Epoch like filesystem

[Rodney Peck II]

In article <QAX%GY^@rpi.edu> I said:
>
>The easy way would be to do a find of the tree and make things that are
>really old into symbolic links to the new file system on the optical
>disk.  Could be a shell script?
>
>I'd like to hear what you think of this idea -- I'm planning to try it
>out once our jukebox arrives (we're getting the 10 platter 1 gig/platter
>version). 

Well, after extensive and tiring flipping through the trade magazines and
calling dealers, I found out some more information.  10 disk 600meg erasable
disks are very popular and are standardized.  The 1gig isn't and is only
made by maxstor.  It could be completely non-interchangable inside of a
year.

also, the 10 disk jukebox normally comes with no software to let it work
reasonably with the filesystem.  For example, consider what happens when
you have say, 6 platter sides mounted and a sync command comes along.
Remember that there is only one disk drive, 10 disks, each with two sides,
and it takes an average 6 seconds to mount a side.  could be a big performance
problem there since update sends out sync commands all the time.  So, 
most of the vendors don't have support software, just the jukeboxes.

A company that I would like your comments on, sells a package that has
a jukebox, and some caching software that handles all the filesystem stuff.
It takes up 30 or so meg on your machine to work as the cache and directory
space for the jukebox.  It keeps track of all the files in the library
including disks that aren't in the machine at that time.  So, you could have
any amount of data appear to be present on the filesystem.  Requests for
files on disks in someone's desk cause mount requests to the operator to 
be made.

The software allows for security type things to prevent users from reading
files that aren't theirs and all of that.

The system doesn't move older files off the main filesystem like epoch does,
however.

Basically, this seems like a decent package -- does anyone have any horror
stories to share about this company (R squared)?  The whole thing comes
to $17,000 including 10 disks (a $2000 value) and the software and they
fly out to install it.


-- 
Rodney