Egnyte Product Tips

What is the difference between the mapped drive and Personal Local Cloud?

Egnyte provides you with two options to access your Cloud File Server from your desktop: the mapped drive and Personal Local Cloud.

When you map a drive to your Cloud File Server, you are accessing/editing files in the cloud directly. No local copy is maintained on your computer. When you are editing a file, it gets locked in the cloud. When anyone else tries to open and edit the file, it will be opened in "read only" mode. When you are done with your changes and close the file, a new version will be created in the cloud. The advantage of this method is that you are not using up the local computer hard drive since there is no physical copy of your files on it. Also, if the computer is lost or broken into, you can easily disable access to your Cloud File Server from this computer by changing your Egnyte password. The disadvantage of the mapped drive is that you can not access your files if you do not have an internet connection.

Personal Local Cloud, on the other hand, maintains a local copy of your files on your computer's hard drive. You can access these files without an internet connection. If you make any changes, the changed file will be pushed back into the cloud, and any changes made in the cloud will be pulled down to your computer. The advantage of Personal Local Cloud is fast, offline access. The disadvantage is that you are using up your computer's hard drive. Also, if someone was to get access to your computer, they are able to access your files, since they are stored locally.

Only Power Users and administrators can use the mapped drive and Personal Local Cloud. Please let me know if you have any questions and have a great day!