Does Amazon Cloud with Odrive function like Drop Box?

[johnlcrowex]

Can I access the folders & files on the Amazon Cloud via a folder on my hard drive like I can with my Drop Box?

[Tony]

Absolutely. odrive allows you Dropbox-like access, only better

Luckily our own smooth-talking @Aric created a video about Amazon Cloud Drive and odrive, just a few weeks ago:

[johnlcrowex]

good to hear Tony. So this is what I am trying to do but not sure how to do it.

I want to load all my music to the cloud as my main storage location. I have music software app on my laptop’s and PC that I want to have access these music files from the Amazon Cloud rather than my hard drive. I need to tell the music app to access these files. I typically direct it to the folders in “file explorer”

One of my laptops does not have enough space to load the 400 gigs of music I have. So on that one device I do not want to just sync, I want that laptop to access the files from the cloud.

Thanks

[Tony]

odrive, in its native desktop form, does not function exactly the same as network drive might, where data is streamed to the requesting application directly. The standard progressive sync mechanism is a sync and cache model. However, there is a way to use odrive to stream content from the service directly, which it sounds like you want to do. Right now this method is limited to odrive Agent, but it will be coming to the odrive desktop CLI soon.

Alternatively, you can use odrive’s progressive sync capabilities to sync some of the 400GB library, without needing to pull the entire thing down. You can then sync and unsync specific portions of the library, depending on what you need to do. Using the ability to sync and unsync sub-structures of the 400Gb library may give you the behavior you need and avoid the problem of trying to pull all 400GB down locally at the same time.

[johnlcrowex]

@Tony

odrive Agent

ok, thanks for elaborating. I am not super tech savvy, but would be interested to try the odrive agent if you think the will get me the functionality I am looking for. Is the the correct link to load the odrive agent?

Odrive Sync Agent: A CLI/scriptable interface for odrive's Progressive Sync Engine for Linux, OS X, and Windows

Documentation also available here: https://docs.odrive.com/docs/odrive-sync-agent Overview Installing odrive Sync Agent Windows OS X Linux/RPi odrive Sync Agent quick start guide Available commands Helpful tips Direct download links Overview The odrive Sync Agent provides advanced users with a flexible, scriptable interface to odrive’s powerful Progressive Sync engine. Use it to bring cloud access to almost any environment. The odrive Sync Agent can be used on Windows (7+), OS X (10.7+), L…

Thanks tony

[Tony]

Hi @johnlcrowex
That is correct, but Agent usage is going to be fairly technical, so I would not recommend digging into it unless you want to get your hands a bit dirty. I will probably write up a post on streaming once we release the desktop CLI, so if you want to go that route I would recommend waiting for that.

In the meantime, I would suggest experimenting with the odrive desktop client a bit to get a feel for our progressive sync and how it works. It may be enough for what you need.

[johnlcrowex]

ok, I will wait. Any idea when the desktop CLI will come out?

[Tony]

I am adverse to giving any particular dates, but it should be available within the next few weeks, with the possibility of being much sooner than that.

[johnlcrowex]

ok, that’s cool. I am trying Amazon Cloud for 3 months to see if it right for me and if I can get the functionality I described in my previous notes, then it worth waiting. Is there a way to be notified when this comes out? also, should I go ahead and keep uploading my music files to the Amazon Cloud?

Thanks

[Tony]

If your main motivation is storing your music library in the cloud, have you considered Amazon’s Premium Music service?

For $25/year you can store a quarter million songs and stream them to all of your devices.

Amazon Cloud Storage is definitely more versatile, but it occurred to me that maybe you don’t need that versatility… ?

[johnlcrowex]

I want to use the desktop software I have (JRiver Media Center) I have invested a lot of time building playlist and tagging the music files.

Thanks

[Tony]

Hmm… Given you have a very particular solution you want to use, odrive is probably not going to work out of the box for direct streaming from Amazon Cloud Drive without caching locally. It may be possible that a plugin could be made for JMC, using odrive Agent or the desktop CLI, but I would need to rely on the odrive/JMC community to investigate the viability of that.

What you want to do may be beyond the scope of what odrive can currently provide.

Again, I think there is a solution using our progressive sync features to locally cache portions of your library, but it will depend on what you ultimate want to do.

[dougblair]

Just now saw this thread - (missed me, huh? ) You might want to re-read your Amazon Cloud Drive user agreement. I dimly recall there is some wording about not using ACD as a streaming service for video in there. In other words, ACD is storage only, designed to upload/download to your computer, but the speed is not guaranteed. Amazon’s cloud does have some services like their video and photo products which do support streaming, but not at the rate we pay for ACD.

Just my $0.02, which is ore than I prefer to pay ;-).

[eprisencc]

Wow Odrive will be adding functionality to the desktop app to replicate the functions of a network drive? That is awesome if I am understanding this correctly. I currently pay for the following application to do this for cloud storage that I do not want synced to my computer but I would like instant access to all the files: http://www.netdrive.net/.