Hi all,
We are ready to release a beta version of Allmydata 3.1 which has some caveats (below) and the following major features:
- Integrated backup client to select files and directories to backup on a scheduled basis
- Browse and recover files from backups using the virtual drive
- Improvements in file upload speed
We really like this release and have been using it a lot internally for our own files and backups. We now have several millions of files backed up for tens of thousands of users with more coming every day. Note that this is a beta release which means there are still a few problems to be worked out. The ones we know about are:
- If you select the C: drive to backup, it will select open network drives as well, so please unselect those or otherwise you will back up your computer and everything else it can see on the network (which could almost be a feature!).
- If you select the top level “My Documents” to backup, the backup client will crash. This has to do with backing up special files in Windows and we are working on a fix as I type.
- The very first time you start the backup client and set up some files/directories to backup, you will have to go to the Services manager in Windows and start and stop the AllmydataManager service. This is because it doesn’t know where to look for the backup script if there isn’t one. We are working on a fix for this as well.
- To get use of the new backup client on an existing system, you will have to open up the Allmydata Preferences and click the “Restore Defaults” button.
To install this over an existing installation, please shut down Allmydata, uninstall the 3.0.4 (or earlier) version, and then install the 3.1 Beta. Remember to open the Allmydata Preferences and hit “Restore Defaults”, otherwise it will still point to the old backup client.
Any bugs, questions, or comments can be posted on our forum or emailed to support at allmydata dot com.
Thanks and have fun!
Peter
July 23rd, 2008
Hi all,
Sorry if you experienced any availability problems, but we experienced DNS problems today. Due to a typo in a configuration file, we had unknowingly been using our secondary DNS for the last little while. Today our ISP that provides service to that secondary DNS had some outages which ended up affecting the availability of some of our servers if the names weren’t cached.
All should be back to normal now, and we will be deploying a fix for the typo, noting that sometimes those changes take a little while to propagate.
Peter
July 22nd, 2008
Hi all,
Sorry for the long time expanse between posts, but we’ve been busy. In the near future we should be releasing our new backup client which will replace the existing Windows integration. It is significantly faster than the backup client that comes by default with the Windows operating system and works better with our back-end, most helpfully by not uploading any files that have already been backed up. In addition, we will have some web changes coming out and a Facebook client as soon as their new API settles down.
I’m really looking forward to this new release as it will be a very efficient way of backing up personal and small business computers.
Talk soon,
Peter
July 18th, 2008
Hi all,
Recently we’ve released a few updates to our 3.x product, finished our migration, and updated our website. We’re starting to get some good traction with new users, and the underlying storage system is scaling well with the load.
The latest releases (up to 3.0.4) have fixed a few small problems and added a couple features. For example, you can now switch users on the Windows client and you can modify the upload cache size. We fixed a bug with unicode character handling, and improved the network interruption handling for the Windows client. In our next major release we will be adding significant new features around backup and sharing.
The migration process officially finished over two weeks ago. If you have any issue relating to that, please let us know at support@allmydata.com . We moved a few TB worth of data and it is now safely stored in our new 3.x storage grid along with the data from our new customers (thanks!). We will be re-deploying our hardware to the new 3.x storage grid over the next couple months and look forward to building out a new co-location site as well.
Last, we’ve updated our web client with a nice preview feature for images. We plan to add some previews for other types of documents and files (pdf, audio, video, etc.) so look for those to come out over the next couple months as well.
Back to work - let us know if you have any new ideas!
Peter
June 6th, 2008
Hi all,
We’ve just released Allmydata 3.0.4 which fixes a couple unicode problems on both the web client and the native Windows client. This is not a mandatory upgrade, but if you do envision using unicode file names, it would be best to upgrade.
Thanks,
Peter
June 4th, 2008
Hi all,
We’ve just updated the Windows client with the ability to switch accounts and also with the ability to control your local upload cache size (in Preferences).
We’ve also updated the web client to have image preview and we’ve tidied up a few other things on the site.
We’re working hard on the Mac client and a couple other projects and look forward to announcing them soon!
Peter
June 2nd, 2008
We’ve just released an update to our 3.0 version - Allmydata 3.0.2. This version has the following updates:
* Improved virtual drive behavior under network interruptions
* No longer need to give permission on Vista every time the application is started
* Limit the log file sizes to 5MB
Note that we still have a problem saving the meta-data associated with certain types of files (usually videos). This is due to a secondary file stream “feature” that some programs use on Windows, so we are working on supporting that as well.
Talk soon,
Peter
May 19th, 2008
Hi all,
I posted a bit over a week ago that we were going to shut down the 2.x service on May 15th. We decided to give people a few more days just in case they forgot, but as of this Wednesday May 21st the 2.x service will no longer be accessible. If you need any files after that or feel your migration isn’t complete, just let us know and we can dig through the old data.
Also, we are about to release 3.0.2 which will fix a couple issues where you had to open up ports 139 and 445 on your firewall (SMB) in order to get the service running. We also removed the need for Vista permissions on every run, though you will need to accept them the very first time you install.
Talk soon,
Peter
May 19th, 2008
Our first pass at migration is 99% complete. This means that we are getting ready to shut down access to the 2.x storage network. We will then run a last quick pass over it to catch any last minute changes, and then we will shut it down fully.
Any problems, questions, or concerns, let us know!
Peter
May 13th, 2008
We are getting closer to the completion of migration. Remember that we will go over all of the accounts once more when this is done to make sure that nothing was missed.
Talk soon,
Peter
May 7th, 2008
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