future plans for interface?

[bwcook]

This is a very good product. I like the fact that it is free for personal use as now that I have been able toe xperiment with it at home I would recommend it for projects at work. I do have a suggestion for the future. Using this program with a raid 5 array and image files would be comparable to a SAN array with multiple logical drives on an array. It actually has advantages to the SAN array in my opinion in the area of flexibility, and especially price. Also, it could be just as reliable if you build it on the right hardware. The one thing the storage devices have over this is interface though. Do you have plans in the future to add something similar to HP's array configuration utility, where you could add logical "drives" in the form of image files, manage their sizes, delete them, etc. The mkparse utility works but a full blown snap in for MMC or a web console would make this a truly great product. Another advantage you could advertise over the SAN device solution would be an integrated disk management/scsi router interface. For example with a cheap fiberchannel solution + storage router with iSCSI support I have to deal with 2 different interfaces from 2 different companies and it isn't always easy to get them to play nice together.

Thanks for an innovative and useful program.

BWC

[anton (staff)]

Yes, we have big plans about changing interface. It would be Web-based GUI very soon, current Win32 only control panel is expected to be dropped. Also a lot of features would be added (mostly safe data management related).

Also licensing policy would be changed. We'll still have "free for non-commercial use" licenses available but everybody would be forced to register. B/s right now too many people do not pay money even if they are supposed to do.

This is a very good product. I like the fact that it is free for personal use as now that I have been able toe xperiment with it at home I would recommend it for projects at work. I do have a suggestion for the future. Using this program with a raid 5 array and image files would be comparable to a SAN array with multiple logical drives on an array. It actually has advantages to the SAN array in my opinion in the area of flexibility, and especially price. Also, it could be just as reliable if you build it on the right hardware. The one thing the storage devices have over this is interface though. Do you have plans in the future to add something similar to HP's array configuration utility, where you could add logical "drives" in the form of image files, manage their sizes, delete them, etc. The mkparse utility works but a full blown snap in for MMC or a web console would make this a truly great product. Another advantage you could advertise over the SAN device solution would be an integrated disk management/scsi router interface. For example with a cheap fiberchannel solution + storage router with iSCSI support I have to deal with 2 different interfaces from 2 different companies and it isn't always easy to get them to play nice together.

Thanks for an innovative and useful program.

BWC