When you mention Dropbox, it is pretty sure to say everyone knows what you are talking about. Dropbox is probably a de facto standard (atleast almost) in cloud services and cloud syncing. Today Dropbox has unveiled a new way to use the service, called Project Infinite, which by their words is a ‘revolutionary new way to access all your files’.
Project Infinite won’t blow your SSD
As of today, the way Dropbox works, is it syncs your files from the dropbox cloud to your local hard drive. If you have a massive amount of data in Dropbox this might be a problem as the files are also locally stored on your local drive. This is where Project Infinite comes to play. I’ll let the company do the explaining:
Project Infinite will enable users to seamlessly and securely access all their Dropbox files from the desktop, regardless of how much space they have available on their hard drives. Everything in the company’s Dropbox that you’re given access to, whether it’s stored locally or in the cloud, will show up in Dropbox on your desktop. If it’s synced locally, you’ll see the familiar green checkmark, while everything else will have a new cloud icon.
The TL;DR version is that with Project Infinite, Dropbox creates a virtual placeholder on your local machines Dropbox folder and all the files that you have are just links to the files in the cloud. When the user opens such file Dropbox will cache the file on your hard drive and open it just like it would be a normal file. There is also a possibility for you to download files to your hard drive if you know you won’t have Internet connection and you know that you will need the specific files / folders on your travels.
Targeted to businesses
For now, Dropbox says it is targeting businesses with the Project Infinite. It will also bring teams new features which are:
– Visibility in context. Every file you’ve been given access to – even ones tat aren’t stored locally – will appear in Windows File Explorer or Mac OS X Finder.
– Real time access. Files and folders stored in the cloud can be organized with familiar drag-and-drop simplicity, right from the desktop
– Universal compatibility. For IT teams, Project Infinite works the way your teams work, supporting cross-platform access and backwards-compatibility on any computer running Windows 7 or higher, or Mac OS X 10.9 and up. IT teams can bring the power of Project Infinite to the systems they manage and you can share and collaborate with ease.
Project Infinite will support Windows and OS X when it rolls out. Dropbox isn’t saying anything about consumer availability, but I really wish this will be available to non-business users too soon.
Source: Dropbox
