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Top 5 things when using Storage Made Easy

If you are one of those people who hates looking at help pages and manuals then this very short guide is for you ! It details the top 5 things you should understand when using the SME Service.

SME enables the unification and access of private / public storage providers in one 'virtual' file system. This virtual file system view is the same view from all of the SME clients, whether it is the web file manager, mobile, or the desktop Cloud Drive's.

The Storage Made Easy service adds extra features and provides Apps available that are not available from storage vendors, making accessing, managing and securely sharing data from different sources easy.

1 Understanding the unified cloud file system

Any Cloud Provider added is accessible from one “Cloud File System”. This enables access and management of all data as if it existed in one directory. To store or access files on a different provider, just navigate to a different director.y

Files are not copied or moved from their original location. SME caches the directory listing and information about the files.

To upload or download files from a cloud simply navigate to the directory and upload/download. If you drag a file from one cloud mapped folder to the other, it will actually be moved (or copied) from one storage cloud to another storage cloud.

You can choose the name that the Cloud is referred to on setup or simply change it later by right clicking and choosing rename on the cloud root node.

2 Understanding Smart Folders

Smart Folders can store files from different clouds and they are created by the SME system on account creation.

The location of files stored in smart folder will be set to whatever your Default Cloud is set to in the Cloud DashBoard. You can also see this from your sidebar when logged into the web.

Any files uploaded to these smart folders will result in a folder being created on the primary cloud and files added stored. You can think of them as a view of files and can easily see which files are stored on which cloud from the icon next to the file.

You don't have to use Smart Folders at all but they can be very powerful for aggregating files from different clouds.

If you wish to turn “off” your smart folders, login to the SME website, navigate to your DashBoard, and locate the “Extended Options” section at the bottom of the page, and turn off the ones you don't require.

3 Why the Primary or default Cloud is important

If you add more than one file cloud to SME, the first cloud you add will be what we term as the Primary Cloud. Basically this is the default cloud that will be used for the following actions:

1. Uploading files to Smart folders. “My Syncs”, “My Contacts”, “My email Backups”, “My memos

You can change the primary cloud at any time by:

Web: Click 'DashBoard' from the sidebar after login, from the Cloud Providers mapped to your Account (top right) choose “def” to set the provider you wish to be the default.

Mobile: Click “Cloud Providers” from the menu, select the cloud you wish to make default, and choose “set as default”   from the menu.

Windows: Choose 'Cloud Providers' from the menu, and then select the provider and click the “set as default”   button.

Mac: Choose 'System Preferences', select the SME icon, and click the drop down on the Default provider field to select the default provider.

4 Refreshing the view of Cloud Files

When you first add Clouds a cache is created to enable quick access to your files. No files are moved. They stay on your Clouds. This cache is merely information about files   ie. filename, datestamp, size etc. and enables you to view your data without SME continually asking the remote Cloud Server for the file list. This can be a very timely optimization particularly where large file lists are in place. The default mode is cached mode.

You can choose to exit cached mode and work in real-time mode, which may be slower. You can activate real time mode from the DashBoard.

To get latest view of your cloud storage files when operating cached mode simply click Refresh from the menu bar on the web File Manager and choose Cloud Refresh.

Apps refresh Options:

Mobile: Click on the 'Cloud Providers' menu option. Select the Storage Provider   you wish to refresh and either click the Sync icon (iPhone/iPad) or choose to “sync” from the menu (Android and BlackBerry). If you are in the Cloud Files view in the App you can also just click on a Folder action and choose to refresh which will update that directory.

Windows App Suite:   From the Cloud Dashboard click “Cloud Providers”, select the cloud you wish to sync and click the “Sync now” button.

4. Mac App Suite: Choose to “Refresh Drive View” from the Virtual Drive options in the taskbar.

5 Deleting Files

When you delete files using a SME client the files move to the “Trash” view before they are deleted on their file cloud. On the actual storage cloud the files you deleted via SME will be accessible via .Trash Folder.

If you then choose to remove them from the Trash or empty the Trash then the files are deleted on the file storage provider.

This is a safety feature to ensure you don't accidentally remove files. There is no time limit to how long they will remain in trash. They will remain there until they are deleted or Trash is emptied.

If you wish to remove files as soon as they are deleted   or let your storage provider handles files that are deleted then there is an option that you can access from   “Dashboard” to turn off the Trash setting.