Filed under: Software, Cool tools
ExpanDrive: transparent remote file access
I just got finished putting ExpanDrive by Magnetk through its paces. In fact, I've been using it all morning and I'm duly impressed. It's an application that allows you to mount SFTP filesystems as local drives. I've used other MacFUSE-based systems in the past and I'm pleasantly surprised to find that ExpanDrive is more responsive and provides nearly seamless transparent access to my remote SFTP servers.
Aside from creating .DS_Store files on my remote volumes, it's a very fluid way to access remote files. It works with Subversion (and other versioning schemes, I assume), allowing apps like TextMate with support for Subversion to work as though you had the repository set up locally. TextMate creator Allan Odgaard even offers his endorsement. And it has great connection recovery that even allows you to take a laptop to another network and never notice a change in the status of the mounted servers. With labeling, Spotlight comments and full transparency, workflow integration is about as easy as my (possibly limited) imagination can fathom.
ExpanDrive has an introductory price of $29, with a demo available.
[via Daring Fireball]
Update: I'm told by the developers that the .DS_Store issue has been cured. That and several UI improvements will be available in the next version, scheduled for release by tomorrow.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Eric said 2:16PM on 3-04-2008
Umm... MacFusion is free and does 95% of what this does.
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Ed said 2:22PM on 3-04-2008
... and they've almost stolen Unison's icon and flipped it 180...
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James said 2:33PM on 3-04-2008
The disconnected operation is something you won't find with sshfs. Apparently they also do some caching that you won't find in sshfs. (MacFusion is just a front end to sshfs and other free MacFUSE filesystems.)
So this is better than sshfs. I don't know about $29 better, but it is better.
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Jeff said 2:37PM on 3-04-2008
ExpanDrive has a completely different core than SSHFS . We've got real aggressive internal caching [with SQLite, no less] and have spent a lot of time making sure we keep a robust connection across access points, sleeps, etc. MacFusion is nice, but is merely a GUI atop SSHFS.
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Eric said 3:13PM on 3-04-2008
Also took quite a bit of effort to strip all of the licensing information from the freeware that your code is based on?
Here are just a few of the OS projects that are crammed in there without credit in the usual places.
python ( yes a full 2.5.1 interactive interpreter ).
pyfuse LGPL
Sparkle
Python Crypto toolkit
zope
MacFuse and twisted are noted during the install. Sqlite3 is public domain, but it's still nice to note them somewhere.
What's even more amusing is that you are legally allowed to use these packages, but have chosen to not reproduce the appropriate licenses.
Jeff said 3:26PM on 3-04-2008
Eric -
We've added credits where credits are necessary - and in 1.02 we've got a more complete about page. I understand your criticism, but look at most of the applications on OS X, or OS X itself. Do you see transmit giving credit for using OpenSSH for SFTP [because that's what is uses]. And how often do you see programs that are written in Python reference the Python in their about page. WRT our logo, it's a company logo, and we've been using it for a long time, much before ExpanDrive.
Collin said 4:23PM on 3-04-2008
Equivocation does not excuse at least laziness if not patent disregard for software rights/credit. The latter seems more plausible as Unison's icon outdates your company. It's funny how you changed your founding date back a year on your website, because from August 2006 - January 2007 you were founded in 2005. A date that would match your domain registration of November 17, 2005.
Shady people, TUAW.
Planted Apologist said 5:07AM on 3-06-2008
http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=sftpdrive.com&type=domain: "Creation Date: 19-sep-2004"
Seriously, @Collin, quite the conspiracy theories.
Michael said 2:53PM on 3-04-2008
An amazing application. I have never seen anything like this. It just killed Transmit in my eyes and I love the fact that I can now preview images on my server. This just made my life a whole lot easier. I wish I would have known about this kind of technology before. Thanks for the review!
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mark said 3:15PM on 3-04-2008
Unsion better sue these people for stealing their application logo.
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Luigi193 said 3:26PM on 3-04-2008
Really nice App guys! So much less buggy the SSHFS... OMG. TO bad it cost so much... I'm not a fan of buying software!!! But you all have to eat...
I'll use it until the demo expires. If there was an app I would love it would be this, because I like working on my web projects from the server, this would seem convenient...
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methnen said 5:14PM on 3-04-2008
Jeff,
I wouldn't worry too much about the bitching re: you stealing. This happens every time someone makes a commercial app that improves upon or creates a usable interface for something that is open source.
The licenses for those projects allows you to create something like you have done. Giving credit where its due is nice but I'm more than happy to let you do that in your own time.
I noticed the logo similarity as well. But its pretty hard to copyright a u shaped magnet. I mean seriously. The shape of yours is even significantly different.
You people are all freaks with too much time on your hands.
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Nick said 8:49PM on 3-04-2008
Actually, it's very easy to trademark a mark like a u-shaped red magnet with gray tips, and Panic has a trademark on their Unison product. If you are going to "borrow" someone else's mark, at least try and make it a different color. Better yet, do the right thing and come up with a new mark.
Collin said 1:13AM on 3-05-2008
I suspect that many of these apologists and well-wishers are plants.
rvr said 2:20PM on 3-05-2008
gee, someone seems to have an axe to grind. it's unfortunate that some people want to assume the worst. unless, perhaps, they have specific information about some wrongdoing? if so, it would be advisable to take it to the people who can do something about it. why not let panic and others worry about defending their copyrights and trademarks?
MattG said 5:49PM on 3-04-2008
MacFusion's user interface is just as good. In fact, it might even be better. And MacFusion includes FTP.
However, the fundamental problem with MacFusion is due to the underlying sshfs implementation. If you have used sshfs, either from the command line or through MacFusion, you have probably experienced spinning beach balls and other headaches. On a laptop with intermittent connectivity it happens all the time. Often enough that it totally undercuts the usability.
Yes, it's great that there is a free implementation, and if you only need to browse a remote file hierarchy or edit a file occasionally, you might find it adequate. But this is really in another league.
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Chris Newton said 6:30PM on 3-04-2008
As a small web-business owner, I can immediately appreciate the time savings this app will generate, and I plan to buy several licenses. Regarding the fact that similar things exist, that may be true, but I've not used any that worked as well and as fast with close to zero configuration. If this application saves my business an hour it'll be worth the number of licenses I plan to buy. If I were a casual user it might be overpriced, but as a an all-day every-day FTP user, this is going to save me many headaches.
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Gaz said 9:31PM on 3-05-2008
Too late to mention?
$ sudo defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
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