hard links and junctions

[glugglug]

I think it should be possible for DrivePool to support hard links and junctions.  Junction being the simpler of the two since it is basically a file, like a soft link.

 

For hard links, the trick would be that all the places the file is hard linked would have to be mirrored on the same set of drives.  This has 2 implications:

1. There would need to be a mechanism to only ask balancers about one of the linked locations.

2. If the different directories where a file is hardlinked have different mirror levels (i.e. one dir set to 2x while another is 3x containing the same hardlinked file), there is a sort of conflict.  This could be resolved by using whatever is the highest mirror level set in any of the hard-linked directories.  With Vista and later the locations a file is hard linked in can apparently be enumerated quickly and they show up in the Link Properties tab in explorer.

 

This would be very useful for how I have my photo and video directories organized -- the same file in multiple categories can exist in multiple directories through hardlinking (or at least they were hardlinks when I had it all on a single drive...)

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Glugglug,

 

This has actually been brought up before. It's on Alex's to-do list, but it's not an easy feature to support. But it is definitely on his mind.

http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/57-symbolic-link-support/

 

But thank you for your feedback, we really do appreciate it!

 

Regards

[Alex]

Reparse points (or links) are a very simple concept to imagine, but it's deceptive.

 

I've tried implementing 3 different approaches to handle reparse points and have run into brick walls each time.

 

I think that we will have reparse point support but not in the 2.0 RELEASE FINAL. I have it planned for a 2.1 BETA.

 

Regards,.