What is so much cool about FlexRAID-View?

This message was edited 7 times. Last update was at 18/06/2011 23:25:45

What is so much cool about FlexRAID-View?

Setup tutorial: http://www.openegg.org/forums/posts/list/290.page

Glad you've asked!

Ability to combine all your drives and present them as a single massive drive (JBOD like but much safer than standard JBOD)

Independent from the RAID features of FlexRAID (you can use FlexRAID-View without RAID'ing your data)

Automatic data management (write to your storage pool without worrying about which drive has the free space or to which drive the data is being written to)

Supports drives with existing data (no need to copy off your data)

The drives that make up the view are independently readable outside of FlexRAID-View (you can remove FlexRAID-View and still have access to your data)

The drives that make up the view can be spun down and drives not being accessed can remain spun down (sleep mode)*

Support for Virtual Views

* For this to work properly, all folders at the root of your FlexRAID-View must be virtual folders.

Virtual Views:
---------------

Ever wanted to organize your data in various views without the need of actually moving the data around or create hardlinks or shortcuts?
How about showing your music files based on the files tag attributes?
A "Year" folder that shows all the songs in your collection in one folder based on the year specified or an "Artist" folder that shows all the songs a given artist either performed or was featured on in one folder?

How about showing all the files that were modified during a date range in one folder?
How about combining one folder with the contents of a number of other folders and showing some additional folders and files as children to create a custom view of your data?

Virtual folders also support full Windows permission and ACL.

All that without messing with links (which clutter your filesystem) or moving your data around?

Basically, have you ever longed for Flexibility?

A basic FlexRAID-View configuration example:

DRIVE=K
UNIQUE=D:\;P:\

-K:\
|-*D:\
|-*P:\
|-+D:\Data\P
|-+D:\Data\config.txt
|-<My virtual folder>

-K:\<My virtual folder>
|-*D:\Data\D2
|-*D:\Data\D3
|-+D:\Data\R0

-K:\Data\R0
|-*D:\Data\D1;
|-+D:\Data\o1.test
|-<My other virtual folder>

-K:\Data\R0\<My other virtual folder>
|-+D:\Data\vTest.txt
|-<My empty virtual dir>

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 12/09/2009 22:17:13

You can find some screen shot here: http://www.openegg.org/forums/posts/list/156.page#1402

This space is still being reserved for much better screenshots.

Will this also work with drives that have been assigned as NTFS folders instead of drive letters?

Killroy wrote:Will this also work with drives that have been assigned as NTFS folders instead of drive letters?

Yep.

It will also work with network shares.

Imagine one massive drive representing your whole network storage shares and local data.

Sounds really good. I'm so very afraid of the testing phase, though... to be extremely honest.

Also, any idea of when FlexRAID-Live might happen? unRaid does need some competition in the Windows space, you know?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 10/09/2009 08:55:28

gorman wrote:Sounds really good. I'm so very afraid of the testing phase, though... to be extremely honest.

Also, any idea of when FlexRAID-Live might happen? unRaid does need some competition in the Windows space, you know?

I am doing all the dangerous testing for you.

Frankly, there is very little worry as far as your data safety, and it is pretty much fail-safe.
It will never corrupt your data... ever!.

I wrote it at the kernel and native level.
In fact, the OS is the one doing all the real I/O operations.
FlexRAID-View only steps in to do some orchestration.

I was going to post some screenshots yesterday, but I went out doing some sailing.

I will try to post the screenshots tonight.

Oh, FlexRAID Live! is coming along nicely.
I am currently adding support for being able to read the lost data without first reconstructing it.
So, you will be able to read your lost data while waiting for that replacement drive.
The only catch with FlexRAID Live! is that once a DRU is lost, the whole array becomes read-only until the failed DRU is fully recovered.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 11/09/2009 14:32:11

Since View seems to make FlexRAID into a full server solution instead of just an addon, I'm wondering if you intend to create an all-in-one Linux / FlexRAID distribution. Being able to download an install CD with a stripped down version of Linux with FlexRAID View pre-installed would completely replace the need for WHS or unRAID. If View is going to be free like FlexRAID, then this would be the first completely free soup-to-nuts server distro of its type. You'd have to be crazy to use anything else.

candre23 wrote:Since View seems to make FlexRAID into a full server solution instead of just an addon, I'm wondering if you intend to create an all-in-one Linux / FlexRAID distribution. Being able to download an install CD with a stripped down version of Linux with FlexRAID View pre-installed would completely replace the need for WHS or unRAID. If View is going to be free like FlexRAID, then this would be the first completely free soup-to-nuts server distro of its type. You'd have to be crazy to use anything else.

Yeah, I am thinking of creating an all-in-one Linux distribution.
This first release of FlexRAID-View will be Windows only though.
Linux users will have to wait just a little bit.

FlexRAID-View integrates easily into any system.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 15/09/2009 05:27:28

Will the linux Flexraid-view use unionfs or just hardlinks-softlinks?

cartman wrote:Will the linux Flexraid-view use unionfs or just hardlinks-softlinks?

FlexRAID-View has its own filesystem (FlexRAIDFS), which is powered by some kernel mode drivers and libraries.
So, no links of any sort.
FlexRAIDFS is a true user mode filesystem that overlays over your existing filesystem and supplements it instead of totally taking over.

The Linux version will work on the same basis as the Windows version.

I understand that it doesn't make much sense to use FlexRAID-View on Windows Home Server? Would there be any conflict with WHS?
Can I summarize that FlexRAID-View replaces WHS Drive Extender functionality, enables it on any OS and adds more features like virtual folders?
So, basically, if I wanted WHS now because of Drive Extender only I could use XP Pro with FlexRAID-View and get better experience?

I have all my data in WHS server, I run previous version of FlexRaid to protect the data and it is working just fine. Should I do anything about FlexRAID-View?

Thanks for great work

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 20/09/2009 10:25:12

micksh wrote:I understand that it doesn't make much sense to use FlexRAID-View on Windows Home Server? Would there be any conflict with WHS?
Can I summarize that FlexRAID-View replaces WHS Drive Extender functionality, enables it on any OS and adds more features like virtual folders?
So, basically, if I wanted WHS now because of Drive Extender only I could use XP Pro with FlexRAID-View and get better experience?

Yeah, "normally" it would not make sense to use FlexRAID-View on top of WHS's drive extender feature.
FlexRAID-View is meant to give you the same features (and much more) as drive extender on any OS.

However, you could use WHS's extender for a subset of your drives and FlexRAID-View for another subset.
Further, you could include WHS's share into FlexRAID-View for a custom setup (you would need to mark the WHS's share as restricted in FlexRAID-View).

Use Case: I want to use WHS's duplication feature for some of my data but would like to use FlexRAID-View as my main storage cloud view.

1. Add the drive you want duplicated to WHS's pool (WHS will create a share view for the pool => D:\shares)
2. Setup FlexRAID-View to manage the remaining drives not included in the WHS's pool
3. Add the WHS's share view to FlexRAID-View and mark the share as restricted.

When you mark the share as restricted, it means that data that you don't want in your WHS's duplication pool will never be written into that pool, which is exactly what you want.
In other words, the free space in your WHS's duplication pool will never be used if all your other drives (non-pooled) run out of space.

micksh wrote:
...
I have all my data in WHS server, I run previous version of FlexRaid to protect the data and it is working just fine. Should I do anything about FlexRAID-View?

Thanks for great work

If you have an existing setup, there is nothing that needs to be done extra or differently when you enable FlexRAID-View.
FlexRAID-View is just an additional and optional feature.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 10/10/2009 09:50:43

Brahim wrote:However, you could use WHS's extender for a subset of your drives and FlexRAID-View for another subset.
Further, you could include WHS's share into FlexRAID-View for a custom setup (you would need to mark the WHS's share as restricted in FlexRAID-View).

This is sorta what I do, though I am running Vista SP2 32bit.

I have my flexraid setup with 4 disks, but I only want 3 of them to be shared out as the drive for my dvds and blu-rays. The other disk I want shared out as two different shares, photos and mp3s.

I setup flexraid view to share the three disks as my blu-ray drive and did not add the fourth disk into it. I then created two normal shares on that final disk and whoala! I have three shares, two on one disk and one spanning three disks.

Works great with the Vista patch you provided. I do suggest figuring out how to use SMB 2.0, since when both sides can use it (which will become the norm sooner than later) it speeds up network transfers. It is very possible you are using commands in SMB 1, since I just read that 1 has 40 commands while 2 has only 20.

One question.

If I define a consolidated view drive letter... after reboot, how early do I have the drive letter reassigned (and the view working)?

Because I am thinking of using other services that work directly on the view drive. (for example Exchange and the mailboxes on the "view" drive) You think it is possible?

NLS wrote:One question.

If I define a consolidated view drive letter... after reboot, how early do I have the drive letter reassigned (and the view working)?

Because I am thinking of using other services that work directly on the view drive. (for example Exchange and the mailboxes on the "view" drive) You think it is possible?

Read this: http://www.openegg.org/forums/posts/list/290.page

It has everything you need and including info about the "auto start" feature.

Brahim wrote:Update:
.......

Automatic data management (write to your storage pool without worrying about which drive has the free space or to which drive the data is being written to)
......

Could you please expand a bit more on what is meant by this?

Background of my question is that I am looking for the best way to ensure that files that belong together (like the mp3s of a music album or the individuals files of a DVD in a VIDEO_TS folder) when written initially to the RAID end up on a single partition and are not spread over multiple ones.

What determines which partition files get copied to when I copy them into a Virtual View folder? Example: partition x:\ and y:\ are combined as a Virtual View folder/partition v:\. When I copy a file into v:\, does it end up on x:\ or y:\ and why it that?

Thanks!

Axel wrote:

Brahim wrote:Update:
.......

Automatic data management (write to your storage pool without worrying about which drive has the free space or to which drive the data is being written to)
......

Could you please expand a bit more on what is meant by this?

Background of my question is that I am looking for the best way to ensure that files that belong together (like the mp3s of a music album or the individuals files of a DVD in a VIDEO_TS folder) when written initially to the RAID end up on a single partition and are not spread over multiple ones.

What determines which partition files get copied to when I copy them into a Virtual View folder? Example: partition x:\ and y:\ are combined as a Virtual View folder/partition v:\. When I copy a file into v:\, does it end up on x:\ or y:\ and why it that?

Thanks!

Your files and folders will be kept under the same physical folder as long as there is enough space to do so on a single drive.
In other words, FlexRAID-View will always write your data into a single location up until that location runs out of space.
When that happens, FlexRAID-View will write the data wherever it cans.

If you start the View with completely blank drives, you will find that FlexRAID-View will fill one drive at a time.
If you start the View with existing folder configurations (existing data), FlexRAID-View will respect the structure of that data up until the location runs out of space.
So, for the average user, the amount of data that will not be physically located together will be very small.
If you have 10 drives in the pool, chances are you will only have up to 10 folders whose content is not physically located together (of course, no guarantee and it will depend on your usage).
If you run out of space in the whole pool often (not on a specific drive, but the whole pool) and only free that space with file deletes (and not whole folder deletes), then that count might go up.

FlexRAID-View has different levels of data management, and its most intricate one happens when the pool is running out of space (this is also when it stop focusing on keeping things together).

As long as your pool has a few GBs of free space, everything should be swell.
I might add a background process in the future to merge split folders back to a the same physical location wherever possible.

That background proces "defragmentation" sounds lovely, WHS left my files scattered all over my 5 disks and it was a mess getting them back together

+1 for background proces, or command to clean up

Brahim wrote:.....
FlexRAID-View has different levels of data management, and its most intricate one happens when the pool is running out of space (this is also when it stop focusing on keeping things together).
...

Will the user be informed when this happens?

Brahim wrote:.....
I might add a background process in the future to merge split folders back to a the same physical location wherever possible.

This would be a very nice added feature!