudelfish 13y ago
  Also advantageous because there is less latency between saving "locally" and the changes being reflected on the remote server (or client) as compared to Dropbox. Dropbox has to sync up to the cloud then back down to your remote server, whereas this is direct. That latency can be a pain if you're making a lot of small changes often and wanting to see the outcome.
enoch_r 13y ago
I use Expandrive pretty regularly for development involving S3--it's much more convenient than most of the other ways to manually sync or transfer files to/from S3. I can just treat the bucket like a folder on my HD. It can also replicate the basic Dropbox feature (syncing) more cheaply, since you can pay directly for S3 storage instead of paying Dropbox to pay for S3 storage. Obviously you lose some features there, but it could be worth it. DreamObjects currently is 3 cents/GB for storage plus 3 cents/GB for transfer out, so $36/100GB/year + transfer, compared to Dropbox's flat $99 for 100GB. Some developers I've worked with also like editing remote files with it, though it seems like most editors already have some kind of SFTP support anyway, and things like `git status` are unusably slow. Overall it's definitely a niche product but it has made my life easier occasionally!
- bradleyland 13y ago
  Does it really "sync" your Dropbox folder though? My understanding is that it mounts the target service as a network volume. This means you need a network connection to the target service in order to access the files stored there. One of the major benefits of Dropbox is that the files really are sync'd to your local drive. If you're offline, you can still get to the files. Changes are sync'd later when the network becomes available.

igul222 13y ago

It's software that lets you mount Dropbox as if it were a network drive. It's advantageous to just Dropbox because it doesn't consume disk space. It doesn't have a cloud component; it uses the Dropbox API to interface with Dropbox's servers directly.

madeofpalk 13y ago
> It doesn't have a cloud component What is the 'cloud component' of Dropbox. Isnt that just the (storage) servers? Isnt the native Dropbox app using the "Dropbox API to interface with Dropbox's servers directly"?
strudelfish 13y ago
Also advantageous because there is less latency between saving "locally" and the changes being reflected on the remote server (or client) as compared to Dropbox. Dropbox has to sync up to the cloud then back down to your remote server, whereas this is direct. That latency can be a pain if you're making a lot of small changes often and wanting to see the outcome.

enoch_r 13y ago

I use Expandrive pretty regularly for development involving S3--it's much more convenient than most of the other ways to manually sync or transfer files to/from S3. I can just treat the bucket like a folder on my HD. It can also replicate the basic Dropbox feature (syncing) more cheaply, since you can pay directly for S3 storage instead of paying Dropbox to pay for S3 storage. Obviously you lose some features there, but it could be worth it. DreamObjects currently is 3 cents/GB for storage plus 3 cents/GB for transfer out, so $36/100GB/year + transfer, compared to Dropbox's flat $99 for 100GB. Some developers I've worked with also like editing remote files with it, though it seems like most editors already have some kind of SFTP support anyway, and things like `git status` are unusably slow. Overall it's definitely a niche product but it has made my life easier occasionally!

bradleyland 13y ago
Does it really "sync" your Dropbox folder though? My understanding is that it mounts the target service as a network volume. This means you need a network connection to the target service in order to access the files stored there. One of the major benefits of Dropbox is that the files really are sync'd to your local drive. If you're offline, you can still get to the files. Changes are sync'd later when the network becomes available.