Monday, February 2, 2009

Google GDrive

GDrive technology is an effort started by Google to build a system based on network storage technology which would provide seemless access to data from anywhere in the world. Current PC based technology uses local hard disks to store important data like programs, files, photos, bookmarks, cached pages etc. GDrive tries to break free from the typical desktop by providing a platform free technology available over the internet to access data and run applications. The bottleneck today is only the avalibility of bandwidth over the network. Google is working on a realtime system to solve this problem and provide faster access over the internet. The advantages of this technology would be infinite storage space and no use of third party tools to run applications.

Attempts to emulate such a system have been made by using GMail as a mass storage system and using Google applications such as Google Docs to edit data. But such attempts donot provide a full solution and fall short of the real expectations of a truly distributed system running applications over the internet effortlessly. There are many third party extensions which turn GMail into a network device. XMail Hard Drive is one such extension.

1 comment:

  1. Hi High Fever,

    I work for www.nomadesk.com, which offers easy and secure file sharing, wherever you are. I read your post on Google's GDrive with great interest and just wanted to add NomaDesk to the mix.

    NomaDesk, trusted by mobile (“nomadic”) businesses for several years now both in Europe and the U.S., has similar features such as the ones you mention. We are convinced that the more data gets synchronized, the more likely it gets compromised. Therefore, NomaDesk includes an encrypted virtual drive that keeps your files securely available off-line and remote file shredding and IP-tracking with TheftGuard. Of course, we impose no limits on storage and bandwidth.A Mac version is on its way.

    NomaDesk works with a local client and allows access to your files from anywhere on the web. We have very good reasons to work with a local client, next to the already "traditional" web interface (e.g., box.net, the late Xdrive, etc.):

    (1) 100% availability of the data, regardless of network quality
    (2) 100% performance when editing files, using any type of program
    (3) 100% simplicity; just drag-n-drop files to synchronize and share them
    (4) 100% security on the PC also: the virtual drives that NomaDesk creates on the PC are encrypted and can be shred remotely via our online TheftGuard service.

    The bulk of our users, which are SOHO and SMB teams, appreciate the straightforward and secure file sharing they get through using the NomaDesk client software. You should know that in most cases NomaDesk replaces the traditional file server, FTP and VPN - with success!

    Please let me know your thoughts.

    Kind regards,
    F.

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