Virtual file system

A TeamDrive Space can be displayed in a so-called virtual drive on your computer.

After installing a virtual file system (VFS), a new drive letter appears in your PC’s file manager (e.g. File Explorer on Windows or Finder on Mac) – for example (F:). You can freely choose this drive letter during installation.

However, installing a VFS does not create a real new partition on your PC’s hard drive, but – as the name suggests – only a virtual drive or partition.

A virtual file system is an abstract file system that offers a uniform interface for accessing data from different file systems – file systems that have very different technical structures, but which can be interacted with in a unified manner via such a VFS. A VFS is an interface to the actual file system used on your PC (e.g. NTFS, FAT32, FAT16).

This is also the main advantage of a VFS: It facilitates and simplifies the way applications (e.g. our TeamDrive app) access and manage data in different file systems.

In addition, a VFS also offers more security because by default the data is not actually stored physically on the storage medium (e.g. hard drive or optical storage medium), but rather only virtually. This makes it possible to restrict unauthorized access to the data and thus increase data security.

However, a physical, i.e. real, download (e.g. for the purpose of editing a file) can take place at the user’s request. You can specifically activate or deactivate the offline availability of your folders/files in the TeamDrive app.

You also have the option of specifying a specific period of time for each folder and file until the automatic cleanup function of the TeamDrive app is activated and removes the folder or the files in it from your hard drive.

Of course, these files are not permanently and irretrievably deleted after such an automatic cleanup, but only the copies of the files have been removed from your local hard drive. The original files always remain on the central TeamDrive server (usually TeamDrive cloud) and you can download a copy of them from the server again at any time if you wish and save it locally on your PC.

Read more about VFS in our FAQ article on the virtual file system