Ok, since releasing our last blog post, we have had a flood of emails regarding some of the features seen in the demo video. So I though I would take everyone through some of the screens seen in the demo, and detail what each feature does. I should also note that this post was written a while ago, and I’ve only just got around to publishing it… so some info may be a little out dated.
First we have the connection tab, this basically allows you to connect to a specific cloud service.
For the most part, the options here are provider specific, except :-
1) Cloud connection: This is the connection (or provider) that will be used for this connection.
2) Connection name: Simply a name you give this specific connection instance.
The next tab is the placement rule tab. This is where you can define how Cloud Xtender places files on the cloud services you have added.
The key options are :-
1) Placement rule name: Simply a name you give this specific rule.
2) Placement selection: This determines how Cloud Xtender distributes files between the different connections. There are currently 4 options :-
- Single connection: This simply writes all files to the specified provider (or when * is specified, the first provider)
- Multiple connections, cascade (default mode): This writes to the first connection in the list (if * is specified in the list, then the order is based on when the connections were added). Once that connection’s usage reaches a pre-set level, the next connection is written too… and so on. It should be noted that some cloud services do not have a fixed storage size (aka Amazon S3 etc), in these cases Cloud Xtender allow you to set an arbitrary fixed size.
- Multiple connections, free space: This writes to the connection with the most free space.
- Multiple connections, percentage of free space: This writes to the connection with the highest percentage of free space.
3) Cloud connection: Here you can add/remove connections that are to be used by the placement selection (previous option). You can specific individual connections, and the order, or you can use a wildcard that will use all existing, and any new connections added in the future.
4) Connection sync method: This allow you to define how files are sync’d against the connection(s). The options are :-
- Mirror: In this mode, Cloud Xtender monitors the local file and syncs any changes to the cloud connection. In the mode there is a local and remote file maintained, although any changes made against the remote files will not be detected.
- Remote: In this mode, Cloud Xtender maintains a ghost image of the remote file, so there is no local file (Cloud Xtender caches some portion of the file for a period). If this file needs to be modified, then you can request this file to be pulled down (see the Mirror -> Remote mode) via File/Folder management. Simply find the file, right click and select “Cache locally for a limited time”
- Bidirectional: In this mode, Cloud Xtender monitors the local file and remote files, and syncs between the local machine and the cloud connection. In the mode Cloud Xtender needs to monitor the cloud connect, and as such this mode can impose a network load (the frequency of the checking is determined by the next option).
- Mirror -> Remote: In this mode, a files starts out in Mirror mode, then after a period, it is changed to Remote mode.
The final tab is the files/folder management tab. From here you are able to assign specific folders to specific placement rules, query a files to check it’s sync status, resync the file (in either direction) and you can even request a file to be cached locally for a period (for files sync’d using the backup mode). I should note that all this functionality is also available directly from Windows Explorer.
Finally… we are close to the beta release. Our intended date slipped (surprise surprise) because of a number of bugs in one of the providers, however we have now got on top of these and are close to a beta release.
Oh… and we have unified our Twitter accounts, to get the latest news on Cloud Xtender, PoolHD or Drive Bender, follow us at @_divisionm_