Way to simply host files... FTP?

#1

Hi there, I’ve been a happy DreamHost customer for probably 7 years.

I’m looking to find / set up a way to store large files and serve them to small team for production on a personal film project. I’d prefer FTP, which I’ve done in the past with DreamHost (by using the same server that hosts my website), but from what I understand DreamHost doesn’t allow hosting of files that aren’t accessible online website. Correct?

I’ve been looking into DreamObjects but it doesn’t seem like that’s what I want either. After trying it out for a few months it seems like it’s designed for other uses…

Is there a way I can pay for simple storage space with that multiple users can access? What service fits the bill?

Thanks!

–Colin

#2

Why is that? DreamObjects is perfect for hosting large files. You can keep files private, and provide a link to your team members, which will keep them out of the hands of the public.

And there are a number of FTP clients you can use to upload those files:

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/DreamObjects_Compatible_Applications#Desktop_File_Transfer_Apps

I use CrossFTP to upload large mp3 files; it works a treat.

#3

Hey kjodle, I thought so too! I’ve been trying it out for a few weeks, and I’ve been having a lot of difficulty - way more than like the typical FTP deal.

I’ve tried Cyberduck, ExpanDrive and CrossFTP and for each, I’m having trouble doing simple things like renaming folders, deleting directories, etc…

I’m new to the whole “Object Storage” concept and to be honest, I don’t really understand it. Are these behaviors normal? It seems to act different than a typical FTP thing…?

Thanks!

–Colin

#4

I can’t imagine why. I just tried using CrossFTP, and a right-click brings up a contextual menu where I can create new buckets, create new folders within buckets, rename folders within buckets, delete folders, and delete buckets, just like regular FTP.

Were you able to access DreamObjects successfully with one of these? Did you have your connection set up correctly?

#5

Hm, here’s a question:

When you rename a folder within a bucket (still a bit confused about the meaning of “bucket”, but I’ll go back to the wiki), does Cyberduck have to “copy” all of the contents of the folder to the “new” folder? I’ll have to double-check, but I recall noticing that a simple renaming operation seemed, under-the-hood, to be a “duplicate folder to new location” type thing, which took many times as long to accomplish.

Then, deleting folders: generally it works as I expect, although there seems to be some latency issue that requires me to refresh multiple times to see the directory listing the way I expect.

However, there’s one file in particular that I haven’t been able to get rid of. If I can’t delete a folder or file does that indicate a permissions issue or something, maybe?

Thanks for your help! I believe that my connection was set up properly cause I seem to have full access, apart from these particular behaviors…

–C

#6

Unfortunately, yes.

Short, simple version: There is no atomic “rename folder” operation in DreamObjects. To rename a folder, a DreamObjects client must copy each file to its new location, then delete the original. For a large folder, this can be a slow process.

Longer, more complicated version: There is no such thing as a “folder” in DreamObjects at all. Slashes in file names can be used to imply folders (e.g, “folder/file”), and DreamObjects exposes some operations to make it easier to work with files that follow this sort of convention (in particular, for listing files in a “folder”), but copying and renaming folders aren’t among these operations.