MOVING files between Drive Pool Folders. (instant? or delayed copy/delete?)

JazJon

Once M3 with native location support is ready, i'm  going to have to move several TB's of Videos from "\\MEDIA\Videos Pooled" to "\\MEDIA\Videos"

In WHS V1, (if I recall) every time I had a remote desktop session into WHS I noticed one file move transfer speed behavior.

 

If I moved files between folders using shares \\MEDIA\VIDEOS it was MUCH slower than if I went into \Shares (or what ever it was, I forgot already since I'm on 2011)   My theory was WHS V1 had to copy the file through some loopback network across the actual local network to itself in some convoluted MS way..

To prevent this slow file MOVE, I always went into \ directly.  This way a move was INSTANT since I was moving data around on the same drive letter.

In WHS 2011/Drive Pool, we have no physical drive letter to access Drive Pool data. (again, when remote desktop'd in)   That means we have access the share name directly \\MEDIA\Videos Pooled (example)

I'm hoping the latest WHS 2011 is smart enough to over come my perceived V1 move speed issue. (network share vs drive letter/folder).

So again,

Will MOVING files in the Drive Pool from one folder to another folder be instant?  (or will it be a slow copy/delete process?)

Example, say I want to move a file from \\MEDIA\Downloads Pooled to \\MEDIA\Videos Pooled
(again being logged into the actual server via remote desktop)

Will it be instant or slow?

If it is instant, would it be instant if initiated through a share from a windows 7 machine?   (does the location info pass through so windows is smart enough to move the file quickly instead of copy/delete)

Thanks!   Drive Pool beta is great so far.  I'm enjoying a large single share once again.

Alex

Under the covers, DrivePool uses MoveFileEx function with MOVEFILE_COPY_ALLOWED set.

This means that the file will be moved quickly if it's on the same volume. If the file is being moved to a different volume then it will copy / delete it.

When DrivePool picks pool parts it does not consider moving speed. We can leave this optimization to M4.

Also, there is srv2 to consider. This is the kernel driver that acts like a proxy for UNC network access. In other words, if you do a move from \\HSERVER\PoolLoc1\File.big -> \\HSERVER\PoolLoc2\File.big the actual move command is issued through the network, arriving at srv2 on HSERVER. Srv2 then passes it on to DrivePool. Hopefully srv2 says move and not copy / delete (I'm pretty sure it says move).

Will tackle this later in M4

Shane

As of build 1914, "moving" files between DP's pool shares still does copy/delete rather than direct-move (tested both on server and on a Win7x64 Premium client).