I checked out the project, saw "July 22" and automatically assumed it's yet another dead project. Glad to hear it's being worked on!
Can we set up our own "cloud" server? I assume that would be as simple as getting a server somewhere and running the software on it. Related: Do you have a CLI alongside the GUI?
You can definitely setup your own "cloud" server just by running the software, but we don't have a CLI just yet. This is fairly high on the to do list though, as there's been a lot of interest in that feature!
Would love to see that tided up because then this becomes a mechanism for distributing files to the cluster super easy for my "normal end users", plus the cloud benefits illumin8 is referring to.
Aerofs/Yuri have been very responsive and friendly on mail support, i like that a lot!
Thanks guys, and keep up the good work!
Yuri, what i am missing is some way to mark a directory to sync with the cloud. Usecase: I have some Windows directories in c:\users\xxx\ that i'd like to keep in sync. Obviously i can't link them to the aerofs-drive..
And now, to the 64bit linux version.. ;)
EDIT: To be clear, I didn't mean 'simple' as in easy to implement or trivial or any other negative sense. But more in a functional goal sense, like 'uncomplicated'.
So, for example, the total data stored and accessible in the system can exceed the local storage size of any individual participating node?
What's the performance like? (A sync service will be as fast, or slow, as local storage, but a distributed system can be a lot faster, or slower.)
How are you handling it when nodes which were previously added to the system are unavailable? For example, a user with a desktop and a laptop who stores a pile of data on the system, what happens when the desktop is off? Do you have control over what data is available on the laptop, and what happens when you try and access data which is currently unavailable?
Regarding offline computers: if the only computers that host a file are offline, the file data will be unavailable. Currently, offline files are invisible in Finder/Explorer/etc. Because the current system only supports full replication, having offline files should be a rare case.
Regarding performance: it's crucial to us. Lots of efforts has been made (and even more to be made) to ensure the filesystem has comparable performance to local storage; sync performance is another area that we invest a lot of time in.
I suppose this is a good opportunity to let you guys know that the project IS very much alive and kicking still, and we've just released a new set of invites today (which I suppose is why we got posted to HN today, thanks!)
We've been very busy with coding and work, which is why we haven't really been updating the blog, but if you have any questions I'll be happy to continue answering them here
edit: FYI, the original discussion is at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1538731