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First OFF TOPIC! New competition is coming to Town!


saitoh183

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The demo video does look slick. Seems to have very nice Explorer integration, claims XP support, otherwise nothing DrivePool doesn't already have that I can see? No mention of balancers, plugins, etc.

 

IMO, adding Explorer integration would be a good idea when DP 2 hits stable, e.g. with x1/x2/xN tags visible and context-menu-manipulable on the folders directly (though DP's current separate "duplication tree" GUI is great for seeing the overall structure - perhaps the context menu could provide a direct link to it). Is that on the cards, further down the track or still under wraps? :)

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Explorer integration,

 

This looks like some of the very early prototypes of DrivePool 2.X.

 

DrivePool actually does have some explorer integration code (that is disabled).

 

I've tested this, and it does not work.

 

Here's why:

  • Ask yourself this, when do you really need to "add a disk to the pool", or "change the duplication level of a folder" ?

    These are very rare events, and yet, if we integrate this into the explorer shell, this information will be queried every time that you right click anywhere. This really slows down your computer.

    It's really not practical. It will slow down the Windows Explorer shell for no good reason. I personally hate shell extensions that slow down my OS. I've tested this internally and it does not work.

    For this reason DrivePool has scrapped all explorer shell integration in favor of the DrivePool UI.
     
  • Here's another reason:

    No remote control.

    DrivePool 2.X has full remote control capability.

    Shell extensions cannot be remote controlled.

Of course the real question is how much money do they have to promote this? Perhaps unfortunately, that is the only thing that matters.

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Thanks for the explanation, Alex. It's a shame that shell extensions are so inefficient; if I have to choose between "works well" and "looks slick" I'll pick the former every time.

 

Well, your computer will not come to a screeching halt if you install a shell extension.

 

I'm speaking from my personal experience of doing computing on Windows for the past few decades, and for every version of Windows that I've had installed there comes a time where you simply have too many shell extensions, and right clicking becomes noticeably slower.

 

There's nothing preventing DrivePool from adding shell extensions as an option in the future, we have the code for that, But I wanted the primary interface to be built without them (contrary to my first instinct).

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Well, your computer will not come to a screeching halt if you install a shell extension.

 

I'm speaking from my personal experience of doing computing on Windows for the past few decades, and for every version of Windows that I've had installed there comes a time where you simply have too many shell extensions, and right clicking becomes noticeably slower.

 

There's nothing preventing DrivePool from adding shell extensions as an option in the future, we have the code for that, But I wanted the primary interface to be built without them (contrary to my first instinct).

 

Nothing can stop you from adding it as a option down the line :)

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Hi there,

 

You are right Alex, shell integration to manage the drives to add to the pool... useless.

But shell integration to handle your folders duplication, that would be really cool.

 

Look, I am using Tortoise Git myself, with shell integration:

- context menu to manage your repo (contextual to your repo status, not only the folder where you are)

- even adding icons to your files to show there status

 

Let us be honest, performance is not an issue here... come on, quad cores are the norm today, the age of the 486DX33 is over ;)

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I've gone from single to dual to quad core, 2GB to 4GB to 8GB, and there's a difference, but the biggest leap (by an order of magnitude) in general Windows performance I ever had was when I changed from mechanical platter to solid state for my system drive.

 

My POST-to-desktop time went from a couple of minutes to 20 seconds, and my icon-littered dual-display desktop is immediately responsive. Now if all someone does with their PC is write letters and play solitaire, that's probably irrelevant. But otherwise....

 

The car analogy I use with my non-tech-savvy friends is, "It's like the difference between a station wagon and a sports car." :)

 

(backing onto topic, another +1 for "option")

 

(wait, this is the off-topic section... in that case, here's a

 - my favourite part is what they do to the drives while the machine is running...)
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Wow, After watching the video I have to say the effort they put into the "look and feel" is quite impressive right out the gate. (bravo)

http://poolhd.com/Portals/0/Demo/PoolHD/PoolHD.html

 

I'm not going anywhere new.   I've been with DrivePool since early 1.x beta days. (and the innovation is non stop)

 

When I switched the OS of my Mini-PC server from Windows Home Server 2011 to Windows 8, I tried both DriveBender and FlexRaid before DrivePool 2.x was available.   (they both were unacceptable to me)    I limped by a few months until Drive Pool 2.0 became available.   Things are rock solid and I've been getting over 113 MB/sec transfers over my gigabit LAN.    

 

Anyway, it's really interesting to see other peoples approach to drive pooling!   I didn't expect to be impressed but that video has some wow factor to it with out actually knowing what's under the hood.  

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Yeah, that video definitely looks great.

 

Though there is one issue I have with it.... I use Server 2012 Essentials (transitioned to Standard... :P), but I exclusively access the server via the dashboard. I do have Advanced Admin Console installed, but I avoid using it. I prefer to be able to use the dashboard for everything. And for the most part, I can.  I've noticed that a few explorer "shell extensions" (such as how PoolHD UI works) don't play well with AAC/dashboard.  I'm wondering how it will deal with that.

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