Why Use a CTERA Portal Cloud Drive
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Why Use a CTERA Portal Cloud Drive

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Article Summary

Q: What are the benefits of the CTERA Portal Cloud Drive?
A: Use the CTERA Portal Cloud Drive to securely manage your files, share them and collaborate with your colleagues; All from one place. You can upload and download folders and files to the CTERA Portal Cloud Drive and securely share these folders and files with your team members. In addition, you can copy or move files in the cloud and edit them.

Q: How Secure is the CTERA Portal Cloud Drive?
A: CTERA offers military grade security. CTERA uses a patented protocol (communication means) to connect between edge devices (remote laptops, smartphones etc.) and the file servers (local data centers or public clouds such as AWS).

Q: How do I Access my CTERA Portal Cloud Drive?
A: You log on to your drive in a browser using the following address: https://portal/ServicesPortal where portal is the DNS name or IP address for the portal.
     Enter your user name and password to access the portal.
     The first time you sign in to the portal, a short tutorial starts, to guide you through using your portal.

Q: How do I recover my password?
A: If you forgot your password, click Forgot your password in the sign in page and an email is sent to reset the password. Alternatively, the administrator can configure a new temporary password.

Q: How do I change my password?
A: To change your password:

  1. Click your avatar or initials in the upper-right corner and then in the menu click MY PROFILE.
  2. Click Change Password.
  3. Enter your existing password and then the new password you want and confirm this new password.

Q: How do I change the interface’s language?
A: The interface’s language can be set in two places. Either, from the sign in page or from your profile settings in your CTERA Portal Cloud Drive, as follows:

  1. Click your avatar or initials in the upper-right corner and then in the menu click MY PROFILE.
  2. Select the desired language in the Language drop-down list.

Q: How do I know how much space I have?
A: You can always check how much space is used by looking at the bottom left corner of your CTERA Portal Cloud Drive.

Q: Where can I get a guide for the service?
A: The complete end user guide is available online or as a PDF available from your administrator.

  1. Click your avatar or initials in the upper-right corner and then in the menu click Help.
  2. Select Online Help to open the help in a new browser window.

Q: How do I upload files to my CTERA Portal Cloud Drive?
A: You can upload folders and files by dragging and dropping them or by uploading them.

  • Drag the folders and files from your PC to the browser window. You can only drag folders when using a Chrome browser.
  • Or (for files but not folders),
    1. Click on your My Files folder. The My Files page is displayed.
    2. Click New and choose Upload File.
    3. Select the files on your PC that you want to upload and click Open.

Q: How do I create a new folder?
A: You can add new folders to your CTERA Portal Cloud Drive.

  1. Navigate to the parent folder, under which you want to create a new folder.
  2. Click New and choose New Folder.
  3. Give a name for the folder and click Create. The following reserved words cannot be used for a folder name:
    • PreviousVersions
    • Shared With Me
    • Backups
    • Shared By Me
    • Users
    • share
    • backups
    • backupFolders
    • cloudDriveFolders
    • invitations

Q: How do I share a file or a folder?
A: If you share the file with another user, you cannot share with more permissions than you have. For example, you can share your own files or a file shared with you, with Read/Write permission as Read/Write, Read Only and Preview Only. However, you can only share a file shared with you, with Read Only permission as Read Only or Preview Only and not as Read/Write. The additional No Access permission is used when you share a folder and want to exclude specific files in the folder, rather than starting to share the files individually.
You can share files and folders in the following ways:

  • Using a Public Link – The file or folder is shared with internal and external users without the user requiring and authentication to access the file or folder.
  • Creating a List of Collaborators – You can also share a file for joint collaboration on the file, where any changes made by one user to the file are available to all the file collaborators.
  • Using a Permalink – To access the shared file or folder, collaborators must drill-down all the way from the root folder to the specific file or folder, which can be mean going down many folder levels and searching for a file in a folder with many files. Using a permalink to the file or folder provides collaborators with a direct link to the shared file or folder.

    Refer to the documentation for details.

Q: Can I recover a file or folder I deleted by mistake?
A: Deleted files are retained by cloud drive for a retention period that is defined by your portal’s administrator. If you have deleted a file by accident, you can view and restore it. Refer to the documentation for details. 

Q: I modified a file, is it possible to see the file’s previous version?
A: CTERA Portal keeps snapshots of all changes made in your files. The number of versions and the time period for which they are retained depends on the retention policy defined by your portal administrator. You can recover whole folders or individual files or both folders and files, described in full in the online documentation or PDF available from your administrator.

Q: Can I see files and folders that were shared with me?
A: The Shared With Me folder contains all of the content that other users shared with you (if no folders nor files are shared with you, this option is not displayed).

Q: Can I search for files and folders?
A: You can search for files in a folder. In the Search this folder box, type part or all of the filename you want to search for. The search is performed in the current folder and its sub-folders and the matching files are displayed.


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