I agree with DrParis - per-folder duplication is a must have of DP, along with >2 duplication counts.
For me, the simplicity of managing one pool, with variable duplication counts depending on the importance and volume of my data, is the whole attraction of DP and the thing that makes it stand head and shoulders above the others. I never have to worry about (manually) juggling data between individual disks or backup schemes or complex raid / parity schemes or any of that tedium again. For me it's the perfect balance between efficient storage and reliable resiliency to disk failures (and I've had a few). And I don't have to worry about my future needs, I can just adjust a duplication count here and there, add some storage and grow my pool reliably and smoothly.
To explain my rationalle..
I have lots of disks, large volumes (90%+) of low priority data (TV recordings etc), and small volumes of very high priority data (family pictures etc) - and I can't imagine I'm alone in this balance. I love the fact that I don't have to duplicate the low priority data (wasting precious and expensive space), yet can keep lots of copies of my important docs and photos and never worry about another hard drive failure again. I can just throw in another disk when I run out of space and add it to the pool. A marvellous, almost maintenance free, reliable and efficient system - with one big simple pool.
On parity - Parity wouldn't be any good to me as I'd waste space a large amount of space adding lots of parity data for data I don't care for much, and it will waste my biggest (and generally newest) hard drive as that's the one required for parity. It assumes all your data is equally important. So in my PVR machine for example, where I have lots of odd disk sizes it becomes complicated and inefficient. I'd much rather just pool together the mismatched disks into one lovely simple space for my unduplicated recordings, and have some other folders duplicated 3 or more times for important files on that computer (so I can use PVR as a network backup for important stuff). And whilst I have the space, I can duplicate my low priority stuff also - and then just remove the duplication as I start to run out of space, or just add another disk or two to the pool, change a duplication setting and voila it all just gets rebalanced in the background. So perfect and simple! Not to mention wonderfully scalable and future proof.
On using multiple pools for differing redundancy - definitely not. DP doesn't allow me to add multiple pools to the same set of disks, and even if it did this approach would be a real pain for me. I'd end up having to setup a different pool for each type of data which I might conceivably want to vary the duplication for - photos, TV, docs - so would end up being a cumbersome mess. Else I'd have to start manually shovelling data between pools to manage things when I change a duplication count, and that would be so messy.
Ps. I acknowledge that per folder parity system, with variable parity, would be (architecturally) possibly the perfect solution - but I'm more than happy to waste a bit of space for the simplicity and reliability of the DP per-folder file duplication approach. If I could trust a parity implementation, and all my disks were the same size, and all my data was the same priority, and I knew exactly what my future redundancy requirements are, and I knew that they'd never change, I'd consider parity, But this is not the case!
In short - please don't remove these two fabulous features!
StableBit DrivePool Per-Folder Duplication
in Nuts & Bolts
Posted
I agree with DrParis - per-folder duplication is a must have of DP, along with >2 duplication counts.
For me, the simplicity of managing one pool, with variable duplication counts depending on the importance and volume of my data, is the whole attraction of DP and the thing that makes it stand head and shoulders above the others. I never have to worry about (manually) juggling data between individual disks or backup schemes or complex raid / parity schemes or any of that tedium again. For me it's the perfect balance between efficient storage and reliable resiliency to disk failures (and I've had a few). And I don't have to worry about my future needs, I can just adjust a duplication count here and there, add some storage and grow my pool reliably and smoothly.
To explain my rationalle..
I have lots of disks, large volumes (90%+) of low priority data (TV recordings etc), and small volumes of very high priority data (family pictures etc) - and I can't imagine I'm alone in this balance. I love the fact that I don't have to duplicate the low priority data (wasting precious and expensive space), yet can keep lots of copies of my important docs and photos and never worry about another hard drive failure again. I can just throw in another disk when I run out of space and add it to the pool. A marvellous, almost maintenance free, reliable and efficient system - with one big simple pool.
On parity - Parity wouldn't be any good to me as I'd waste space a large amount of space adding lots of parity data for data I don't care for much, and it will waste my biggest (and generally newest) hard drive as that's the one required for parity. It assumes all your data is equally important. So in my PVR machine for example, where I have lots of odd disk sizes it becomes complicated and inefficient. I'd much rather just pool together the mismatched disks into one lovely simple space for my unduplicated recordings, and have some other folders duplicated 3 or more times for important files on that computer (so I can use PVR as a network backup for important stuff). And whilst I have the space, I can duplicate my low priority stuff also - and then just remove the duplication as I start to run out of space, or just add another disk or two to the pool, change a duplication setting and voila it all just gets rebalanced in the background. So perfect and simple! Not to mention wonderfully scalable and future proof.
On using multiple pools for differing redundancy - definitely not. DP doesn't allow me to add multiple pools to the same set of disks, and even if it did this approach would be a real pain for me. I'd end up having to setup a different pool for each type of data which I might conceivably want to vary the duplication for - photos, TV, docs - so would end up being a cumbersome mess. Else I'd have to start manually shovelling data between pools to manage things when I change a duplication count, and that would be so messy.
Ps. I acknowledge that per folder parity system, with variable parity, would be (architecturally) possibly the perfect solution - but I'm more than happy to waste a bit of space for the simplicity and reliability of the DP per-folder file duplication approach. If I could trust a parity implementation, and all my disks were the same size, and all my data was the same priority, and I knew exactly what my future redundancy requirements are, and I knew that they'd never change, I'd consider parity, But this is not the case!
In short - please don't remove these two fabulous features!