When you map the drive to the Cloud File Server, you are accessing/editing files in the cloud directly. No local copy is maintained on your computer. When you are editing a file, it gets locked in the cloud and everyone else can open in "read only" mode. When you are done with your are changes and close the file, a new version will be created in the cloud. Advantage of this method is that you are not using up the local computer hard drive since there is no physical copy of the file on it. Also, if the computer is lost or broken into, you can easily disable the access to the cloud files by changing your password of your login into Egnyte. Disadvantage is that if you do not have an internet connection, you can not access your files.

The Personal Local Cloud, on the other hand, maintains a local copy of files on your computer hard drive. You can access these files without an internet connection. If you make any changes, the changed file will be pushed back into the cloud or any changes made in the cloud will be pushed down to your computer. Versions get created in the cloud. The advantage is fast, offline access.

CAUTION:

1. Using the Personal Local Cloud  has an disadvantage, which is that you are using up your computer hard drive. Which means if you subscribe to a 1TB storage cloud and only have a 500GB hard drive, there is the potential that you cloud fill your hard drive up.

2. If some one was to get access to your computer, they can access the files, since they are stored locally.