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Getting cloud data when PC with CloudDrive has gone


Rover

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I should like to use CloudDrive for safety reasons as one cloud drive in DrivePool to have a secure copy when the local disks have been gone because of disaster or theft.

How do I get the encrypted data back from the cloud service without PC with CloudDrive ?

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The wording is a bit awkward here, so I'm not entirely sure what you mean. 

 

However, if you're using a close provider (eg, not the local disk provider), to gain access to the CloudDrive disks, you'd need to install the software on another computer, and log into the accounts. You should see the disks listed, but shaded yellow.  This indicates that they're mounted on another system and that force mounting them could cause data corruption (if there is data to upload). 

 

You'll want to force attach it here. If the CloudDrive disk was encrypted, it will have a prompt to unlock or destroy the disk. You're not forced into this, as the options will stay displayed in the UI until you do one or the other.

 

At this point, you need to have a copy of your passkey/passphrase.  Without it, the data is lost (we don't have a way to recovery it without  your info). 

 

Once you've put in your passkey/passphrase, it will unlock the drive and allow you to access the drive.  

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TNX Drashna for the quick reply.

Yes your answer is adequate for my question.

 

For my comprehension: if I loose the computer with a CloudDrive disk as part of a pool of DrivePool (fire, theft, ..) then I need to install CloudDrive on another computer, login on the cloudprovider, put in my passkey/passphrase, and get access to my data on the cloudprovider?

Do I need to buy a new licence for the CloudDrive on the replacement computer?

What is the effect on accessing the original CloudDrive disk being a member of a former DrivePool pool?

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For my comprehension: if I loose the computer with a CloudDrive disk as part of a pool of DrivePool (fire, theft, ..) then I need to install CloudDrive on another computer, login on the cloudprovider, put in my passkey/passphrase, and get access to my data on the cloudprovider?

Yes. exactly.  Since it's part of DrivePool, there may be more to it, but ... 

 

 

Do I need to buy a new licence for the CloudDrive on the replacement computer?

 

No.  Well most likely, no.  If this is replacing the old system (eg,the old is lost, stolen or destroyed), then the existing license is all you need. Just contact us (http://stablebit.com/Contact), let us know what is going on and we'll deactivate the license on our end. 

 

you only need an additional license if you want to run the software and use it on multiple, concurrent systems. 

 

 

What is the effect on accessing the original CloudDrive disk being a member of a former DrivePool pool?

 

This can get complicated fast. 

 

If you have a copy of all the data on this drive, then you are off to a good start. If you install StableBit DrivePool, it will see it as a pooled disk and create a pool with the drive (but if this is the only drive, it will create the pool with just this disk, as it's not aware of the others). 

 

However, if it only had part of the pool on it, then you'll only have access to what was on that "drive". Installing drivepool will recreate the pool partially. (it will show the pool, but it will only show the contents of this specific disk, or any others you're able to recover).  Alternatively, all of the pooled datat should be in a hidden "PoolPart.xxxxx" folder, so you can access it that way, if you want. 

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Going along with the theme of this and not finding my specific answer I'll ask here.

I'm a long time user of StableBit Drive Pool and Scanner.  Best money I've spent on my home server.

 

In the past 6 months, I've used GDrive and other types of programs to access Google Drive / DropBox using scripting to try to pool multiple accounts together to do an off-site snapshot.  I found managing the pool difficult, however LOVED that I controlled every aspect.  I was able to pre-encrypt the data using OpenSSL as well as copy files around from my Local Drive Pool, to the other drives.  I found that my algorithm was lacking and tests showed that I could create multiple links to multiple accounts to increase speed, however keeping the data balanced was really hard.  I give you credit for handling that!  I decided I just filled them 1 drive at a time and decided speed was not really a factor for me.  The only thing I needed to worry about was making certain I did not try to stick a file on the cloud drive that was too large for the remaining capacity.

 

Having had that experience, I know that at least GDrive has had to have an update on numerous times due to Google Changing their API for accessing the Drive (unlike WebDAV which ... well all WebDAVs I've used by anyone seems to behave the same).

 

Thinking about how paranoid I get about recovering data, I'd like to toss out a situation that I hope NEVER happens.  

Consider that I would like to use a mix of 1-2 DropBox and 5-6 Google Drive accounts.  I would map all of these into DrivePool on a new Virtual Machine setup JUST for cloud access (we all bought at least two licenses of this, didn't we!?  I know I did and the second one sits doing nothing since I bought it).  Thinking about MY setup with the scripting, if I need to access a file and GDRIVE or whatever I was using in the script stopped working (API change), I would first figure out WHICH file I needed to access (remember encrypted), then I could download it like a normal Google Drive / DropBox access.  Lastly, once it hit my hard drive, I could decrypt it.

 

Assuming that StableBit cannot or will not, for whatever reason (directive from Google due to their license changing?), update the access to Google Drive, can I access my data files through the Google Drive interface?  

I'm assuming YES.

 

Now, let's further this if I use the FILE or FOLDER level encryption, can I download the files by hand, place them into the local cache, then access them?  

Can you think of any way to recover these files? -assuming that nothing is wrong with any part of this except that the CloudDrive software just cannot access the files (again, API change, or whatever).

I'm assuming that if I use WHOLE drive encryption the files are lost.

 

I would like to have this MIRROR files that are in specific folders on my existing DrivePool server.  I do not want them moved to a "local cache" - except if necessary for uploading/downloading.  All of the accelerator / precaching etc. is not necessary for me and would really just waste hard drive space.  Is this capable of that?

 

Thanks for all of your support and MANY years of great service and use!

 

--Dan

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It may be that I'm getting over a nasty stomach flu, but I think I got a bit confused on this. 

 

StableBit CloudDrive stores "raw" blocks of data on the cloud providers. By "raw", is that we are using some basic encryption on pretty much every provider now, to obfuscate the data from "media detection/parsing" code, which creates MIME type errors (especially on Amazon Cloud Drive, and Google Drive). 

 

We do use a number of files and folders to store the data, but as raw blocks of data. 

 

 

As for recovery, IIRC, you can move them to a local disk, and if you using the correct folder format, create a disk for the local provider. From there, you may be able to access the disk.

 

 

However, this is a topic that's come up a few times, and I believe that Alex (the developer) plans on including some sort of recovery/conversion tool to assist with this (if not, let me tell you, he WILL :) ). 

 

 

 

As for any API changes that may occur in the future, we do plan on keeping on top of them. However, most providers are using a JSON/REST based API, which is the industry standard.  And considering how well developed, documented and organized the Google Drive API is, I don't think that it will change any time soon. (it's actually one of the best "consumer" provider API). 

 

As for the WebDAV API, that's an independant standard, but it has a number of issues. I can't say that I'm surprised that Google moved away from it. For instance, if it's not done over HTTPS/SSL, the data is not encrypted in any way, including credentials. 

 

 

Also, once the drive is encrypted, there is no way to permanently decrypt it, as we're encrypting on the raw block level.  You can, however, use something like BitLocker to do this. 

 

 

I would like to have this MIRROR files that are in specific folders on my existing DrivePool server.  I do not want them moved to a "local cache" - except if necessary for uploading/downloading.  All of the accelerator / precaching etc. is not necessary for me and would really just waste hard drive space.  Is this capable of that?

 

Thanks for all of your support and MANY years of great service and use!

 

--Dan

 

Yes and no. The "File Placement Rules" in StableBit Drivepool may allow for this for specific folders/files. But it's not all that robust.

 

We do plan on introducing a "duplication grouping" option in the future, so that we can ensure that a full set is on a specific drive or drives. 

 

 

As for the cache, it's used for reads and writes, and we do recommend using it. For instance, NTFS data and folder lists are cached, to improve performance. You can decrease the size, if you want and that will decrease what is kept locally. 

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