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ExpanDriveDiscount

ExpanDrive

Access FTP/SFTP/S3 just like a USB drive

$39.95
Mac & PC  Download Trial
Platforms: Windows XP, Vista, 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 and later
ExpanDrive ScreenshotFTP Software ScreenshotExpanDrive, FTP Software ScreenshotExpanDrive, Internet Software Screenshot

As a tech warrior in the 21st century, you're used to being able to work with remote computers and servers across the globe. But is doing so easy? Or have you given up and accepted launching FTP clients and other remote access applications as the cost of doing business when it comes to the ultimate in convenience and flexibility? Well, today brings a new level of simplicity and accomplishment to your computing life - with ExpanDrive, the subject of today's discounted software promotion for Mac and Windows users!

ExpanDrive lets you edit remote files in any local application, making remote computers act just like USB drives plugged into your computer! With ExpanDrive, you can conduct business as usual, opening, editing, and saving files just as easily as if they were on your local hard drive, when, in fact, they could live on a server on the other side of the planet.

With robust support for FTP, SFTP, and Amazon S3 services, ExpanDrive lets you work with remote files right from Finder (Mac) and Explorer (Windows), and offers an intuitive and friendly user interface that will have you up and running in no time. Plus, there's no more hassles remapping disconnected drives - once you've established a connection with a remote computer, you'll be able to access those remote files whenever you have a connection, even if you change access points or put your computer to sleep!

Review Written by Derek Lee
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Michael R. Sounds interesting...

Is it possible to create an encrypted file, e.g. a zip- or TrueCrypt-file on my ftp-server and access to it (reading and writing) via ExpanDrive?
Jan 9 2012 at 12:41am Copy Link
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Jeff Mancuso Yup! You can definitely do this. It works best over SFTP from what I know. Try out free demo and give it a spin.
ExpanDrive, Inc - Jan 9 2012 at 6:08am Copy Link
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Randy Martin Can I access my office computer from my laptop?
What other programs do I need?
Jan 9 2012 at 9:30am Copy Link
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Jeff Mancuso If you have an SFTP server on your office computer with firewall access on port 22 you can mount your office computer with your laptop remotely. If you need an SFTP server WinSSHD is a nice option, so is OpenSSH for Windows.

SSH servers are built into Linux and Mac, which simplifies connecting to one of those machines.
ExpanDrive, Inc - Jan 9 2012 at 11:44am Copy Link
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Randy Martin Is SFTP server a software I can load on my PC w7?
Or is it a seperate machine?
Jan 9 2012 at 2:08pm Copy Link
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Michael R. Hi Jeff and thanks for your answer. Still some other questions. I am using Win7, x64:

1) How does ExpanDrive handle big files on a server. Does it download them completely and upload them back after a little change is done or can it access to a region in the middle of the file and modify some bytes directly there without having to get the full file.
1a) For example, if I have a 2GB video-file stored on the server, can it be played directly (i.e. without having it to be (internally downloaded completely, which would need some space and time before starting)?
1b) When programming, there are functions, which allow to jump to a certain position inside the file before doing something there (e.g. in C: fseek). How does ExpanDrive handle such a function? Does it download the complete file and uses fseek on this downloaded file or is it intelligent enough to access to this position directly (when an fwrite/fread will follow) without having to download it.

2) Concerning my former question about TrueCrypt-file-access:

I downloaded the trial-version and tried the access to a small (1MB) TrueCrypt-file on a ftp-server I have access to: So, I defined the ftp-login-data and assigned it to a drive-letter V:, logged in with ExpanDrive.

Than I went to the directory my TC-file was in. I could open it, found a text-file inside, changed it's content with an editor, saved it, reopened it (and the change was still there), closed it again and dismounted the drive in TrueCrypt.

So far so good.

Now I tried to reopen it via TrueCrypt and got the strange message, that this file was not found. (I got the same result from a dos-box: When using DIR to find out which files are available, DIR listed it as available, but when calling TYPE, the OS says it can't find it.

So I ejected the 'drive' and reconnected in ExpanDrive. Now TrueCrypt could find the file. But when I re-checked my last-time-edited file the change was gone.

I tried this twice with getting both time the same negative result.

So, is this just a bug in the current version or kind of a limitaton of ExpanDrive?
Jan 9 2012 at 9:07pm Copy Link
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Steven Avery Greetings.

Can you compare this to the idea of using WebDav to map an external drive your PC - I asked one of the backup comparnies (DriveHQ) how to be able to use standard PC backup software (Backup4All, Cobian) on their drives and they gave that suggestion, which I have not yet implemented.

Is this similar in concept ? Easier ?

Steven
Jan 10 2012 at 4:54am Copy Link
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Richard Blake I installed current version 2.2 downloaded from ExpanDrive.com last night. Setup proposed C:\Documents and Settings\rblake\Local Settings\Application Data\ExpanDrive as the target directory - pretty unusual place to install software. I guessed it was going to install a few driver files somewhere under \Windows and the specified dir would get some configuration files. Estimated diskspace required: 49.6MB.

After setup I found: 118 directories, 1317 files with 53,351,478 bytes as reported by DIR. Diskspace consumed: 53.5MB.
Count of files by extension include: exe(9); dll(22); decTest(143); png(63); gif(3); html(6); htm(19); css(6); pyo(901); pyd(80); pys(5); asp(5); vbs(3); ejs(12); js(13); DS_Store(3); txt(5)
Files of types pdf, chm, doc: zero
The txt files include three license.txt and two readme.txt, all under the python directory; all pertain to Python, not ExpanDrive. Over 40% of the total diskspace consumed and 103 of the directories are in the python directory structure

Please explain why you think this software product should be installed in a folder devoted to Documents and Settings?
What are all those files? Is this a debugging build? If there was any documentation, would it tell me that most of these files are provided so that developers can hook into ExpanDrive from their apps? (I don't see any source, but there are a lot of files to hunt through.) If a user already has a compatible version of Python installed, could ExpanDrive use it instead of installing its own private copy?

I mapped a Unix server, dragged a file from it to my PC via two Explorer windows, then examined the file on my PC. I found that line terminators had remained as they were on the server - 0A - not changed to the 0D0A customary to PC text files. ExpanDrive offers no ASCII/Binary transfer mode, does not advise during transfer that a file appears to be ASCII and line terminator conversion may be desired. It certainly is exactly like copying files to/from a USB drive - if I stored Unix files on my USB drives and accessed them from my PC. Am I missing a feature? Please tell me where in the documentation it is described.
Jan 10 2012 at 5:50am Copy Link
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Jeff Mancuso @steven -

Very similar, but it runs over SFTP/FTP/S3 and performs much nicer
ExpanDrive, Inc - Jan 10 2012 at 6:42am Copy Link
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Jeff Mancuso @richard - lots of apps install to that location, such as dropbox. It is the go-to location now a days for a per user install. We ship our own custom python interpreter and html based UI that allows us to easily stay cross platform. Happy to explain how/why if you email support@expandrive.com

Regarding line terminators, we operate in binary mode, always.
ExpanDrive, Inc - Jan 10 2012 at 6:44am Copy Link
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Dexter Bell Is the license agreement available for inspection on your site before purchase?

Thanks
Jan 10 2012 at 6:44am Copy Link
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Jeff Mancuso Dexter -

The license is per user, all the details are on this page.
ExpanDrive, Inc - Jan 10 2012 at 6:54am Copy Link
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Richard Paris Hi. Is it possible to use run the ExpanDrive software in a portable mode on a USB stick? Would like to be able to take this software with me and then use it on when i'm on computer at client site to access my remote SFTP server.

Thanks.
Jan 10 2012 at 8:28am Copy Link
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Michael R. Hi Jeff. Have you overseen my question/problem above?

In the meantime I tried this truecrypt-file-writing with a different webspace. Same result. :-(

Sometimes when an operation lasts a little longer, I had the fear the process is haning up. It would be nice, if there was some kind of a progress-bar or a slowly blinking 'LED' for each ExpanDrive-drive.
Jan 10 2012 at 9:34am Copy Link
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Jeff Mancuso @richard no, unfortunately we don't have a portable offering

@ Michael - sorry, not sure - could be a truecrypt issue
ExpanDrive, Inc - Jan 10 2012 at 9:45am Copy Link
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tobi m. Does ExpanDrive support public key authentication on OS X?
Jan 10 2012 at 9:59am Copy Link
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Jan-Christoph Ihrens Regarding the installation path, would it be a problem to install to "C:\Program Files (x86)" in Windows 7 (because of the UAC protection)? I'm the only user of the computer, so it doesn't make much sense for me to install the program to a special user account.
Jan 10 2012 at 12:51pm Copy Link
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Jeff Mancuso @jan next version supports that
@tobi - yes it does, if you have keys for that server set up already just leave the password blank
ExpanDrive, Inc - Jan 10 2012 at 1:14pm Copy Link
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Jan-Christoph Ihrens It would be nice if those drive letters that are already occupied (by harddrives and optical drives!) wouldn't be offered for use with ExpanDrive...
Jan 10 2012 at 1:55pm Copy Link
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Steven Avery HI Folks,

Thanks to Richard Blake for the effort to see some "heavy-loading" aspects of the product. So far, that does not seem to negate the potential plus, such efforts are greatly appreciated.

Similarly Jan-Christoph raises an issue that sounds almost elementary, and we are on 2.x.

Just put in a thread at Donationcoder on this product.

Bits - ExpanDrive - mapping a drive to USB
http://www.donationcoder....#msg274445

It seems that emphasizing "just like a USB drive" could confuse some people as to the product. e.g. Those of us who are used to disk partitions and copying from c: to d:. on the disk. It may downplay the full significance of mapping by making us think of the USB drives we lost here and there :) .

And I am getting tired, and still reluctant to do the big download, so try to stick around a day.

Steven
Jan 10 2012 at 9:44pm Copy Link
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