Providers are software  installed on your computer that give any BigDrive client access to the provider's data store.  Providers are the translation mechanism between BigDrive and the data store, allowing the data store to be represented as files.

 

There are three major provider types

 

Web Service Providers present web services as as file stores to BigDrive.  The data store is not on your box, it resists on the Internet on the web services computers.

 

PRotocal Providers call common Internet protocal to fetch files, examples include WebDav and FTP.

 

File storage providers provide a mechanism for accessing files on your computer as file storage.  Examples including .zip, .cab, and XML providers.

 

 

BigDrive for Amazon S3 creates virtual hard drives for Amazon's Simple Storage Solution. The hard drives act like a network drive under Windows explorer enabling drag and drop file and folder functionality to Amazon's S3 web service.

 

BigDrive for Windows Azure creates virtual hard drives for Windows Azure's Storage Solution. The hard drives act like a network drive under Windows explorer enabling drag and drop file and folder functionality to Windows Azure's web service.