Regional Storage

Files.com has servers across the globe and lets you configure the geographic region (and by extension, political jurisdiction) where your files are stored.

When you change the geographic region, new files are immediately stored in the newly selected region. Files that were stored prior to the region change are migrated to the new region automatically in a background process.

Choose storage regions for your organization's residency requirements or to place files closer to the people and systems that access them. Region selection controls file storage; it does not by itself establish compliance with a law or policy.

Configuring Storage Regions

Site Administrators can set the storage region of the Default Workspace's root folder. A region configured there is copied to the root folder of each new Workspace. Each Workspace then has its own setting, so later changes to the Default Workspace do not relocate storage for existing Workspaces.

Your site can have more than one region active at the same time. Site Administrators, Workspace Administrators, and users with administrator rights to a folder can set the storage region for any folder they administer. Workspace Administrators can configure storage regions only on folders within their Workspace.

Folder Regions and Inheritance

A folder's region applies to its subfolders unless a subfolder has its own region setting. For example, a /Training folder can use the site's chosen region while /Training/Europe uses an available European region. Files uploaded into that branch use its region; sibling folders continue to inherit /Training's setting. Choose branches according to storage requirements and access patterns rather than making a folder for every office or language.

For an empty folder tree, set the regions before uploading. For folders containing files, configure the most specific subfolder regions first, then the parent. This avoids moving those files to the parent's new region only to move them again when you set a subfolder override. Existing content migrates in the background, while new uploads use the selected region immediately.