Cloud service that allows mapped SMB/Samba-type drives like a local server

[atxcyclist]

The business I work for is slowing down and moving to a smaller space in the boss' house, one that doesn't really have space for a dedicated local server box like we use now. I am basically being reduced to minimal-only-hours for specific things that I can do outside of what will ultimately be my next job, and even that for just the rest of the current calendar year. The issue comes in the form of file management/sharing; Currently we have an old cobbled-together Windows machine of my creation with a mirrored RAID and it's sharing a half-dozen folders as mapped drives on our network. Our design software needs this, it is a necessity. Aside from running a VPN from either the boss' home (which I will have no typical access to), or my home (where I assume all the risk and have to maintain the equipment), my option would be to get the data on some sort of cloud service that allows direct mapped-drive support on both Windows and Mac OS platforms, I would like something that loads at startup and is essentially transparent-ish if possible. My boss is not particularly tech-savvy and I have fumbled through VPNs and networking enough to keep our two-person-office working.

 

What are services that offer this support? The amount of data we would need to have hosted is a few hundred gigabytes, and the data per month would be in the tens of gigabytes normally. I currently have an OpenVPN setup for my own remote access when needed, and it's running on a barely "pro-sumer" router at the current office space, but it's crap with low bandwidth and I want to do better than that. I can map network drives through it which is a big plus, but at sub-10Mb/second throughput on a 300Mb/second symmetrical fiber connection, it's too-slow for primetime use daily when we're opening and saving 100MB files routinely.

[keskparane]

Dropbox? Been a while since I've read up but I originally chose it because it does incremental updates (only updating the modified portion of the file). Most likely more reliable than any hardware you might run privately. Access from anywhere. Can store locally.

[Bersella AI]

The app Alist can be considered for setting up a mountable cloud drive for local use. It can be installed via a shell script or Docker, and supports mounting various cloud services including Dropbox as a WebDAV drive, which is accessible via either local services or other endpoint devices.

[m9x3mos]

On 3/8/2024 at 1:59 AM, atxcyclist said:

The business I work for is slowing down and moving to a smaller space in the boss' house, one that doesn't really have space for a dedicated local server box like we use now. I am basically being reduced to minimal-only-hours for specific things that I can do outside of what will ultimately be my next job, and even that for just the rest of the current calendar year. The issue comes in the form of file management/sharing; Currently we have an old cobbled-together Windows machine of my creation with a mirrored RAID and it's sharing a half-dozen folders as mapped drives on our network. Our design software needs this, it is a necessity. Aside from running a VPN from either the boss' home (which I will have no typical access to), or my home (where I assume all the risk and have to maintain the equipment), my option would be to get the data on some sort of cloud service that allows direct mapped-drive support on both Windows and Mac OS platforms, I would like something that loads at startup and is essentially transparent-ish if possible. My boss is not particularly tech-savvy and I have fumbled through VPNs and networking enough to keep our two-person-office working.

 

What are services that offer this support? The amount of data we would need to have hosted is a few hundred gigabytes, and the data per month would be in the tens of gigabytes normally. I currently have an OpenVPN setup for my own remote access when needed, and it's running on a barely "pro-sumer" router at the current office space, but it's crap with low bandwidth and I want to do better than that. I can map network drives through it which is a big plus, but at sub-10Mb/second throughput on a 300Mb/second symmetrical fiber connection, it's too-slow for primetime use daily when we're opening and saving 100MB files routinely.

FileCloud will be ablet to map a drive directly and pretty easily if I remember correctly.

[atxcyclist]

Just going to re-up this thread as I am getting closer to needing a solution for this. Dropbox seemed like a good candidate at first, but it doesn’t seem to work well with ‘live’ file access, which is a necessity. Many of the other solutions seem to support this but only as a service on your own centralized hardware, which is something I want to avoid.