Messages posted by: aay

cg2010 wrote:

aay wrote:Well, I would respectfully disagree Apple, Visa, MasterCard, Nike, Pepsi, CocaCola, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Shell, ATT - just to name a few really big companies with logos of either no text or text with a lot of other elements.

All of those companies you mentioned have logos that don't require text because each company spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year to make their brand known. As far as I know Brahim, doesn't have that kind of money for advertisement, so he might want the FlexRAID text in there.

In any case, make something cool that doesn't have text in it. I'm sure if it is really good, he'll use it.

You don't need to be feisty

As I said - it was my opinion. As for 'make it' - read my earlier comment about my skills in any graphics software. I tried a little, but nothing worth showing was produced. And no, I didn't try to spell out 'FlexRAID' in different fonts or using different paths. I had few ideas but I am unable to turn them into images.

As for logos vs text and millions of dollars. I don't think this argument really makes sense here. Having text logo does not make a brand any more recognizable or easy to market if you don't have any budget for that. And my comment was in response to 'big guys' who do it without any graphics in their logos. So I don't see your point in that respect at all.

Good logo, be it text or image, does show thought and time put into designing it. I am sorry to say, but I have not seen anything worth a second look so far. Again, I'm sorry for hurting your feelings with my opinion. But it's not up to me - Brahim is the client here and he can figure out what he likes and what he wants.

NLS wrote:most big boys have their name as logo - a graphic is not too fashionable these days (but as I said: it is fashion - so it changes every while)

Well, I would respectfully disagree

Apple, Visa, MasterCard, Nike, Pepsi, CocaCola, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Shell, ATT - just to name a few really big companies with logos of either no text or text with a lot of other elements.

All I want to say - I'd like to see something more professional, subtle, easy and catchy than just 'Flex Raid' text or the current logo, which is too big, too busy and somewhat confusing in my opinion.

As for fashion - well, there is a reason why even major brand names spend millions on subtle (or not so subtle) redesigns every now and then.

Why a logo all of a sudden is only a text?

I guess it's a matter of taste - different people like different things.

As for the name - that would be up to Brahim I would think

I wish I could help, but my Photoshop skills end at 'resize image' and 'save as'

It's great to see so many people taking initiative and helping Brahim! My thanks to all of you for making an effort

As an idea (admittedly very basic and simple) - how about a stack of disks (which could be different size) with some way to indicate protection and safety? I thought about a lock, but it doesn't really convey protection or safety in RAID way.

Smurf-IV wrote:

aay wrote:

Brahim wrote:Yep.
It is fully RESTful and uses JSON for communication. So, third-party clients will be very possible and much more structured.
Teasers will come later.

Great news. Hopefully you'll have a bit of time to document the api so it can be used in developing a native client. Would love to see that. Thanks.

Or any type of client for that matter

I meant Windows based client app. I am not a big fan of Java except in a server environment

Brahim wrote:Yep.
It is fully RESTful and uses JSON for communication. So, third-party clients will be very possible and much more structured.
Teasers will come later.

Great news. Hopefully you'll have a bit of time to document the api so it can be used in developing a native client. Would love to see that. Thanks.

I've got 2008R2 and MediaPortal. However, I was unsuccessful in running the View, so I abandoned it (previous versions just crashed for me and the latest could not install). I don't have any issues with MediaPortal indexing files from the server via regular shares. I'm going to reinstall Flex and attempt to install the View again, which will force me to reindex everything from MediaPortal (TV Series plugin, Moving Pictures). I've got the same hardware as webs0r (i3, 4GB RAM), so it'll be interesting to see the outcome...

Would this possibly open up a door for a third-party client written for a specific OS (Windows, as a choice for a lot of people), that could connect to Flex manager and issue commands / receive status and details, manage View, etc? I'd love a small tray app that would run on a schedule, do it's thing without me interacting with it much. As well as saving me from typing out View config, etc.

I'd too love to see the new web UI mockups if it is possible sometimes. Or will we see it when you release the final product?

Elpee wrote:I really need a instruction for this. Anybody can help me out, please?

It's quite easy - once you installed command line client, you can install the View from within it. All you need after that is a text file with View config (see other posts here on forums) and then you need to issue 'view start' command from the command line client. That will create the virtual drive you configured via the text file. It should appear in your Explorer window and then you can share that over the network.

For detailed instructions about Flex and the View just follow the guidelines from here

Hope this helps.

Elpee wrote:

aay wrote:

You need to install Flex first, and 'installing' the View is a command you need to issue from a Flex command line client. However, there are some issues related to 2008R2, I think. I am going to be trying it this coming week-end as my current install doesn't work properly.

As a side note - I hope you're not buying any 'black' drives for your data storage...

Thanks. All of my left 18 drives is either Samsung SpinPoint F4 2TB or WD Green 2TB drive.

OK, to make it clearer at step by step.
First, I install Flex host, and then intall 'View' thru command line on the same machine. Is that right?
Second, let's say it runs smoothly, I am going to attach my left 18 drives (to the bay) to insert to the Norco box and let Win 2008 R2 assign each drive a specific letter (like E, F, G, H, .....).
Third, I plan to use RAID4 (T1+), so I will use WEB UI to create a Flex RAID with 17 DRU drives and 1 PPU drive. Is that possible?
In fact, I want to create a storage pool with 17 2TB drives - the 18th 2TB drive is parity drive - to keep my movies and share them within my home network. How can I do so that all my home PCs as well as media movie players can see that storage pool as a shared folder or shared drive in the network named 'Movies'?

Really confused here
Need your help indeed.
I greatly appreciate it.

If I had that many drives in my system, I would be using more than a single drive for parity. Drives are cheap, and the only reason to limit number of parity drives would be your computer case. I only have 4x2TB drives for my data, so I don't have that issue. Unfortunately I have a single parity drive at the moment, as I'm far away from any reasonable computer hardware store. Otherwise I would have 2 parity drives up until 10 data drives. Thankfully, Flex allows for that right now. So, with this in mind, you could set up either T2+ or even Tx as that will allow you for greater FLEXibility (sorry, couldn't resist

.

As for your question about sharing your movies from a single location, that's the purpose of Flex View functionality - it will create a single virtual drive, and combine all of your directories into any structure you want based on a config file. I'm not 100% sure if View properly works on R2. Will investigate that today.

webs0r wrote:

aay wrote:As a side note - I hope you're not buying any 'black' drives for your data storage...

Hi aay, just curious (a bit OT) - why do you say that (I don't use any blacks myself for data storage)?

Exactly what andrewsdw said:

1) Expensive
2) Don't need the speed (heat)
3) Not power friendly
4) Expensive

The biggest reason - you don't need the speed, as your network will be limiting you anyway.

Elpee wrote:Thanks.
My box is Norco with 20-drive bay. I have raid 1 (2 1TB WD black drives) for OS - C drive, and music - D drive. The other 18 drives are still pending.
My question here is I should setup a 'pool storage' and assign as E drive of all those drives BEFORE or AFTER I install FlexRAID Host on it?
I read this instruction
http://www.openegg.org/forums/posts/list/290.page
and Brahim didn't mention that.
Thanks a lot for the reply.

You need to install Flex first, and 'installing' the View is a command you need to issue from a Flex command line client. However, there are some issues related to 2008R2, I think. I am going to be trying it this coming week-end as my current install doesn't work properly.

As a side note - I hope you're not buying any 'black' drives for your data storage...

webs0r wrote:Hi all- new here - first i should mention this is some great software!

I'm trying to mimic what Windows Home Server does by creating a "JBOD storage pool" using Flexraid view, but I'm having some issues and was hoping for some help.

If I have this viewconfig.txt:

DRIVE=E
UNIQUE=C:\Mount\Disk01;C:\Mount\Disk02;C:\Mount\Disk03
RESTRICT=
RESERVE=2GB
THREAD=5
REMOVABLE=FALSE

-E:\
|-*C:\Mount\Disk01
|-*C:\Mount\Disk02
|-*C:\Mount\Disk03

And I have a folder structure on the drives like:
C:\Mount\Disk01\Movies
C:\Mount\Disk02\Movies
C:\Mount\Disk03\Movies

In the view it creates 3 separate movie folders rather than merging their contents, e.g.:
E:\Movies
E:\Movies
E:\Movies

Is there a way to have flexraid view merge all the folder contents together and present me with 1 view?

Thanks in advance!

Maybe try something like this:

-X:\
|-<Movies>

-X:\Movies
|-*C:\Mount\Disk01\Movies
|-*C:\Mount\Disk02\Movies
|-*C:\Mount\Disk03\Movies

In this config "|-<Movies>" creates a virtual folder 'Movies', and then you define it's content.

Hope this works for you.

bigdog66 wrote:and again....I appreciate hearing from you and hopefully hear from others!!!

Hey there. Well, I see where you're coming from - I myself have been looking around for a RAID solution. Actually I've used hardware RAID since 2006, probably, but lately I started to get worried about it - right when my file server hardware died and I had hard time making new hardware accept PCI-X card. That's when I finally decided I have to get something different. I have considered unRAID and spent a lot of time on their forums reading and learning. My biggest issue there was Linux - I don't want to spend time figuring out all the details of stripped down OS and I wanted to run many apps on my 'server'. Besides I'm not one of the people who considers Windows a bad OS. Anyway, just by a chance I found FlexRaid. Thankfully I haven't had to use it to recover anything just yet, but I like it. And I actually don't need/want "live" version, which suppose to be live RAID. My data changes relatively seldom - few files are added or removed every few days, unless I'm out taking pictures - then there are thousands of files

So, snapshot is all I need. I believe in your case you will only need the snapshot - anything else is, frankly, an overkill.

Based on my experience, FlexRaid seems to be alright. I don't like the fact that it's all Java and uses some libraries to run as Windows executables. I don't like how View functionality (fake "drive" that consolidates directories from multiple locations) needs to be configured and run. I don't like that I need to use some ass-backwards ways to refresh snapshot of data via some poor webpage and Tomcat. I would definitely prefer a native Windows executables, that can sit in a tray and run on schedule and provide a nice UI for it's functionality. But hey, this software is free and, frankly, the idea behind it, is the best I've seen so far. So, I'm happy Brahim released it to public. Hopefully he won't abandon it in the next little while and continue working on it. I'd happily paid for it if I knew that it will be supported and developed in a way that makes it easier to use (see my points above), but I'm going to take what I'm given and be thankful.

One big negative of FlexRaid, it needs to be said, is that the creator, Brahim, doesn't want to bring other developers onto the project, nor does he want to make the source public. And he disappears sometimes which worries a lot of users. In addition, FlexRaid has an expiry time (I think few months), after which you suppose to update to the most recent version, which can be a problem, if a new version hasn't been released. This has happened this past summer, unfortunately.

As for media center software. You know, I looked at different packages a while ago and I loved MediaPortal - free and actively developed software with lots of plugins, skins, etc. And it runs on Windows, which makes it quite easy as well. I'm running it on a little Atom box that sits behind my TV - works like a charm, playing HD content, organizing TV shows and movies, connecting to the Internet to aggregate lots of data from there, etc.

So, try FlexRaid out, see if it works for you. Latest release (beta 7) supports new 'raid' engines, which is quite cool, I think. Good luck with your adventure!

deadman wrote:Just curious. If building a new FlexRAID do the drives need to be empty or can you just add existing drives with data already on them? Is it safe to do so?

It's not a real raid system, it's a snapshot of current state. So it doesn't matter whether you have data or not - all you need to do is to configure it and calculate parity.

Lay wrote:Can somebody please re-upload the 1.4 beta 4th build!!!
thx

There is a link to it somewhere in release threads... Don't remember exactly where, but I got it from there couple of month ago.

Also, View doesn't work reliably on Win2008R2 for me (should be pretty close to Win7 64bit), and Brahim was working on a new driver, but he's been MIA for couple of month now, so I'm not sure about the progress at this time.

I've stopped using View part and just use multiple shared folders. It's a pain, but I can't do anything about it at the moment. Will wait for Brahim to appear and provide us with update on the progress.

I'm a developer and I sent a message to Brahim offering any help he might need. I guess he's pretty busy with something. Hopefully we can sort this out - this software is what I really need, so I wouldn't want to see it go down the drain.

NLS wrote:Treadstone ... I have mortgage on my house. Can you help a fellow soul?

Hahaha! I hear you, man!

All I thought about when I read "50x2TB drives" - "Where the hell he got a case that fits 50 drives?" and only then I thought about the price for such a toy

I actually just played with it last night and started a validation process for my setup (which is taking for-ev-ar!

. So, I guess, first question I sort of answered myself after playing with the client. Just was worried a bit not to kill the parity data at the beginning.

Fair enough - this client provides a subset of parameters and it's ok. I was just wondering if there is a way to define some extra parameters to see if I can speed things up. Not sure if it would really help though

sapo wrote:I know there's an auto-mount option in truecrypt..maybe that will work, to mount all the volumes at once with the same pswrd

I infact tried to avoid the mounting of all the volumes using truecrypt file volumes...and reconstructing them, not the actual data inside...
but I guess there are some problems with the way flexraid checks the files

what I wanted was to have a pool of DRU made of encrypted and non encrypted data...
actually, to maintain privacy, only 2 of them have to be encrypted.......
is that correct?

Yes, there is automount of favorite volumes in TrueCrypt, but all it does is relieves you from starting TC and mounting the volumes manually. It however makes it clear that there are volumes encrypted for anyone who starts the computer. Having similar password may be an issue if you are at all concerned about data. Also, there is no real benefit to automount the drives since Flex is 'on-demand' parity calculator. Also, drive manager from Flex is a service, so it starts up before you log on, but TC mounts volumes for currently logged on user.

In my case I encrypt drives, I do not create encrypted containers (files) on drives with regular filesystem and the drives appear to be unpartitioned and unformatted to an OS. So there is no way Flex can do anything with them unless I mount the drives.

As for maintaining privacy. Well, if only 2 of your drives contain sensitive data then you can use TC on them and your parity won't be enough to reconstruct the data from those 2 drives.