How to use Google Drive with data stored on a NAS (network drive)?

I have used Google Drive for backups for a while now (yes...I do encrypt certain files locally). I was in the situation where I had plenty of local storage and just moved my Google Drive directory onto my storage drive.

I have recently changed to a laptop with only 256GB of local storage and have a NAS with plenty of space. I obviously do not have the local storage to effectively use Google Drive and NEED it installed on the NAS. I have tried symlinks and directly putting the Drive directory on the NAS...both failed (it seems symlinks and network drives are not supported). I have also attempted in a VMware Fusion created Windows 8 VM map a shared directory to a drive letter and Google Drive it still failed for the same reason as the OS X network location.

Any ideas on how to get my Google Drive directory on the NAS? I did at one point put a VM on the NAS itself which effectively puts the storage on the NAS, but the performance was as expected...horrible. If I could possibly "trick" Windows or OS X into thinking that a certain directory was local it would work, but I do not know how to do this.

Security Newbie

Posted 2014-07-22T17:02:03.073

Reputation: 71

possible duplicate of Can I sync network folder with a Google drive?, also see Change local Google Drive folder

– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-07-22T17:06:01.273

1Did you even look at the question you linked? They are not asking the same thing at all..at least it wasnt answered like the question he asked. They responded with LOCAL drive answers. Google Drive was new then – Security Newbie – 2014-07-22T17:08:37.367

"I would like to sync a folder that resides on a network-mapped drive" - is this NOT what you're asking? – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-07-22T17:09:13.310

"Select any folder you want, including network shares and mapped network drives." is positively a lie. He clearly had not even attempted to use Google Drive because it does not support network drives. That is why I need to "trick" the OS into seeing a network drive as a local drive. – Security Newbie – 2014-07-22T17:12:00.247

It doesn't make it a different question. If you'd like better/newer/updated answers to the existing question, please earn a bit of rep and post a bounty (and some comments) on the existing question.

– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-07-22T17:16:30.177

There is non-free software that will permit you to use Google Drive, with no local cache at all. http://www.expandrive.com/expandrive

– Zoredache – 2014-07-22T17:29:13.543

On Windows first assign a drive letter to the network drive, say "Z:", then in Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Disk Management right click on the drive letter and select Change Drive Letter and paths... then the Add... button. There you can make the drive appear to be a folder on one of local drives. – martineau – 2014-07-22T17:31:02.673

I also found another solution by having a second virtual hdd located on the NAS. – Security Newbie – 2014-07-22T17:50:19.070

Answers

Insync is a Google Drive client that allows you to use a networked drive for your Google Drive sync: https://www.insynchq.com/

Steve Thinks

Posted 2014-07-22T17:02:03.073

Reputation: 21

-1

I am in the same boat, where I don't want to eat up my internal HD space but still want to have some redundancy for my Google Drive account.

I am pretty sure I have found a working solution. I'll also run down the things I have tried that didn't work so that people can be spared the time to try these things.

I have a Drobo and have some shares mapped as windows drive letters. Several months back, I set the share permissions to "Everyone" on the Drobo dashboard, and I was able to set that share's mapped drive as the Google Drive root folder in the past.

HOWEVER, something happened with an update somewhere and it stopped working. I kept getting the message that the folder is not writable. I was clearly able to write to the folder through explorer. I tried connecting to the share as Administrator and then running sync as an administrator. That didn't work either, so I concluded that it wasn't a permissions problem, but perhaps Google updated the sync program to flat out reject UNC paths. But I tried some permissions tweaks anyways...

I tried going into the folder properties through explorer and changing the ownership, and setting permissions to full control. Windows couldn't do it.

I tried changing the credentials that windows uses to map the drive. Nothing worked there. I tried using different ways to try and fool the sync program into thinking it was not a UNC path. Nothing worked there. (subst, mklink) It kept seeing the UNC path through the mask.

I tried creating a VHDX on the share, and then mapping it to a folder on my C drive. That seemed to work but Sync kept crashing. ( \drobo\share\GDrive.VHDX -> c:\GDrive\ )

Then I tried mapping the VHDX directly to a drive letter. That seemed to work, but sync was getting hung up on the System Volume Information and Recycle folders. ( \drobo\share\GDrive.VHDX -> G:\ )

SO... I created a folder, on the root of the VHDX that is mapped to a drive letter. I set that folder to the Sync folder. It has now synced 3249 files and 2GB without a hiccup. I have a TB of data to download, so (fingers crossed) I am feeling confident that this solution works. I will update the answer if I discover any issues with this. ( \drobo\share\GDrive.VHDX -> G:\ ) THEN created a GDrive folder on G:\ and then selected G:\GDrive\ in the Sync application.

HTH

Edited to add: I also tried InSync, but for a terabyte of data in 100's of thousands of small files, downloading 2 files at a time would take WEEKS.

I also tried ExpanDrive, and although I was able to map a drive letter directly to Google Drive, it was a very slow connection and still left me with the need to set up some sort of sync between the mapped cloud and my NAS. When I tried using CrashPlan to back up from the mapped Cloud, it couldn't see the drive letter that ExpanDrive had mounted. So I gave up on that.

As an added bonus, mapping the VHDX to a drive letter makes thumbnails work in explorer even though they are in a network location. Woohoo!

exintrovert

Posted 2014-07-22T17:02:03.073

Reputation: 1