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I am a partner in a small business.

Currently we have one office with a shared computer, and we both work from home on our personal computers. We use a single account with iDrive Sync to store all our business files. It gives us both full access to all folders & files, keeps them all in a familiar & organized hierarchy, syncs them between all 3 machines, and makes backup very simple.

We are in the process of hiring an assistant, who we want to have limited access only to certain folders & files. We still want synced files so we can collaborate & review their work/updates.

While we would like to continue using iDrive, creating multiple users would require a much more expensive plan. We've looked at Basecamp, but are unsure if we really need project management software. We've also looked at Dropbox, Google Drive, etc but are unsure if these are really the most practical way to work closely with our assistant. Rather than share individual files, we'd prefer to just limit their access to specific folders/files and keep our current folder/file hierarchy in place.

Is there a software solution that would meet our needs? Or should we look at a NAS-type solution?

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  • Hello. I added an answer, can you advise if it meets your requirements?
    – DankyNanky
    Oct 24, 2016 at 8:14

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Reading your requirements, you could use GoogleDrive although managing folder permissions is painful, and you'd need to operate out of a browser. I am not going to bother with Cloud Software (as in, traditional storage solutions) but more online collaborative solutions.

My suggestion is Confluence for the following reasons:

  • You can have multiple "spaces", such as Draft, Public and Personal - each having their own permissions
  • Version control is inbuilt into the application, allowing you to role back if needed
  • You can edit the permissions on spaces and documents
  • Cloud based and can be accessed from mobile devices and computers through a browser
  • Inbuilt editor for styling documents
  • Inbuilt spell-checking
  • Export functionality.
  • Other features listed here.

As for pricing (not that it was requested), your base fee will be $10.00 (USD) per month.

This tool, being "on the cloud" means you do not need to worry about backups, and version control is maintained.

Later down the track, you can add a plethora of powerful tools via the Marketplace (at a cost sometimes) to add to your instance.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Jira.

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    Thanks for the thorough recommendation. I agree that permissions would be difficult to manage, but Drive does not need to be operated in a browser for simple file storage/sharing. I've used the desktop app whenever I don't need to be collaborating in real-time, and can create/modify files like usual.
    – Stumped01
    Oct 24, 2016 at 20:27
  • Confluence does have most of the features we need, will take some time using it to see if it delivers everything we need. We've also found a few project mgmt tools that may work for what we need. e.g. Asana, FunctionFox, Flow, Teamwork PM, etc. Some of these which integrate with Drive seem like they may be the best option. We can maintain our existing file structure in Drive and only share necessary folders/files via one of these platforms. Correct me if I'm wrong, Confluence doesn't offer this integration.
    – Stumped01
    Oct 24, 2016 at 20:39
  • @Stumped01 Sorry you're correct, I was just implying that if you use "Google Docs" it will be a browser function.
    – DankyNanky
    Oct 24, 2016 at 20:53
  • @Stumped01 as for integration there are add ons that may achieve your exact functions; there is limited drive availability.
    – DankyNanky
    Oct 24, 2016 at 20:56
  • @Stumped01 Do you have an answer?
    – DankyNanky
    Nov 19, 2016 at 2:37

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