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Is there such a thing as an ejectable cloud drive?

S

somndrom

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 7, 2020
12
10
Hi,
first post here, but been reading both the articles and forums (for tech support) over the past several years.

I recently had a failure in my Mac, resulting in the logic board (including GPU, Cpu, Ram) getting swapped out.

I use a fair bit of professional software which you buy, and then you have a limited amount of licenses which you need to have activated locally on either the main drive, or on an external physical memory, to use.

I had them located on the computer, as I move about a lot and want to avoid bringing extra memories and points of failure with me. When the computer died, it took those licenses with it, as they are tied to the ID of the logic board (which was replaced). And they can't be freed up either, as I can't access the broken parts.

I've been in touch with tech supports and it's all sorted itself out for the moment but want to avoid this in the future. Many companies have a policy of a limited amount of interventions of this kind that they are willing to do, and it takes time.

Is there such a thing as a cloud storage which appears as an ejectable drive in MacOS? That way I could keep the licenses stored in the cloud storage and access that from several computers in case of failure, so I can be back up and running immediately on a replacement device. It would also allow me to recover them via another device, if that was to happen.
 
I don't know what software you're using and in turn don't know how the licensing works. Is this ejectable cloud idea something that the software companies suggested?

If that idea would work why wouldn't having the licenses in something like Dropbox work?
 
It's not something suggested by them, it's just something I'm considering.

Dropbox wouldn't work as it is just a folder (unless I'm mistaken? Haven't used in a while), as the licenses need to be mounted on a volume.
 
I mean, if you had the ability to mount a remote volume, that would appear as an ejectable "cloud" drive of sorts. But you'd be hard pressed to find a service that would allow that I think.
 
somndrom said:
Hi,
first post here, but been reading both the articles and forums (for tech support) over the past several years.

I recently had a failure in my Mac, resulting in the logic board (including GPU, Cpu, Ram) getting swapped out.

I use a fair bit of professional software which you buy, and then you have a limited amount of licenses which you need to have activated locally on either the main drive, or on an external physical memory, to use.

I had them located on the computer, as I move about a lot and want to avoid bringing extra memories and points of failure with me. When the computer died, it took those licenses with it, as they are tied to the ID of the logic board (which was replaced). And they can't be freed up either, as I can't access the broken parts.

I've been in touch with tech supports and it's all sorted itself out for the moment but want to avoid this in the future. Many companies have a policy of a limited amount of interventions of this kind that they are willing to do, and it takes time.

Is there such a thing as a cloud storage which appears as an ejectable drive in MacOS? That way I could keep the licenses stored in the cloud storage and access that from several computers in case of failure, so I can be back up and running immediately on a replacement device. It would also allow me to recover them via another device, if that was to happen.
Click to expand...
What software do you have? Most licensing does not depend on keeping a specific file open on a given computer but rather generates some sort of activation based on computer hardware.
 
BrianBaughn said:
How were they "mounted on a volume" previously?
Click to expand...
I think(?) "mounted on a volume" means "on a mounted volume," like a hardware key. It's common for audio software to do this (it used to be more common, but some companies still do this). It annoys me to no end, but you just sorta have to live with it or not use their software if you don't like it.
 
I'm aware of USB physical license keys but I'm not sure I understand how you had it working before. Did you have to mount a prepared disk image on your Mac to run the sofware?
 
BrianBaughn said:
I'm aware of USB physical license keys but I'm not sure I understand how you had it working before. Did you have to mount a prepared disk image on your Mac to run the sofware?
Click to expand...
Previously I had the licenses stored on my hard drive (SSD), where it was tied to the ID of the logic card. It was not a file I put in a folder for verification, that is why a Dropbox folder does not work.

They give you the option store it on an external memory, such as an USB key, but it needs to be recognised as such by the OS.
 
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