Drive Bender v2 beta program

Over the years we have run an open beta program for each Drive Bender release… this has, and has not worked. Let me explain.

Drive Bender is a product that deals with one of your most precious resources, your data! To install a beta product to handle said files is a tough ask, and we understand this. However there are a number of users that have suitable redundancy, or specialized environment(s) that allow them to test beta versions of Drive Bender, and our plan is to harness and focus on these users during the beta development phase. So we have come up with the “interactive beta program”. The idea being that there will be a limited number of users that will have a dedicated forum, and more direct access to the lead developer on the project… err, me! So how do you get in?
1) Well first and foremost you need to ensure you are not installing the beta on the machine that contains the only copies of your family photos that go back 100 years! FYI – We do not release anything that we do not consider to be “file safe”, however this is still beta code.
2) Next you need to be happy to test specific areas of functionality and provide feedback.
3) Finally you need to be a little technical, although each beta release will come via an installer, there may be instances where we need to upgrade one or two components manually. This will simply involve copying files to a specific folder and starting the Drive Bender service.

Additionally we are encouraging these users to provide feedback on features and usability during the beta phase.
If you are keen, log a support ticket at http://support.drivebender.com and ensure you select “DBv2 beta programs” from the type of request list, also include the operating system you intend to test upon, and your full name in the description field.

As I mentioned, this is going to be limited to a small number of users, however for those that miss out or are not interested in taking part, don’t worry, the beta will still be made available to all users regardless.

So what is the release schedule? Beta 1 is set to be released on the 8nd of October and will have the following new features
1) A number of major internal upgrades with regards to file duplication and file system health monitoring.
2) The ability to add networked (UNC) drives into the pool.
3) Phase 1 of the new interface.
4) Landing zone, the ability to specify a drive that files get written to, then redistributed around the pool at a later time (this has been added after a number of requests). Note because of the late addition of this feature, it may not make it into beta 1.

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