disParity

disParity » General Discussion

1. Neostim
   Member

   Hello there,

   I came accross this software yesterday (after my RAID5 died :( ) and I'm really liking the concept, my only problem is I'm used to having one logical drive storing TB's of data, and I'd rather not have to maintain 4 separate TB hard drives distributing files among them.

   Is there any way of grouping them together to appear as one drive? Creating any type of volume in windows wouldn't work with disParity I don't think, as disParity needs the drive letters to work off of.

   If there is any method of software you could tell me about, that would be GREAT!

   Thanks!

   Posted 11 months ago #

2. klim
   Member

   yes, it is possible with windows but because i've german language os i can not tell you where to find it in an englisch os.

   so try this: http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html

   Posted 11 months ago #

3. Neostim
   Member

   Hey,

   I think that's what I was looking for! I've lost trust in my mobo RAID so I think I'll take a crack at this. My only fear is a drive failing while creating a parity update..I suppose a work around is having 2 parity drives and two installations of diskparity, each pointing to a different parity drive.

   Thanks for the help klim!

   Posted 11 months ago #

4. Neostim
   Member

   I'm finding this is still a problem for me. I can use symlinks and have one folder pointing to all my drives, I could live with that, but my problem is now that my drives are filling up (ie blu-ray drive), I need to put in an additional drive, but I don't want to constantly be moving files back and forth between "bluray 1 (a-m)" and "bluray 2 (n-z)" drives alphabetically.

   Is there anything out there that can create a "virtual" drive in windows, and then when files are copied to the virtual drive, it evenly (best effort) distribute files over the multiple drives?

   So, if you then copied over uneven sizes of files, it would put the largest file on the drive with the most room etc...

   I wanted to take a crack at making something that would do this, but I lack the knowledge to do so (and the time unfortunately to brush up on my programming)...I'm hoping something exists out there.

   Posted 8 months ago #

5. volforto
   Member

   I am interested in something like this too. As far as I know the only software/system that does this is Windows Home Server's Drive Extender (need some weird steps to recover files on this system).

   In development are Greyhole for Linux and FlexRAID-View (to be included in FlexRAID Live), so still need to wait. Too bad FlexRAID usability is quite low.

   Posted 8 months ago #

6. freehand
   Member

   I have been working on program to solve this problem for me aswell. It isn't ready for production just yet but it has potential. I am using this http://dokan-dev.net/en/ project to create a virtual drive in windows. Then using a .net app to create the directory structure by reading in files/folders from a list of paths (ie. disParity drives) and it will merge them all together into a single drive. I have it adding up total size and freespace (I really wanted to see a massive multi terabyte drive mounted in My Computer!). It also merges folders together if you have 2 folders with the same name (only at the top level right now...) It works well, you can delete, copy, move, read files... I haven't done any code yet to support automatic drive selection when copying files to the drive .. it just uses the drive that the folder is on.

   If I get some time this week I can post a demo if people are interested.

   Posted 8 months ago #

7. Phatty2x4
   Member

   Yes! Please post up a demo!

   Posted 8 months ago #

8. tahngarth
   Member

   Yes, very interested in this. It would solve quite a few of my problems! As a first pass I'd LOVE a read only version (and actually as a paranoid type a read only mode would be a good thing in my eyes) as it would cover 90% of what I would need

   Posted 8 months ago #

9. Neostim
   Member

   Ha, I was on that same dokan site myself when trying to figure out a way to do this, but stopped there. That is great that you are this far along! I too would love a demo!

   If you need any help as well, I'm more then willing to help anyway I can.

   Posted 8 months ago #

10. freehand
    Member

    Ok so I spent some time to get this ready to demo. I had to remove the folder merging feature because it was causing some issues. I will have to figure out what went wrong. For now you can see the basic idea of what I am going for.

    I added a config.xml file so you can customize it. Read the readme.txt file before running the application. You have to set some paths before it will work. I added a read only flag in the config as well for people who will only be reading from the drive.

    This is EXTREMELY alpha software so use it at your own risk! I would recommend testing this using a couple folders all on the same drive. Once that works you can try pointing it at a couple different drives.

    You can download it here: http://server.ktrace.com/IntersectDrive.zip

    Make sure you install the driver before running the application.

    Posted 8 months ago #

11. Neostim
    Member

    Installing now :D

    Posted 8 months ago #

12. Neostim
    Member

    Thanks a lot for getting the program out so fast. I've installed, and it's successfully showed 2 folders as one so far :D

    One thing I've noticed, and this is purely FYI as I know this is a brand new alpha:

    With read only mode enabled, it did allow me to copy a file over, but it copied it as 0 bytes (and it showed up in the root folder it writes to, as 0 bytes).

    This is great though, going to play with it some more tomorrow after work. One question I have, did you name it the Intersect after the show "Chuck" by any chance?

    Posted 8 months ago #

13. freehand
    Member

    Haha ya I named my server "The Intersect" after the show chuck which is an awesome show by the way! Season premiere is actually on tonight.

    As for the copy issue with read only. I will have to fix that ... a little harder because file creates, reads, copies are all done in the same method call with dokan. I will have to figure out a way to isolate just the read calls and only let them through.

    Posted 8 months ago #

14. Neostim
    Member

    Great show, I'm enjoying the third season.

    I was just wondering if you have been using this full time, find any bugs? Any news?

    Posted 7 months ago #

15. Neostim
    Member

    Thought I would bump this post.

    P.S. latest Chuck episode was AWESOME!

    Posted 6 months ago #

16. freehand
    Member

    Ya, I totaly missed that you asked a couple questions a while ago...

    No I don't use this full time ... maybe once it offers something my DFS setup doesn't. I need to fix the folder merging feature... which I might be forced too now that some of my file groups do not fit all on the same drive. I will have to split them up .... but I want that to be transparent and still have a single folder listing.

    Also need to make it minimize to tray or a windows service before I will use it full time.

    Haven't had any time to work on finding/fixing any bugs....

    P.S. Totaly agree! Best episode by far, they couldn't have done it any better!

    Posted 6 months ago #

17. Klaatou
    Member

    hello,

    I would be glad to have such an utility ;)

    Posted 4 months ago #

18. Neostim
    Member

    Bump... Last Chuck episode this season was AWESOME .. haha

    freehand, I find I CONSTANTLY am wanting a view to show all drives as one..I'm going to play around with your app again, if memory serves me right, the VIEWING of the drives was fine, just not the writing.

    Any progress on your app, or willingness to release the source code?

    Posted 2 months ago #

19. freehand
    Member

    Viewing and writing both work. It is the rename that might have some issues... I can't remember. Dokan released a new version of their virtual drive driver... I am gonna try updating to that and add try to clean up the program a bit more. No more console app! Maybe a windows service with a tray icon app or something. Hopefully I can get you guys a new version that you can test.

    Finding the time to work on this stuff is always the problem!

    Posted 1 month ago #

20. Neostim
    Member

    Sounds good, thanks!

    Posted 1 month ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply »

You must log in to post.