Do we still need drive letters...?

[zzz2496]

Whew, another Indonesian

You don't discard old data...

You'll never have "enough" storage space

Harus banyak lah !!!

zzz2496

 

[VektaFrenzy]

Whew, another Indonesian

You don't discard old data...

You'll never have "enough" storage space

Harus banyak lah !!!

zzz2496

Glad to meet you.

Ahh, i think i know what you mean.

Why don't you get harddisk of server which could save terabytes size of data?
It's better than reading alphabet from A to Z and sorting them out one by one.

 

[zzz2496]

Whew, another Indonesian

You don't discard old data...

You'll never have "enough" storage space

Harus banyak lah !!!

zzz2496

Glad to meet you.

Ahh, i think i know what you mean.

Why don't you get harddisk of server which could save terabytes size of data?
It's better than reading alphabet from A to Z and sorting them out one by one.

I have one, now serving around 6TB of storage space It's a home made SAN box Which when it went online made me realize that I had ran out of drive letter to use...

zzz2496

 

[Tepid]

You can have almost unlimited number of folders compared to the very small 27 drive letters... Which then made me realize, Drive letters is an old legacy and Microsoft should have just leave it behind.

I guess I say what I say, due to the fact that there are huge companies out there that use all Windows Servers and PC's and don't have these problems. So, it's a matter of setting things up properly and using the right equipment. I just don't think there is a real need or out cry for change on this as Drive Letters still work.

With that said, could there be a better way of doing things? Yes.
But progress is a slow process sometimes.

 

[zzz2496]

You can have almost unlimited number of folders compared to the very small 27 drive letters... Which then made me realize, Drive letters is an old legacy and Microsoft should have just leave it behind.

I guess I say what I say, due to the fact that there are huge companies out there that use all Windows Servers and PC's and don't have these problems. So, it's a matter of setting things up properly and using the right equipment. I just don't think there is a real need or out cry for change on this as Drive Letters still work.

With that said, could there be a better way of doing things? Yes.
But progress is a slow process sometimes.

Indeed

Anyway, I was just saying It's not a "real" outcry, though you'll get a lot more flexibility by mounting the darn volumes onto folders...

zzz2496

 

[valtonray]

i've got to be honest i understand why this could be important to a few select users but the majority of the market has a long time before this becomes an issue.

 

[tbrg78]

Sorry to get this old thread up, but I could not help trying to open your eyes.. o)

No one really needs driveletters! It's the stiffest thing anybody can think of, when handling volumes and data.

I often insert usb-sticks or the like into several computers. On every machine that usb-stick comes up with another drive letter, how insane is that ?! Or you realize, the usb-stick suddenly "is" the network-share, because windows handles those letters badly.

I image something like this, I choose to name my bootdisk "win7" and can open a DOS-Box and type "dir win7:\windows". I could move the disk over to any other machine, and get the same output, because drives have "names" which are actualy used for something, other than just showing their label in the explorer drives overview.

Another example:
My usb-stick has the label/name "usb-travel:" and here applies the same. I open explorer.exe, on any machine that the stick is connected to and type "usb-travel:" and the content comes up. Individiually named volumes or media can be distinguished by their label very easily, for humans AND for the machines.

There is nothing against a "secondary" or more hardware-like identifier for each volume as known from unix/linux (but that win-style with GUIDed devices is quite unhandy).

To top things out, you could create virtual lables like "mp3:" and map them to any directory on your drives. So you say to winamp.exe, my mp3s are here in "mp3:". Whenever you change the real physical location of your music files, you just change that "mp3:" virtual assignment and there's no need to change any configuration in any tool.

You have another disk with mp3-files ?! No problem, use the virtual assignment "mp3:" and add to that assignment another directory, so you merge different folder contents into one virtual place.

All this has been done already and was of high use and acceptance on an operating system, which did not really survive the last 10 years, surely not due to this unique way of managing drives, files and their identification.

You need to open up your mind.. there really is not a single usecase where a driveletter is an advantage. In case you need to address the bootdisk directly, there would be a generic "sys:" assignment and no need for you or the computer to know the real bootdisk-label. Obviously all this kills any thoughts on limited drive-letters as well.

So, this is my first post here, i hope it wasn't the last.. o) I needed to post this, hoping future releases of windows create a much nicer experience than current versions do.. o)

 

[lehnerus2000]

Simple to use

Drive letters are simple to use.

I'm not a fan of pooled storage (for personal use).
How would you know where something was stored, if you mounted several drives to "mp3:"?
Which mp3s are on the HDD which is failing (and has to be replaced)?

One of the things that I really hate about Linux is manual mounting!
More Terminal typing (mkdir, mount, chown; repeat for each drive).

Volume labels can be handy though.
When I reconfigure my HDD layouts (e.g. buy a new drive) my Linux fstab file can automatically find the new partitions (if I use the same volume labels).

 

[Mystere]

I wouldn't mind if drive letters went away, but they have to be replaced with something else. UNC paths are one option. Mounting partitions in filesystems works fine for technically savvy users, but normal users get confused by it. It's hard enough to teach them that H: is stored on a remote computer, but when you bury it in your filesystem then it just makes things worse.

The old AmigaOS allowed you to create drive labels, so you would simply say HD1: or NETWORK: and that was pretty cool.

End users want seperation of their physical media, they want to know that they're coping files from one drive to another, not just one folder to another.

Even Linux and the Mac cause cd-roms, usb sticks, network shares, etc.. to show up as clickable units on the desktop.

 

[arkhi]

You can't assign drive letters on GPT disks, for one....

 

[logicearth]

You can't assign drive letters on GPT disks, for one....

Uhh what? I think you are mistaken.

 

[Layback Bear]

I don't really care what they use as long as it easy to use.
How about this, drive D1 partition, D2 partition, D3 partition.
C1,C2, ect.
26x 3= a lot.

 

[alphanumeric]

For what its worth, I have windows 7 set to not display them. I don't see the actual drive letters unless I open disk management. I don't miss them in the least.

 

[arkhi]

You can't assign drive letters on GPT disks, for one....

Uhh what? I think you are mistaken.

oh wait, yeah i'm wrong. i was trying to assign a letter to a protected gpt disk that's why.... never knew gpt can protect themselves >_<

 

[zzz2496]

I think, for now, "pool" data store is the most sensible way of managing storage space. This is year 2011, we should not care where we put something, how much free space does a particular storage device has, etc... When we use pool(s), all we need to know is this: "My total storage space is 10TB, free space is 2TB, used 8TB". With S.M.A.R.T and many other sensors we can more of less predicts which storage device in the storage pool that's going to fail in near future, and to use the volume manager to "move" the data off that dying storage device to another, and then remove the said storage device. When we add another storage device, we can add it to an existing pool, or we can make a new pool altogether...

It'd be a lot simpler...

zzz2496

 

[logicearth]

zzz2496, That is what RAID does. I have several rack storage slices, put a series of HDDs in, becomes one big glob of space. A drive goes bad, pull it out and put a new one in, without turning the machine off. The data gets reconstructed on the new drive. Automatically.

The best part? It doesn't matter what OS you run. Its all in the hardware.

 

[Mystere]

zzz2496, You don't care where stuff is stored?

Funny, but if I want to take stuff with me I certainly care. I can't just "hope" that data appears magically on my USB drive. If I want to access files on a CD-Rom i just put in, I damn well be care because otherwise i won't be able to find the files.

In general, perhaps we shouldn't care.. but there are many cases where you do.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Horses for Courses

I think, for now, "pool" data store is the most sensible way of managing storage space. This is year 2011, we should not care where we put something, how much free space does a particular storage device has, etc... When we use pool(s), all we need to know is this: "My total storage space is 10TB, free space is 2TB, used 8TB". With S.M.A.R.T and many other sensors we can more of less predicts which storage device in the storage pool that's going to fail in near future, and to use the volume manager to "move" the data off that dying storage device to another, and then remove the said storage device. When we add another storage device, we can add it to an existing pool, or we can make a new pool altogether...

The problem is that Windows 7 can't even remember where I told it to install to install programs (to be fair I have Indexing turned off).
Every month I have to manually search for a program, because Windows has forgotten the shortcut details!
If I let Windows look for the program, it takes stupendous amounts of time to find it (i.e. I can navigate to the location much faster, unless it is a system file).
The same is true with documents and pictures.

I have a hierarchical file structure (like a library) so I can usually go straight to the file I want.

You seem to be suggesting that a library would be more efficient, if the books were fitted with RFID tags and then strewn about at random.
To find a given book you just enter the RFID code into a scanner and then wander around the library waving it around, until you locate what you want.
I guess it would work if every shelf had a reader.

SMART doesn't provide 100% protection from failure.
Allegedly ~50% of failures are due to controller failures (which also affect SSDs).

"All SSDs do is replace a hard drive’s head disk assembly - the platters and heads - with a lot of flash chips. The rest of the stuff is the same - and that stuff accounts for about half of all drive failures."
SSDs no more reliable than hard drives | ZDNet

"The most common failure cause for the 7200.11 was faulty firmware, which would issue the error code "000000CC." This led the Storelab engineers to coin the term "CC fly" (tsetse fly). Faulty drives would slow down and subsequently die after rebooting."
Typical Failures And Data Losses : Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

zzz2496, That is what RAID does. I have several rack storage slices, put a series of HDDs in, becomes one big glob of space. A drive goes bad, pull it out and put a new one in, without turning the machine off. The data gets reconstructed on the new drive. Automatically.

If you are using RAID with data protection (e.g. RAID 5) you have a reasonable chance of getting your data back.

The best part? It doesn't matter what OS you run. Its all in the hardware.

I still see debates about which is better (hardware or software RAID).

Funny, but if I want to take stuff with me I certainly care. I can't just "hope" that data appears magically on my USB drive. If I want to access files on a CD-Rom i just put in, I damn well be care because otherwise i won't be able to find the files.

I agree.

 

[zzz2496]

zzz2496, You don't care where stuff is stored?

Funny, but if I want to take stuff with me I certainly care. I can't just "hope" that data appears magically on my USB drive. If I want to access files on a CD-Rom i just put in, I damn well be care because otherwise i won't be able to find the files.

In general, perhaps we shouldn't care.. but there are many cases where you do.

The "3 years ago" me, will care where I store my data. The "right now" me, no... Not really. With the advent of advanced filesystems like ZFS, ext4, and many volume managers, I don't care where my data is stored. If you read my posts on this thread, you should read that the mess I got my self into is because my over micro management of partitions and volumes... I still have 2 MS dynamic disks still running storing several hundred GB of media files...

As for external devices, I'm not saying that those external devices (USB sticks, external DVD/CD/BD ROM) must join the pool... No. For those devices we can always use other means to label them. For me, it's the "mount to an NTFS folder" method, because it doesn't have the twenty some letters limitation.

Volume managers these days when paired with S.M.A.R.T or any other storage device sensors, should be able to predict a failing device. With HDDs ranging in TBs, it should NOT be my business to know what is stored where... As long as my volume managers tells me all is good, then all is good. If one device is failing, it will tell me by blinking the disk's cage indicator, and automagically move the data off that failing disk, complete with reports of what data didn't survive the rescue attempt and what did, along with the recent backup of the said lost data... That would be my ideal system...

zzz2496

 

[zzz2496]

zzz2496, That is what RAID does. I have several rack storage slices, put a series of HDDs in, becomes one big glob of space. A drive goes bad, pull it out and put a new one in, without turning the machine off. The data gets reconstructed on the new drive. Automatically.

The best part? It doesn't matter what OS you run. Its all in the hardware.

Hi logicearth, nice to read your posts again I haven't been active in the forums lately

In the nitty gritty detail, yes, RAID functionality is what I'm aiming for, but without RAID's limitation. If you tried ext4 + LVM + Linux RAID or ZFS, a bulb will light up in your head. RAID is at the block level, this is 2011, no one should worry about block level anymore, there's LVM, there's Veritas, there's ZFS, there are many other volume managers out there... I, especially, doesn't want nor need to manage my data store pools right now, I've off load them to several FreeNAS boxes over iSCSI with 1000BaseT network with teaming, currently pushing at close to 190MB/s sustained throughput. It simplified my data store almost in every level... I've attained SAN flexibility with NAS's price with FreeNAS. In RAID, you can't have a "snapshot", a point in time snapshot of your data. I can do snapshots with ZFS, I can freeze a volume while it's online, make a snapshot out of it, and backup the snapshot. The underlying construct of ZFS is indeed RAID based technology, but on the upper levels, it's all brand spanking new tech (I grin ear to ear when I understand the concept).

zzz2496