Each user account using the Cloud Drive service is assigned a home folder in the CTERA Portal, when the user account is created. This Cloud Drive home folder serves as the block destination for CTERA Gateway and CTERA Agent sync operations. Snapshots of Cloud Drive folders are taken for each folder once every five minutes, if there were any changes in the folder during that five minutes.

For example, assume a file is synced to the portal at 09:10am. The portal opens a snapshot which will close after 5 minutes, at 09:15am. At 09:24am a new file is synced to the portal and a new snapshot is opened that will close at 09:29am. Between 09:15am and 09:24am no snapshot is open, since there are no changes between the user local files and the files synced to the portal. The snapshot that closed at 09:15am is registered as a previous version, with the opening time for the snapshot, 9:10am.