Frequently Asked Questions

Here are just a few reasons:

1. For multiple simultaneous connections, you simply can’t afford to provide the bandwidth to match Sharetru without spending thousands of dollars per month.

2. Sharetru's servers are accessible through redundant connections to the Internet, whereas your own server would likely have a single point of failure.

3. Putting a server on your own network potentially opens your entire network up to security issues, hacker attacks, etc.

4. Sharetru's servers are dedicated file transfer systems that are tuned for high-performance file transfer, whereas an in-house server would likely be multi-purpose.

5. There are significant costs associated with managing your own server, including the ISP cost for a dedicated Internet circuit, software licensing and maintenance, security and OS maintenance, and the necessity to devote hardware and personnel to manage that server.

6. File transfer and file-sharing sites generally take up lots of bandwidth, so if your single internet connection is bogged down with file transfers, your transfer rates may suffer. Your other use of your internet connection (for browsing and e-mail) would also suffer from this bottleneck.

That depends entirely on the speed of your Internet connection. With a good connection, a 10MB file should take less than a minute to download. But, keep in mind that most broadband providers (ISPs) limit your upload bandwidth significantly, so uploads may take longer than downloads.

Regardless of their respective ISP speed and quality, your FTP Today site will be able to handle many simultaneous connections from high-speed users and keep up with them all!

Your users are not forced to purchase or install any FTP client software.

FTP Today provides a WebApp as part of the hosted FTP service. However, should your users prefer to use a third-party FTP client software tool, they will find that your FTP site from Sharetru is fully compatible with almost all of them. More information on compatibility and some recommendations can be found here.

There is no file size limit on Sharetru servers. Therefore, the only limit on an upload is how much space you have left on your plan’s overall storage limit.

However, it's important for you to know if your browser has a built-in file size limitation.

No. Think of your storage limit like a hard drive on one of your local machines. You cannot go over 100%. You should be aware when your limit is reached.

For example, if someone tries to upload a file that would put you over the limit, an error message will be received indicating the "over quota" state. You can also set up email notifications to let you know when you are nearing your limit.

Storage can be quickly increased by contacting FTP Today support.

Many times the terms are used interchangeably. We also use them interchangeably, such as on our pricing page, because that is the norm. But, technically speaking:

• Transfer = Bandwidth Usage.

  It is the quantity of bytes per month your FTP site uploads and downloads.

  Some hosting services limit monthly transfer or bandwidth usage, charging you extra when you go over a set limit. Others say it is “unlimited”, but they also have a policy against using too much.

  With Sharetru your monthly bandwidth transfer is truly unlimited.

• Bandwidth is the speed of transfer, or how many bits per second the server can send and receive.

  In other words, it is the “size of the pipe” or the maximum rate of flow. Each site with Sharetru can access up to 1 Gigabit of bandwidth at our gateway firewall. All ethernet connections inside our network are 1 Gigabit.

We allow you unlimited bandwidth transfer per month at no cost. Sharetru's customers consume a lot of bandwidth and this is our single largest cost of operation. The typical FTP site turns over its data storage regularly — often daily or even multiple times per day. Every file you send to someone is transferred at least twice (once to upload and once to download). This usage affects our costs and it is directly related to storage.

Second, Sharetru does not use “cheap” storage media or cloud object storage such as S3 from AWS. Our hard drives have high read-write performance. Our RAID arrays stripe and mirror (replicate) every byte across multiple drives within the array for reliability and for recovery from hard drive failures. We also have to keep “hot spares” in all our storage systems to automate recovery.

Third, we back up every file you put on the FTP site and we keep 7 days of backups minimum. This means we maintain backups that take up several times the amount of storage you are paying for on the FTP server itself.

Sharetru is in the business of providing fast and secure file transfers, with “temporary” storage. Our service is designed for rapid turnover of files and we absorb all bandwidth costs associated with potentially heavy usage. We use storage quotas and limits to measure our customers against one another so we can maximize the performance on all servers for the equal benefit of all customers.

It is up to you whether you delete files soon after they are delivered to the intended party or whether you leave files on the FTP server long-term. File Retention Controls available on most plans can aid you in managing your FTP space to a minimum with auto-deleting of files by age.

Yes. We send out automatic email alerts to the primary site administrator whenever your site hits 90% of its storage limit. This alert should prompt you to take action before you run out of space. You might just need to log in and delete some old files or you might want to consider an upgrade.

With plans supporting Email Notifications, you can configure this alert and a multitude of other email alerts, including additional disk storage alerts or notifications triggered by activity such as uploads or downloads (granular, by Workspace or by User).

Daily backups are run on all plans. In the event you accidentally delete something from your site we can check multiple recovery points, allowing us to go back in time and recover your accidentally deleted files from the nearest point in time before they were accidentally deleted.

For direct communications with our support staff, we provide an online ticketing system, a knowledge base, and a corporate contact number not only for you but for all your end users!

We refuse to outsource our technical support to an overseas operation simply to say, "we have a 24/7 staff." Our knowledgeable support staff is available every work day during hours that adequately cover all U.S. time zones.

For after-hours emergencies (proven server outages) we have a messaging system connected to our toll-free number that will contact a senior support technician 24/7/365.

No. This violates our Acceptable Use Policy concerning mass distribution of files.

Anonymous FTP is an unauthenticated access over an unencrypted protocol (FTP). This is not a secure way to transfer files under any circumstances, therefore the Anonymous FTP function on your Sharetru site is disabled.

Yes. Secure FTP hosting is what Sharetru specializes in. All of our plans offer the protection of both encrypted login (usernames and passwords not sent as clear text) and encrypted data channels (files encrypted during transfer). This includes:

• FTPeS (Explicit SSL encryption)

• FTPS (Implicit SSL encryption)

• SFTP (SSH encryption)

• SCP (SSH encryption)

• HTTPS (SSL encryption)

Yes, when the settings and configurations that we place in your control are properly addressed and you've chosen a plan that provides a Business Associate Agreement (BAA).

Sharetru serves many firms within the medical industry that fall under HIPAA regulations. We are sensitive to your HIPAA compliance needs and we provide a “HIPAA-ready” service that exceeds all compliance rules when used properly.

Linux. There is no possibility of obtaining direct operating system access (such as an SSH2 console) from any public IP address. All system administration of your users and folders is done over HTTPS.

Remote site management is integrated into the Sharetru Web App (as used for file transfer). Simply log in to your secure Sharetru URL and you can add, change, delete users, and much more.

Additionally, users can be easily managed through our API. If you would like more information on our API please contact support if you're a current customer, or sales if you're gathering information and trying to figure out what's the best platform for your organization.

You can have multiple site administrators with separate logins.

You may also delegate sub-site administration to others. We call sub-site administrators Team Managers. They can create and manages users and workspaces, but only within their respective Team. Each Team Manager can only administer one team and has no visibility into other teams' users or folders.

If you would like more information on our roles please contact support if you're a current customer, or sales if you're gathering information and trying to figure out what's the best platform for your organization.

There are 3 main types of users, and each user has a different level of site access:

Any user can be limited to a single private workspace or can be assigned granular access permissions to more than one workspace. Their visibility will be limited to those workspaces to which they have been granted access.

Not at this time, but we expect to add this feature in the future. In the meanwhile, you can set up email notifications to trigger when a user or user uses up a specified amount of data. Additionally, there is a report on current user storage, so this data is readily accessible.

All Sharetru plans can be branded with your logo and the colors from your branding guide.

Yes, we offer 14-day free trials for both our Growth and Performance plans directly through our checkout form. Enterprise plans are on a dedicated virtual machine that requires a custom build, so we don't offer a free trial on this plan. If you are interested in our Enterprise offering but would like to try us first, then we recommend starting a trial on our Performance plan.

The free trial site becomes a live, paid subscription automatically, and you will be invoiced after the 14 days have passed. We do this because many of our customers decide early in the trial that our platform is the right fit, and this allows them to keep the configurations from the trial period.

As of this writing, there is not a setup fee for any of our plans.

With our monthly service plans (shortest commitment), you are only committing to one month at a time. However, all subscriptions will be automatically renewed until we receive notice of cancellation. Failure to pay an invoice or to keep an updated credit card on file for automated payments does not void or non-renew your account. See our Terms of Service to learn more.

Sharetru requires credit cards for all month-to-month accounts. Your credit card will be used for automatic renewal each month and you are obligated to keep a valid credit card on file with our secure online billing system at all times.

If you are prepaying annually, and therefore are committing to 12 months at a time, then we also accept payment by check with a company purchase order. Wire transfers or ACH are also acceptable on annual accounts.

Yes. You will receive an email PDF invoice at least 15 days before your monthly renewal. Annual renewals are invoiced 30 days before the renewal date (payment due date). You will also receive a payment confirmation email when a payment is captured.

You may log in to our secure online billing system and view or print full-page invoices, review billing history, update your credit card, and more.

Our billing system will automatically prorate the charges for the current month (at the time of your upgrade request) and your renewal date will remain the same day of the month. The same is true when upgrading annual prepaid accounts.

There is nothing preventing you from using the service for only a month or two, but we will require you to contact us to cancel the service on or before the renewal date. Otherwise, all plans are automatically renewed.

No. All Sharetru charges are processed in U.S. dollars (USD). Your credit card bank will receive charges in dollars and convert them to other international currencies at prevailing conversion rates.

Sharetru does not refund or pro-rate any final charges upon termination. When you cancel, you will be given the option of keeping the site live until the final day of your last payment cycle. If you prefer, you can have the site deleted immediately.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is the simplest way to exchange files over the Internet. The most common use for FTP is to download and upload files. There are several file transfer protocols Sharetru provides for today. Check out our transfer compatibility page to learn more.

A file transfer site is a place on the internet to store files for delivery to other persons. One person uploads (copies) the files from their computer to the FTP site, then the other person downloads (copies) the files from the file transfer site to their computer. Either person can then delete the files from the site if the permissions allow.

Check out some of our blog posts on this subject to learn more.