a review by Tom Piper
I am a daily user of DropBox, but for a limited number of files. There have been a number of ads for networked hard drives, but they have been difficult to access via the Internet. There are excellent services like Carbonite to backup large quantities of valuable data, but these can be expensive recurring costs. Other services like YouSendIt can transmit small quantities of large files to anyone. But, then I heard at Macworld 2013 about a new product that can do all of this, at a reasonable one-time cost.
Transporter is a private cloud storage device for syncing, sharing, accessing, and protecting my digital life. No remote cloud, no fees, no privacy concerns. My files are only stored on my Transporters and computers and mobile devices that I authorize. I can access my digital life from my MacBook Pro, my 27” iMac, my iPhone, or either my iPad mini or iPad 3, back data up, collaborate with colleagues, share with my family and friends, and sync across all these devices. All of this with no monthly fees, and it’s completely private.
Whether you’re a lawyer, doctor, dentist, financial planner, or mortgage broker, the need to share, collaborate, access, and protect confidential files has never been greater. Sure, the cloud offers convenience, but it also introduces a lot of risk. Who has access to your files and how many copies are there? What happens if your cloud provider has a security breach or failure that affects your data?
Starting at less than $200, Transporter gives you all the convenience of the cloud with none of the risk. Whether I need to collaborate with colleagues in another office or just need secure mobile access, Transporter is the answer. I am now in full control of the location and redundancy of my data. Transporter also offers the easiest way to protect my files offsite by automatically syncing files in “real-time”, so I’ll never forget to backup again and I’ll always have the most recent copy of your files no matter where you are.
I performed an initial sync between two Transporters on my fast, local network, then relocated one to a secure offsite location. The included software automatically continues to access files from my remote (or any other shared) Transporter until my local network is restored. Using the free, Mac or iOS software (also available for Windows and Android) , I access any file stored on my Transporter using any supported device from anywhere I go.
If you are like me, and have been tired of constantly shuffling movies around and deleting photos to keep from running out of space, this is a great solution. My iPhone and iPads don’t have terabytes of storage on them, but my Transporter does. I use the free app to download a movie for the flight or show friends pictures of my grandkids. Whatever it is, Transporter’s mobile app can help. Welcome to storage for the post-PC world.
After using this pair of Transporter units for over six months, I can attest to the reliability of this concept and the hardware that supports it. The software has evolved through several generations and continues to get better each time. The comparison is often made to DropBox, which it conceptually works like, but the interface is not as intuitive. There are 4 excellent training videos for the Mac, each about 2 minutes long, ranging from initially setting up the Transporter unit (including installing my own hard drive, if desired), to setting up an online account, through using and sharing files and folders.
It is important to understand that the Transporter concept is based on desktop assess to two folders: one (Transporter folder) on my hard drive which holds all of my files that are synced and mirrored on the Transporter unit (such as working files), plus the second (Transporter Library) which displays the files only on the Transporter unit (such as music, photos and movies). Once I have loaded files on the Transporter, and organized them into folders that make sense to me, I can share individual files or whole folders with friends, family, business associates and others, even if they don’t have a Transporter unit (minor registration is required on their part to accept these). In practice, its really quite easy.
The more powerful feature is to have two or more Transporter units which, once easily set up, will thereafter automatically synchronize their contents with each other. Although there are not yet training videos for this feature, the “Manage Transporters” online access provides a complete report of the use and status of each Transporter unit, membership and sharing features, linked files and more. For multiple office locations, organizational sharing, family access, or other operations where duplicate files in separate locations is important, it also makes it easy to update files which then auto-sync to other locations.
There are no subscription fees. More information is available about Transporters at http://www.filetransporter.com, and can be purchased from Amazon (and dozens of other retailers) for as little as $196.39 (add your own SATA hard drive to the host unit), $274.35 (host unit with 1TB hard drive included), or $358.75 (host unit with 2TB hard drive included). This company was founded by the engineers who developed the legendary Drobo drive series of high performance storage units.
