From 5 stars for v5, to something that was unusably buggy (for SFTP - can't say about other protocols) in v6, to this (v7.4.2) that's crashy and has a rickety UI and far worse UX. I'm not even going to try trusting it with my data; It seems like it's had zero QA testing. Extras; Awards; Forum; Search; Help; Credits; Upgrade; Tools; Awards; Login; Register.
ExpanDrive costs $50 and it seems to be the best option you can go for right now – considering that you need a cloud storage manager.
Over the past couple of years, we've seen more and more cloud storage services launched than ever before. But, not all of them are good. Sure, they alleviate many problems but sacrifices are made for having convenient access to data at all times. There are a bunch of headaches, but the most annoying ones are dragging and dropping files from a browser and installing apps on your computer. The first proves to be completely unreliable and the latter will slow even the most power-hungry computer.
ExpanDrive mounts a readable and writeable drive on your Mac. It's visible if you use the Finder, from apps and other local storage devices. Read our ExpanDrive Review below to better understand why you should use it.
ExpanDrive 5 is compatible with an amazing list of services, such as DropBox, Microsoft's OneDrive, Google Drive, Amazon S3, WebDAV and FTP/SFTP. With the latest ExpanDrive update, Amazon Cloud Drive bolsters its ranks. Considering that the massive e-tailer's service consists of 60 bucks a year for unlimited storage, I say this comes just in the nick of time.
The Drive Manager window controls all the services that you can connect to – also, you can choose freely what to disconnect. The list of services can be set to be automatically mounted upon startup, if you find manually connecting a chore.
(ExpanDrive promises big FTP improvements ahead with a free 5.1 update.) ExpanDrive's settings control whether or not the application starts at login, displays the content of a drive when first. ExpanDrive 7 is an iterative upgrade, but a step back in several ways. Once a connection is mounted, for example, there's no way to edit it without unmounting. That may not sound like a big deal.
If you click on the magnifying glass, it will take you to the drive in the Finder. ExpanDrive does this by default each time it starts up – you can disable this from Settings.
The usual Cloud Storage Drives will appear on your desktop in the universal silver drive icon. All of them are colour-coded. Sqlpro studio 1 0 465 inches. For example, FTP will be displayed in a blue colour, SFTP in a red or orange one.
The palette can be found in Drive Manager also, but it's slightly inconsistent. However, you can give any service nicknames so you don't mix them up.
After you mount a service, ExpanDrive works exactly like you think it will. Any file can be dragged and dropped, or easily previewed via QuickLook. You can also create, delete and rename folders exactly the same as you would on any other drive.
Note that how fast these actions will be completed depends solely on your internet connection and your computer. I didn't found any complaints on forums and some users said that it works like a charm even with a 50 Mbps connection. I'm using ExpanDrive on a 1Gbps connection and I, clearly, didn't have any problems with it.
ExpanDrive is incredibly responsive and stable due to its multi-threaded connection engine – this maintains optimal system performance even when your transferring huge chunks of data. Yet, there are exceptions. Finder will freeze for a short period of time when transferring data to a Dreamhost SFTP server.
The company has promised big changes and FTP improvements with their 5.1. update – which is free, by the way.
Early versions of ExpanDrive relied on MacFUSE for all of the hard word, but it proved to be unstable and riddled with issues. ExpanDrive 5 has become independent and now has 64-bit support. The company states that it can clock in at up to 10x faster experiences. Compared to previous versions, calling it a dramatic difference is an understatement.
A pretty great feature, that unfortunately we don't see that often on cloud storage managers, is the ability to automatically resume a transfer if it was interrupted. This comes as a knight in shining armour for MacBook owners that are constantly on the go.
When you transfer files, a small indicator will appear in the lower right corner. The status is also displayed in the Drive Manager.
Expandrive Amazon Cloud Drive Issue
The company has promised big changes and FTP improvements with their 5.1. update – which is free, by the way.
Early versions of ExpanDrive relied on MacFUSE for all of the hard word, but it proved to be unstable and riddled with issues. ExpanDrive 5 has become independent and now has 64-bit support. The company states that it can clock in at up to 10x faster experiences. Compared to previous versions, calling it a dramatic difference is an understatement.
A pretty great feature, that unfortunately we don't see that often on cloud storage managers, is the ability to automatically resume a transfer if it was interrupted. This comes as a knight in shining armour for MacBook owners that are constantly on the go.
When you transfer files, a small indicator will appear in the lower right corner. The status is also displayed in the Drive Manager.
Expandrive Amazon Cloud Drive Issue
One mildly annoying issue that I have encountered with the ExpanDrive is that it displayed only the first 200 files in my Amazon Cloud Drive, but that was one update ago.
ExpanDrive 5 Verdict
For $50, you get one of the fastest and most reliable cloud storage managers on the market. Developers quickly asses bugs and bring hot-fixes, updates are free and customer support is rather exceptional.
Pros
– Cloud storage and other network servers can be mounted as local Mac drives
– Transfer is fast and reliable
Expandrive 5 4 15
– Drive Manager makes connecting/disconnecting easy
Cons
– FTP/SFTP transfers are slow (as a side note, developers have promised a fix in the 5.1 update)
– Drive icons colour scheme is inconsistent
Download ExpanDrive 5right now.
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| Developer(s) | ExpanDrive, Inc |
|---|---|
| Stable release |
|
| Operating system | Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux |
| Available in | English |
| Type | SFTP/FTP client |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | www.expandrive.com |
ExpanDrive is a distributed file system client for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows and Linux that facilitates mapping of local volume to many different types of cloud storage. When a server is mounted with ExpanDrive any program can read, write, and manage remote files (that is, files that only exist on the server) as if they were stored locally.[4] This is different from most File Transfer Clients because it is integrated into all applications on the operating system.[5] It also does not require a file to be downloaded to access portions of the content. ExpanDrive is commercial software, at a cost of $49.95 per license. A 7-day, unrestricted demo is available for evaluation.
ExpanDrive uses a custom FUSE implementation as its file system implementation layer on the Mac and Windows.
History[edit]
SftpDrive was the original version of ExpanDrive for Microsoft Windows. It was commercial software with a 6-week trial.[citation needed]
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ExpanDrive 2 was released on June 21, 2011[6] adding support for plain FTP, Amazon S3 and a new ExpanDrive service named Strongspace Online Storage. ExpanDrive2 included a rewritten SFTP engine which lay the groundwork for a unified Mac and Windows code base.
Version 2.4, released in January 2013 was the first version to be released simultaneously for Windows and Mac.[7]
ExpanDrive 3 was released on May 14, 2013 with a new user-interface and support for more drive types such as Dropbox, OpenStack, Rackspace and WebDAV.[8]
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ExpanDrive 4 was released on June 12, 2014 with dramatically faster access. ExpanDrive 4 also added support for Microsoft OneDrive, Copy.com, HP Helion Cloud, Owncloud and hubiC.[9]
ExpanDrive 5 was released on June 15, 2015 with a near-total rewrite of its core functionality.[10]
ExpanDrive 6 was released on July 5, 2017, followed by a redesign to version 6.1 on September 25, 2017. The most recent version v6.3 was released on November 2nd, 2018. [11]
ExpanDrive 7 was released on May 8, 2019, which added support for Linux, A cloud storage browser and transfer application, multi-user file locking, search and version management. [12]
New features include improved performance and file versioning. An increased list of supported storage and cloud storage providers have been introduced since version 5, including Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Team Drives, Amazon Drive, Box, OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, Sharepoint, Openstack Swift, BackBlaze B2, Amazon S3 as well as the original SFTP, FTP or WebDAV server and SMB/Windows File Sharing.
See also[edit]
- SSH file transfer protocol (SFTP)
- Secure Shell (SSH)
References[edit]
- ^'ExpanDrive Release Notes'. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
- ^'ExpanDrive Release Notes'. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
- ^'ExpanDrive Release Notes'. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
- ^Tech Republic. 'Using ExpanDrive to mount remote file systems'. www.techrepublic.com. Retrieved 2014-10-28.
- ^Mac Apptitude. 'How to mount cloud storage in the Mac Finder'. www.macapptitude.com. Retrieved 2014-10-28.
- ^Jeff Mancuso (2011-06-21). 'ExpanDrive Blog » ExpanDrive 2 for Windows – FTP and S3, blazing fast SFTP'. Blog.expandrive.com. Retrieved 2014-10-28.
- ^Jeff Mancuso. 'ExpanDrive Blog » ExpanDrive v2.4 released - ExpanDrive Blog'. Blog.expandrive.com. Retrieved 2014-10-28.
- ^Rui Carmo (2013-05-19). 'ExpanDrive 3'. The Tao of Mac. Retrieved 2014-10-28.
- ^Brett Terpstra (2014-06-18). 'ExpanDrive 4, more services and faster sync'. Engadget. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
- ^www.expandrive.com/introducing-expandrive-5
- ^updates.expandrive.com/release_notes/expandrive_win
- ^www.expandrive.com/hello-expandrive-7/
External links[edit]
- Review of ExpanDrive at Macworld (November 2008)
