Slax author's Blog (RSS)
04
August2009
Slax Drive FAQ
It's just few hours since the latest Slax has been released and there are already several Slax Drive users. Moreover I received many questions abount it, so I guess I should explain it here a little more.
First of all, you are asking about the free storage limit. How much it is? Currently it is set to 30MB and it's for free for lifetime. There is currently enough disk space on the server so there is no expiration for free Slax Drives (even if not used for a long time). On the other hand, after some time, if the service is too popular and if there are not enough buyers, I may decide to delete old unused drives.
Next question I noticed at this blog is whether the payment $3.42 for 1 GB is for lifetime. No, of course not. All plan payments are for one month. I have to pay the server costs every month, so I have to get your money monthly too.
Another question is about backups. Currently there is no backup procedure implemented, since it would take some additional costs which I am not willing to pay at this time. I will wait for Slax Drive storage purchases. If there are (say) 20 people who buy at least the 1GB plan, then I will move the whole thing to a different server with RAID5, which provides perfect safety for your data. Does it mean your data are unsafe in your Slax Drive? Well, not in general, your data are simply stored on server's disk, and the probability of full harddrive failure is terribly low. Nevertheless, at this time I recommend you to take your own backups.
So as you perhaps already realized, if there are buyers and if the Slax Drive service is profitable, I am going to reinvest 100% of the money back into the service to provide backups, faster connectivity and bigger space for free users. If there are no purchases, the server has capacity for about 10 000 free users, then I would have to disable free registrations.
User comments
A couple of comments:
* I believe it's a very nice feature and will be usefull for the majority of slax users, once tweaked.
* It's slower downloading files from the slax-drive than it is uploading to it.
* Why cifs? It's slow over the internet as it designed for low latency networks.
* Please enable users to change their slax-drive password. It's not that practical to remember something like "asd74hHFh9"
What about using Slax Drive on other distros? Do you mind it? For example, is it OK to create a Slackware package of Slax Drive and post it, so Slackware users can connect to their Slax Drive?
Hi! I think slax drive is a wonderfull way to suppor, slax. I just signed on for my free test drive, but unfortunately I still can't use it.
Every time I try to log on, it refuses with error, about network ports open for my PC (80, 137-139 and 445).
I have a web server running on this same LAN, where I'm NAT'ed; besides that, I was thingking to use it on some places where opening pors to my private assigned Ip woudn't be possible.
I tried putting this PC on DMZ, and still, nothing. I'll look forward on forum, to resolve this.
I agree with Ivo, guidelines to set it up for other distros/OS would be great, personally I use CentOS for work and OpenBSD on my houme desktop.
Dude, has a point too; I would like to be abe to change my password. I can hardly remember the password I set my self :) imagine this: ijE38w hehehe.
Cheers!!!
Chaning password is a good idea. My first intention was to give you the same password like you have for your Slax Account (for website slax.org). But then I realized that I can't see the passwords, since there are only hashes in the database :)
Of course you can use Slax Drive on other distros. But it's a bit trickier than just using the mount command, since it has to do a HTTP request to actually get the server machine where to connect to (I implemented this for the future, since paid users may need to connect to a different machine (faster, better, etc) than free users. I will write a blog post about how to connect from other distros.
If you can't connect to Slax Drive from your network, then I really do not know how to help you. It would be great if you manage to workaround your problem and then share the method with me, so I could fix it (if the problem is on my side).
Thomas dear,
Thank you very much for your work and for the new version of Slax that works perfectly!
Concerning "Slax drive", impossible to access either via Windows or Slax. I have change my router to open ports (tcp or udp? Both?). I disabled the firewall temporarily. No results. No Connection. An idea? Thank you.
Thierry
Your idea seems wonderful. Is there any possibility to inclrease the limit upto 100MB?
Simply great. Ideal for my use. Is it possible to customize the password though? I would need to be rain man to remember all these damn passwords.
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fair enough, thank you !