How to mount Amazon S3 Bucket as a Windows Drive.

In this tutorial we are going to explain how to mount Amazon S3 Bucket as a Virtual Drive under Windows (or how to map an S3 Bucket as a Windows Drive).

First of all you need to download and install TntDrive.

The following window appears when you start TntDrive:

This is the main window and it's used for configuring TntDrive, for adding and editing drives and for other tasks.

To add new s3 drive click corresponding button located on the toolbar:

Add New Mapped Drive dialog will appear

You need to add at least one Amazon S3 or IAM account. If you didn't do so, please click the[+] button located at the top right corner of the dialog.

Check out these instructions on how to add new Amazon S3 Account.

If you already added an Amazon S3 account or IAM account, simply choose required one from drop-down list.

TntDrive will refresh buckets list and you can choose desired bucket from the drop-down list.

If you do not have any buckets on your account or if you need to create the new one, you can just type new bucket name in the corresponding text-box and TntDrive will create it automatically.

Special not for IAM users: you may not have permissions to get buckets list or to create new bucket. If so, you need to enter existing bucket name.

Specify Mapped Drive Letter - the letter that will be assigned to new mapped drive.

Click Add new drive and your Amazon S3 bucket should appear in My Computer.

You can also specify additional drive properties when adding new drive. Click Advanced properties link at the top left corner of the dialog.

Additional Properties dialog will appear:

Use Reduced Redundancy Storage - allows you to store non-critical, reproducible data at lower price.

Use Amazon S3 Server Side Encryption - new Amazon S3 feature that allows you to store files on Amazon S3 in encrypted form using AES-256 encryption. Files decrypted automatically when you download them.

Mapped Drive Type - here you can specify how your drive will appear in the system.

If you choose network drive, it will appear as a network mounted drive and it will also be available to other computers in your local network.

If you choose removable drive, it will appear as a removable drive and it will be visible only to users of the local system.

Also there are some differences of how Windows handle network drives and removable drives.It sends less requests to network drive. Windows is also more tolerant to delays when network drive is used.

Mapped Drive Size - size of the mapped drive. This value is reported when some application wants to know the size of the mapped drive.