Drive sharing

[Camble]

Hi guys,
I've got a mate who runs a business from an office and is not tech savvy at all.

He wants to be able to access his documents on his office computer from his home computer and obviously update documents etc, so I was wondering whether you knew of any good pieces of software or anything which can help him accomplish this?

He doesn't want to use Dropbox for some reason. I've heard of another called Soonr but never tried it.

Any ideas?

Cheers
Liam

 

[Jay_A]

Cloud storage is the easiest to be fair. Dropbox, Google and Microsoft do simple solutions.

I use dropbox for all sorts of stuff but turned on two factor authentication for extra security.

 

[Carlv8415]

^^^ pretty much what he said. Dropbox is ideal for this

 

[Adam D]

I'd go for an Office365 sub. I prefer the site layout and storage options for little cost. Some subs also include online office (or is it all of them, i can't remember)

 

[Camble]

I've managed to convince him to go down the Dropbox route after he initially decided against it.

With Dropbox Business, is it possible to have cloud backups? He wants his documents to be backed up in case anything happens or he does something wrong, so is there file recovery?

 

[Jay_A]

Business users have version history and recovery features believe.

However I'd recommend backing up the data to another source for peace of mind. Have a look at crashplan or just invest in an external drive for offsite backups.

 

[Camble]

Hi guys,
Right my mate got in touch again today. I set up Dropbox for him on his machines and set him on his way and I thought all would be well. He called me this morning to say he's not getting on with it because him and his missus work on the same documents at the same time by accident and it creates multiple versions. He wants it so that if he opens a document and his missus is already within the document it doesn't let him access it or at least pops up a warning of some sort so he can tell his missus to close it.

Does anybody know of a good piece of software that allows him to share documents but doesn't allow conflicting file updates?

 

[Jay_A]

Dropbox for Business supports collaborative editing

https://www.dropbox.com/guide/business/share/collaborate

 

[Darren S]

Yep - another shout for Dropbox here.

As Jay_A says as well - for additional peace of mind (though I doubt he'll need it) is to buy a simple NAS box and back it up to there as well.

The only potential downside to that is with the increased speed of saving it locally - as well as the speed in accessing it and opening the documents - your mate will just end up using that. Also, there's the added security issue. Assuming he doesn't want to use any form of file encryption, the NAS box could easily be unplugged and made off with. Not so much of an issue if the documents are also in the Dropbox cloud - but sensitive documents could easily be read by someone else.

A bit extreme - but it could happen.

 

[Jay_A]

NAS need to be backed up = more hassle.

I have one at home but back it up to an external drive.

 

[Camble]

Dropbox for Business supports collaborative editing

https://www.dropbox.com/guide/business/share/collaborate

Yep - another shout for Dropbox here.

As Jay_A says as well - for additional peace of mind (though I doubt he'll need it) is to buy a simple NAS box and back it up to there as well.

The only potential downside to that is with the increased speed of saving it locally - as well as the speed in accessing it and opening the documents - your mate will just end up using that. Also, there's the added security issue. Assuming he doesn't want to use any form of file encryption, the NAS box could easily be unplugged and made off with. Not so much of an issue if the documents are also in the Dropbox cloud - but sensitive documents could easily be read by someone else.

A bit extreme - but it could happen.

Cheers for the replies guys.

I thought with Dropbox, whether it's for personal or Business package, the multiple users editing the same document simultaneously would still just create a duplicated version and wouldn't warn/prevent the users from editing the same document?