Let us know how that works out.
haha, ~_^ I agree, i started with 2 drives, then i went to 9, then 15. and now i a going larger capacity drive. haha
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Flexraid now costs $... any alternative?
- Thread starter iakovl
- Start date
haha, ~_^ I agree, i started with 2 drives, then i went to 9, then 15. and now i a going larger capacity drive. haha
I looked at SnapRAID yesterday (after hearing about FlexRAID going commercial) and I think the big difference (for me) is that FlexRAID can run as a service so you don't have to have a user logged on the server and it has integrated scheduling. It didn't appear that SnapRAID could do that, at least not natively. I ultimately just paid for FlexRAID, since I've been using it without issues for the past year or so.
About liquesce, yeah it seems you have to be careful when copying from the pool to a separate drive that is also part of the pool. But that's not something you should do anyway (and flexraid in cruise mode would unmount your drives, making it impossible; however I used expert mode). I also think that performance is pretty poor. Personally I don't really pool my drives, I just want the same folders on all my drives to be shown merged, but each blu-ray or whatever is on one drive only. That way I can change software or add/remove drives without trouble. Some of the drives in my pool are in fact eSATA drives that don't always run so it's better that way.
spectrumbx
[H]ard|Gawd
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Wow! Don't hold back.
How about I make the promise that you will be installing NZFS on Windows 8 when both are out?
A bit of truth (others have stated them, but I am recapping):
1. One and half month notice was provided prior to the beta expiration
2. The betas were still active for a good 2 to 3 weeks after going commercial
3. There is a final free version floating out there (albeit not supported)
4. FlexRAID going commercial is just a mean of funding it so it goes further as a project
Yes, everything was done on a spur, but that's what happens with light bulb moments.
Keeping FlexRAID free was keeping me from providing a better product to the user base since there is only so much that can be done with no funding.
I have participated in a number of open source projects and know far too well the fallacies associated with them. Heck, many of you own me thanks for all the free work I have done on Linux.
But, I digress...
Listen, open source or not, a project isn't going to make it far without funding. Period.
Improving FlexRAID goes beyond what it does in its core and goes more into better integration and ultimately a complete system that will cocoon your precious data. Every time someone mentions an alternative to FlexRAID, it is followed with "then you need this other tool and then you need that other tool". And even then, you still don't have the full power of FlexRAID.
The good news is, most people get that and hence why FlexRAID is selling very well.
In fact, I am totally shocked and pleased by the positive response and sales.
This tells me that most people are not worried about a few bucks and will gladly pay for a quality product.
So, from where I am setting, everything is going perfectly according to plans.
I'll admit, I did not properly express myself when I first wrote that. With that being said, and since you replied to me directly, read this thread:
http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php?topic=358.0
So, gears started turning in January, move into NZFS, charge for FlexRAID, hope to beat Microsoft? Lots of talk after that, but honestly, good luck to you. I really do hope you keep us up to date after Windows 8 comes out.
http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php?topic=358.0
So, gears started turning in January, move into NZFS, charge for FlexRAID, hope to beat Microsoft? Lots of talk after that, but honestly, good luck to you. I really do hope you keep us up to date after Windows 8 comes out.
Sorry for the double post, but I did want to get back after such a hasty reply. Since you were nice enough to post with your reasons, here is my retort:
- Most of this is already said on the original thread but I'll link it here for anyone that doesn't read up on this -> http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,502.0.html
1. One man operation: Did people not learn anything from unRAID? Death, family problems, lack of interest, other interests, not enough money, other problems/priorities, getting burned out?
2. Support: Sorry, but you aren't known for the best support in the world, but this was for a "concept." People can understand that, I can understand that. Now you are selling a retail product without a squeaky clean history. That doesn't bode well for any business.
2a. As for funding, I'm a businessman, that's all I really do, and I completely understand this perspective. Does this mean that you are going to quit technical architecture and focus on this full time? Assuming you've sold 1,387 (50% of your registered forum users) at $50, you've just pocked $70k. I don't even see how you are going to hire a full time IT support staff. Again, this is a business, not a pet project.
3. Rushed product: "Real-Time RAID as implemented in RAID-F should be considered experimental and not ready for production use." Oh, come on man!
- Just my personal pet peeve, fluff: I get it, you are smart, and you are very good at writing code. Can you quit with the innuendo, about how fantastic everything is, how no other product is nowhere close. NZFS will destroy everything, but there will be no additional information at this time...
Now, let's factor in Windows 8 into this conversation:
- You are going to essentially go against Microsoft that will include Storage Spaces in their operating system. Can I tell you what similar scenario this will be like? SageTV, BeyondTV, and Windows Media Center. Sage and BTV had (and still has) great uses, but W7MC was included and free. Do you know what most people use? W7MC. Than you have a myriad of free options like XMBC which you can say is ZFS in your case (with ZFS being on crack, very widely used and well known for, and supported by enterprise solutions).
- You are going to essentially go against Microsoft that will include actual support, and is not reliant on a single point of failure (i.e., you) vs. an entire team of engineers.
- Lastly, something occurred to me while I was writing this reply, a "light bulb moment" as you had said. Your product is in (yes, very long term, very stable, super fantastic) beta, you are working on a mysterious other project while trying to finish a separate project at the same time, an 800 pound gorilla is going to be pounding out a product (that may be slightly inferior to yours, yes yes, we know, you've told us!) bundled with their software, and you've just spent years of your time with only donations to show. Why don't you get something for your time by charging for FlexRAID and see how well Microsoft comes after you? Worse comes to worse, you walk away with a cool $100k.
Look, I've rooted for FlexRAID, and you can use the search function under my name for the proof. I'm also not interested in dedicating hours/days/months/years of my time for the "open source" community as I have other passions in my life. My critique though comes down to one thing, immature retail product.
- Most of this is already said on the original thread but I'll link it here for anyone that doesn't read up on this -> http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,502.0.html
1. One man operation: Did people not learn anything from unRAID? Death, family problems, lack of interest, other interests, not enough money, other problems/priorities, getting burned out?
2. Support: Sorry, but you aren't known for the best support in the world, but this was for a "concept." People can understand that, I can understand that. Now you are selling a retail product without a squeaky clean history. That doesn't bode well for any business.
2a. As for funding, I'm a businessman, that's all I really do, and I completely understand this perspective. Does this mean that you are going to quit technical architecture and focus on this full time? Assuming you've sold 1,387 (50% of your registered forum users) at $50, you've just pocked $70k. I don't even see how you are going to hire a full time IT support staff. Again, this is a business, not a pet project.
3. Rushed product: "Real-Time RAID as implemented in RAID-F should be considered experimental and not ready for production use." Oh, come on man!
- Just my personal pet peeve, fluff: I get it, you are smart, and you are very good at writing code. Can you quit with the innuendo, about how fantastic everything is, how no other product is nowhere close. NZFS will destroy everything, but there will be no additional information at this time...
Now, let's factor in Windows 8 into this conversation:
- You are going to essentially go against Microsoft that will include Storage Spaces in their operating system. Can I tell you what similar scenario this will be like? SageTV, BeyondTV, and Windows Media Center. Sage and BTV had (and still has) great uses, but W7MC was included and free. Do you know what most people use? W7MC. Than you have a myriad of free options like XMBC which you can say is ZFS in your case (with ZFS being on crack, very widely used and well known for, and supported by enterprise solutions).
- You are going to essentially go against Microsoft that will include actual support, and is not reliant on a single point of failure (i.e., you) vs. an entire team of engineers.
- Lastly, something occurred to me while I was writing this reply, a "light bulb moment" as you had said. Your product is in (yes, very long term, very stable, super fantastic) beta, you are working on a mysterious other project while trying to finish a separate project at the same time, an 800 pound gorilla is going to be pounding out a product (that may be slightly inferior to yours, yes yes, we know, you've told us!) bundled with their software, and you've just spent years of your time with only donations to show. Why don't you get something for your time by charging for FlexRAID and see how well Microsoft comes after you? Worse comes to worse, you walk away with a cool $100k.
Look, I've rooted for FlexRAID, and you can use the search function under my name for the proof. I'm also not interested in dedicating hours/days/months/years of my time for the "open source" community as I have other passions in my life. My critique though comes down to one thing, immature retail product.
So move on to something else. No one's got a gun to anyone's head. The rest of your analysis is out of touch at best.
I will say this though and I've seen it coming for years based on Flexraid's development trajectory relative to other similar offerings -- Flexraid is the future. Especially for archival/nearline/home media storage. Doesn't matter that Win8 is bundling rudimentary pooling. Doesn't matter that unRAID & the dozens of other host based pooling solutions exist. And if he's able to pull off what I think he's going to do with NZFS I don't doubt MS will be trying to throw millions at him at some point in the future to either kill it or acquire it.
Flexraid's future is a bright one, regardless of all the entitlement and attitude coming across from a vocal minority of squeaky wheels and opensource keep-everythingt-free zealots that think Brahim should have done X, Y and Z differently - I'm not referring just to this thread but the chatter on various forums in general. It's actually high time he started being compensated for the years of development of his intellectual property. I've been suggesting for a while that he stop giving it away -- especially with other solutions stealing/co-opting Flexraid and trying to pass it off as part of their own pseudo-vertical solution (Greyhole for one). But he had his reasons and he's never tried to pass it off as anything more than Beta software, and under his circumstances it only made sense to keep it in that state at no charge while he was exploring not only the further development of it but an evolving market for it.
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spectrumbx
[H]ard|Gawd
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1. "Immature retail product" that does something that is superior to what MS has provided you with in both WHSv1 and 2.
I invented RAID over Filesystem: a complete paradigm shift.
Come on, give me some credit somewhere.
2. As opposed to which product that came out of the womb perfectly mature?
Your darling Windows 8 will come out just as buggy from a company with billions of dollars and staff of thousands.
3. People who have interacted with me for support now that the product is commercial will tell you that it is unparalleled.
I mean, what type of support did you expect before from a freeware? Tea and biscotti?
The road to maturity requires a start.
When did we lose our faith in the garage start-up? For the little guy? Where has the passion gone? (picture me on my knees, hands dramatically raised toward the sky)
Ps., don't get me wrong. I expect criticisms. They are healthy and just part of the game.
I am just pausing to make a few clarifications/comments here and there. Outside of that, I have a plan and am focused on that plan.
If I am to shut some mouths, it is not by arguing with them. Rather, I just have to prove them wrong with sheer success.
/back to work...
And to expand a bit on Storage Spaces in Windows 8 since it keeps coming up, if Microsoft doesn't improve it between the current beta builds and final, people are in for a rude awakening. Try playing with Parity Storage Space. Write performance is absolutely dreadful. Reads are okay but start writing data and I see drops down to 20-25MB/s, which I'm guessing is because they aren't caching writebacks, and if thats not a system tunable in final then I'm not sure what they're thinking.
In my testing overall, Storage Spaces has been pretty disappointing and in skimming other forums I'm not exactly alone. Then again striping or mirroring will be good enough for many, but those looking to warehouse home media collections will find it prohibitively expensive to run on anything but a decently performing calculations based parity scheme and will simply have to seek out a 3rd party solution. For further reading (this guy gets it): http://helgeklein.com/blog/2012/03/windows-8-storage-spaces-bugs-and-design-flaws/
Biggest two dealbreakers for me:
1) Can't efficiently combine drives of different sizes: If you have two 3 TB disks and add a 1 TB disk, you get: 3 TB. 4 TB out of the total capacity of 7 TB are not used.
2) Striping based parity scheme - A) you can't simply remove a single drive and read it in another PC, B) all disks have to be spinning to access the data, C) If you lose 2 drives (assuming 1 parity drive) you lose everything. Unnecessary risk for write-once, read infrequently media storage.
In my testing overall, Storage Spaces has been pretty disappointing and in skimming other forums I'm not exactly alone. Then again striping or mirroring will be good enough for many, but those looking to warehouse home media collections will find it prohibitively expensive to run on anything but a decently performing calculations based parity scheme and will simply have to seek out a 3rd party solution. For further reading (this guy gets it): http://helgeklein.com/blog/2012/03/windows-8-storage-spaces-bugs-and-design-flaws/
Biggest two dealbreakers for me:
1) Can't efficiently combine drives of different sizes: If you have two 3 TB disks and add a 1 TB disk, you get: 3 TB. 4 TB out of the total capacity of 7 TB are not used.
2) Striping based parity scheme - A) you can't simply remove a single drive and read it in another PC, B) all disks have to be spinning to access the data, C) If you lose 2 drives (assuming 1 parity drive) you lose everything. Unnecessary risk for write-once, read infrequently media storage.
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I couldn't agree more. Admittedly, I haven't tried it, but I'm mystified by all the hoopla over Storage Spaces. If I wanted striping in my home server, I would simply use one of the tried and true hardware RAID solutions that have been used in enterprises for years. In fact, to drive the point home further: if I wanted striping in my home server, I would re-enable the RAID functionality in my controller, that I specifically disabled so that I could use it in JBOD mode with a non-striped solution (FlexRAID).
The major appeal to FlexRAID (as well as the other similar RAID4 type solutions) is the safety and flexibility of it. For a home user, who doesn't have the budget for a bunch of hot spares and an IT team monitoring it 24x7, there's a lot of appeal in knowing that if something really bad happens, the vast majority of your data is likely sitting there easily accessible in a convenient, familiar format. It's easy to add drives (of whatever size) at any time, it's easy to remove them, and it's easy to get the data onto them, and more importantly, off of them. With the fault tolerance scheme essentially standing alone from the data, you don't run the risk of having the solution you implemented with the intent of protecting your data actually being the cause of you losing data.
I'm not generally an anti-MS person. In fact, I still use and am happy with DE in WHS v1. I'm even using WHS duplication for the small amount of data it makes sense to use it with. Using these in conjunction with FlexRAID for the large amount of static data I want to protect is a good solution for me. Maybe I just need to give it time to mature, or maybe I just don't understand it well enough yet. But I'm just having a hard time finding a problem that Storage Spaces is a good solution to.
Don't you think the inventors of parchive should get a lot of the credit for filesystem level parity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchive
Drawmonster
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So, what does flexraid offer that makes it cost over double.what Stablebit Drivepool costs? So far I love Drive pool. Why use Flexraid?
I'm not sure how you can honestly say that my "analysys is out of touch at best" considering that many of my above points, and a few more, are on the FlexRAID crossroads thread.
And as I said, I've touted the software here as the future, I truly also believe that software RAID is going to be the future, and the final nail on hardware RAID will come soon enough. And it absolutely matters that Windows 8 is has pooling bundled which is why I used the SageTV and BTV as example, other products already established in the markets that have their strenghts, but were squashed. Maybe I am wrong, maybe this will be IE vs. Firefox vs. Chrome, but there is a chasm of difference there. As for NZFS, I wish him the best (could you actually finished FlexRAID first though?!?!?) but good luck against (real)ZFS which is enterprise software with an already established solid history with quite a few VAR's.
My issue was never entitlement, and I will readily admit (again) that my first post on this thread was poorly expressed. As for entitlements, oh come on, this is for media data storage that requires thousands in hardware costs alone. The guy that can't pay $50 for software, but can pay $5,000 for hard drives has other problems. I won't comment on open source as I already said myself I don't believe in it. Which brings me:
As JoeComp has already pointed out, and I already said myself (i.e., "fluff"). You absolutely deserve credit, but my critique of "immate retail product" has nothing to do with your talents. It has to do with the inability to focus on a project, see it through, and work on another. Could I possibly offer you a bit of advise on this? Use the money you just made as a bonus, take a complete week off your 9-5 job, drown yourself in code, and finish FlexRAID.
Since we are talking about Windows 8, there is some similarity in that a developer preview comes out to iron out as much as they can (just like FlexRAID beta), and that they eventually will charge for their product (almost like what you have done but in an unfinished/immature product). Which brings up longevity and support that I pointed out. As talented as you are, things happen or change of which I've made a quick list already, against a whole squadron of engineers. Bugs happen, they get fixed, but Microsoft has extended supporting for Windows XP until April 2014 and this came out over a decade ago already - again, support.
3. People who have interacted with me for support now that the product is commercial will tell you that it is unparalleled.
I mean, what type of support did you expect before from a freeware? Tea and biscotti?
Unparalleled? Amazing would be NetApp, unparalleled is 7 9's. I would never expect tea and biscotti (I prefer coffee, black, no sugar), but when I buy a product, there is an expectation.
The road to maturity requires a start.
When did we lose our faith in the garage start-up? For the little guy? Where has the passion gone? (picture me on my knees, hands dramatically raised toward the sky)
Ps., don't get me wrong. I expect criticisms. They are healthy and just part of the game.
I am just pausing to make a few clarifications/comments here and there. Outside of that, I have a plan and am focused on that plan.
If I am to shut some mouths, it is not by arguing with them. Rather, I just have to prove them wrong with sheer success.
/back to work...
Than bring on the success, bring the innovation, and I hope you do prove me wrong. My thoughts on software RAID are not changing, it is still the future, and even Microsoft is getting into the game. I was wrong to ask for FlexRAID's death in my original post, but taking the leap from "concept" to "retail" is not as simple as setting up a PayPal account and product registration.
Speeds aren't great, this is well known, but as you already said (which I wholely agree), it's going to work for many, if not most in my opinion. If you truly wanted top class storage ability and protection, you should be looking at ZFS (coutner answer is NZFS with no further information?). What FlexRAID has going for it is that it can run on top of Windows making ease of use finally attainable. Until Wnidows 8 comes along with the damn thing preinstalled.
Drivepool is really just a replacement for the Drive Extender that MS took out of WHS. As such, it just does pooling, and duplication-based file protection (inefficient) on WHS 2011. FlexRAID does parity protection (much more efficient, particularly for a large number of drives), variable levels of fault tolerance, and works on a multitude of OSs. If you are using WHS 2011 and don't have a lot of data to protect, it's probably a good choice. I've not used it since I'm on WHS v1, but I do use Stablebit Scanner, and like it. But if you have a lot of data, like a large media server, I don't think FlexRAID can be beat.
HydroSqueegee
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i was looking into FlexRAID and was 100% on board to use it in my WHS 2011 server. Then i found out it wasnt free. So i went the cheaper option of Drivepool. Im still in my 30 day trial, so no money has been spent yet, but its working out nicely so far. And to be honest, i dont really need anything other than a large pool of data with duplication. Its probably not the most efficient solution, but for simply wanting one large volume with some kind of fault tolerance, its quite nice.
I only have 2TB of storage. Maybe in the future i'll move to FlexRAID when i can set it up on 7 drives with one or two as parity. All my critical data will move into the cloud later this week as my backup solution.
I only have 2TB of storage. Maybe in the future i'll move to FlexRAID when i can set it up on 7 drives with one or two as parity. All my critical data will move into the cloud later this week as my backup solution.
For me snapshotting is the immediate future for the protection of my media storage - FlexRAID seems to be the one out front at the moment.
I don't hold out much hope for Win 8 - has none of the advantages of snapshot RAID as far as I can see. Still hassling the MS rep on my account as to why Win 8 storage spaces is so "badly" specified.
I don't hold out much hope for Win 8 - has none of the advantages of snapshot RAID as far as I can see. Still hassling the MS rep on my account as to why Win 8 storage spaces is so "badly" specified.
Wow! Don't hold back.
3. There is a final free version floating out there (albeit not supported)
Actually, I have purchased 2 copies of FlexRaid, as I wanted the storage pooling.
But can I know where I can get the non-supported free version that does not expire to do some testing?
/dev/null
[H]F Junkie
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Gluter will do this as well and will raid1 over the network, invisibly to the client. Unfortunately there is no 32-bit version & no windows version, BUT you can re-serve the gluster mounts with smb/cifs to windows clients and it works fine.
With that being said, there are a TON of free raid/pooling options available on Free OS's (can't speak for Windows as I don't use it on the server level). A lot of these have been "gui'd/applianced" to make it easier to use for non *nix people:
ZFS/iscsi = freenas/freebsd
linux raid = openfiler/linux
I'm sure you guys can find more examples...
I have been following flexraid for a while. I am even more interested in the nzfs solution he is talking up.
However, I haven't bought yet because I am waiting to see if he can manage to provide the support I need. Cost is not the issue, reliability and support when I need it is....
However, I haven't bought yet because I am waiting to see if he can manage to provide the support I need. Cost is not the issue, reliability and support when I need it is....
I just set up a new home server and had been leaning towards unRAID but was nervous about losing Windows because I was so familiar with it. I then noticed FlexRaid and was impressed by what it said it could offer so bought a copy of WHS 2011.
After reading this thread I am really unsure if I want to pay nearly £40 for software that is unfinished and could be outdated soon after it is purchased with NZFS. I have also read that the software is tied to the first machine it is installed on! What happens if this system is destroyed in a fire?
Are there any plans to keep this project going once NZFS is released? Does it get updated and supported? I am happy to pay for software that works and is reliable but I need to know that it has a decent lifespan!
After reading this thread I am really unsure if I want to pay nearly £40 for software that is unfinished and could be outdated soon after it is purchased with NZFS. I have also read that the software is tied to the first machine it is installed on! What happens if this system is destroyed in a fire?
Are there any plans to keep this project going once NZFS is released? Does it get updated and supported? I am happy to pay for software that works and is reliable but I need to know that it has a decent lifespan!
Cheers JoeComp,
I've seen SnapRAID mentioned but how easy is it to set up without having GUI?
EDIT: Just checked the link you provided and it turns out there is a GUI available! Do you have experience using it?
I'm installing WHS 2011 so if I could get SnapRAID to work I would use it alongside Drivepool. Total cost would be about £12.30 if this worked.
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