Mac Cloud Drive Beta 4
1 SMEStorage Virtual Cloud Drive
SMEStorage is currently building out its support for the Mac OSX with the introduction of a virtual drive that overlays
multiple storage clouds. The current implementation is in beta four and is now starting to become more solid and be of
real-use as a means of interacting with one or more cloud storage providers.
The core engine has been re-written to be able to work around some of the issues presented when integrating into the
Mac Finder environment (which are many). Now files are loaded into a cache which satisfies the finder as to their ability
to have 'uploaded' and are added to a queue and background uploaded to the cloud.
The next version of the Drive will support sync and will be a full solution for backup and interacting with multiple cloud
storage vendors.
2 Setup
To setup first you need to install MacFuse. This needs to be the most optimised version which you can either download
from our site or you will be prompted to install when you install the SMEStorage preferences pane. After Fuse is
installed you can download and unzip the SMEStorage Preferences Pane and double click to install. It will end up as an
item inside your system preferences.
If you have a previous version installed:
3 Configuring the Drive
When you click on the SMEStorage Drive preferences you will first get the above screen. To begin with you need to
turn the drive on.
4 Configuring the Drive: Login
After turning the drive on you need to enter your smestorage login and username and click the "Sign in" button
5 SMEStorage Drive Options
Once you have signed in. You will your Default cloud provider. This is the provider where files will be uploaded when
you move files about in the drive.
Whenever you copy files into Other cloud storage providers you have mapped (folders that say "My files" they will be copied to the underlying cloud that this folder is mapped to no matter what your default cloud
provider is.
You can choose to have the drive mount automatically at start-up here and also to enable the SMEStorage Service.
The SMEStorage Service enables you to get a URL from the Services Menu either on Leopard or Snow Leopard.
The services should be enabled in Leopard OSX automatically and you can get a URL for a file by clicking on the cloud
file in question and then choosing Finder-Services-SMEStorage Actions and clicking on TinyURL which will generate a
URL for the file and paste it to the clipboard.
To turn on the the service in Snow Leopard open System Preferences, click on Keyboard, then click on the Keyboard
Shortcuts tab. In the left-hand column, click on Services.In the right-hand column, scroll down to the Finder section,
where you!ll see a new entry for SMEStorage Actions. Ensure it is checked. You can then click on a cloud file and
choose right click where you will see 'SMEStorage Actions'. Clicking this will enable you to choose to generate a
TinyURL or the file and will paste the URL to the clipboard.
Currently the Synchronisation section is grayed out as direct sync to desktop is not available in this build.
After you have finished click the red 'x' in the top left hand corner and Preferences will be closed and the drive will be
mounted. You will first get a message telling you that the file was downloaded from the internet and do you wish to
open it, click 'yes'. This happens one-time only.
6 Drive Mounting
When the drive is mounted you will see a new finder window that displays the drive. You can drag the drive into the
sidebar of a normal finder screen for easy access to the drive
7 SMEStorage Menu Bar
When the drive is mounted it displays in the menu-bar. When data is being downloaded the drive flashed red and
when data is being uploaded the drive flashes green.
Options are also give to unmount the drive, and also to refresh the view of the cloud files, in the event you have
uploaded data from a different client on entry points since the local cache was last refreshed.
If you delete a cloud file then it first goes to a holding area called 'Trash'. It is not deleted from the actual cloud until you
empty the Trash. You can view your Trash from the root directory of the SMEStorage mounted drive in the Finder.
8 Copying files
When you move files to the Cloud what actually happens is that they are uploaded to a cache and then background
uploaded to your cloud. You will see a status in the top right hand side of the screen as to the current status of the files
being uploaded and also how many files remain. If you quit the OS session before all files are uploaded or you have a
crash, next time you mount the Mac Drive you will be given the option of starting from where you had left off.
9 Note!
For certain providers we are unable to get the file size after the first cloud sync. This is because they either do not
provide file sizes, such as SkyDrive, or they store files in internal formats so the file size is unknown, such as Google.
The Mac OS cannot handle zero file sizes so for files such as this they are given a special file type which is that of a
web location or .webloc. These files, when you try and download or copy will launch a web browser and download the
file. This will only happen once. On the first download the file size is known so the next time
Caching is done in the Mac OS. The cache is set to expire after two minutes so if you navigate directories after this it
will try and pull the file list again. This is to prevent stale data. Note this is not the same as doing a cloud sync which
can be done from the menu bar on when mounting from the preferences. A cloud sync resyncs the file meta-data
between SMEStorage and the underlying cloud. As Clouds have multiple entry points for uploading data (take for
example Google Docs), then the 'view' can easily get out of sync. If you only use the SMEStorage gateway to interact
with your cloud then this is not an issue but if you use SMEStorage and other clients then you will need to do this
frequently to ensure you have the latest view of your files.
If you are in icon view rather than list view Finder pulls down data to build the icons. This can take longer to view the
file lists until this caching is done.