robonet-drive

Your Files, Everywhere — Mesh-Distributed Storage

Overview

robonet-drive turns the mesh into a drive. Drop a file in, it chunks, hashes, replicates, and distributes across every available node. Mount it as a network drive on any OS. No drivers. No client software. Just your files, everywhere.

The Problem

Cloud storage is someone else's computer. Self-hosted storage is a single point of failure. RAID protects against disk failure but not node failure. NAS is a box in a closet — if the closet floods, so does your data.

Distributed storage solves this but existing solutions (Ceph, GlusterFS, MinIO) are built for datacenters, not for a mesh of heterogeneous nodes running on whatever hardware you have.

The Design

Files are split into 4MB chunks. Each chunk is SHA-256 addressed — identical content stores once regardless of filename. Chunks replicate across nodes with a configurable redundancy factor (default: 2 copies).

A file is a manifest — an ordered list of chunk hashes. Lose a node, the chunks rebuild from replicas automatically. Add a node, the mesh rebalances to use the new capacity.

Web File Manager

Browser-based. Upload, download, browse, rename, delete. Drag-drop. Folder upload. File preview for images, text, PDF, video. Search by name, type, date.

React frontend, FastAPI backend. The backend translates file operations into mesh chunk operations. WebSocket for real-time sync — if someone else adds a file, you see it immediately.

WebDAV Mount

The magic trick. WebDAV is supported natively by every major OS:

• Windows: Map Network Drive
• macOS: Finder → Connect to Server
• Linux: davfs2 or GVFS

No drivers. No client installation. No special software. The mesh appears as a drive letter on Windows, a mounted volume on Mac, a filesystem on Linux.

Drag a file into the drive. It chunks, distributes, replicates. Done. You didn't need to know any of that happened.

Why This Matters

Because the mesh should feel like a disk. Not an API. Not a dashboard. Not a command line. A disk. The thing every computer user already understands.

Files go in. Files come out. The mesh handles everything between.