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So basically, you'd "copy" a file on an external harddrive, plug it out and then have a surprise when you'd notice that the file isn't actually there when you g

by Mavrik 15y ago

So basically, you'd "copy" a file on an external harddrive, plug it out and then have a surprise when you'd notice that the file isn't actually there when you get to another computer? Because cross-device copying is the only place where this operation is slow, with modern HDDs all other operations are instantanious for all intents and purposes. Good idea but you really should have put more tought on it.

thisisfmu 15y ago
Why let the exception case (removing an external drive quickly) ruin the main use case? going forward it seems reasonable to assume ubiquitous network connectivity, so you can simply treat external drives as a cache and show a non-modal alert "please reconnect for sync, expected to finish within X minutes" iff the amount of data synced is large enough to matter via a 3G connection.
- hnhg 15y ago
  Because it is such an important case, and it's not as exceptional as you think.
- ori_b 15y ago
  Because it's not really the exception. I rarely copy or move files except when I want to transfer them to a USB key. Otherwise,they mostly stay where I created or initially downloaded them to.
yason 15y ago
Describing an end-user experience doesn't need to account for all the details in the first sketch. But pending sync is one of the easiest ones to handle. You obviously unmount or decouple your external drive in software first and that's a good place for the operating system to inform you that: Ongoing I/O for your USB mass storage device. Wait for completion before unplugging. And if there are many parallel I/O streams going on and this dialog is invoked, automatically prioritize anything that's being copied to the external hard drive first so that the user can unplug it as soon as possible.
- sid0 15y ago
  You obviously unmount or decouple your external drive in software first You do? I'm often too lazy to.
  - sp332 15y ago
    I used to just pull it, but a half-dozen missing and corrupted files (one of which was a final project for a class in college) trained me out of that habit.
- AndrewDucker 15y ago
  You obviously unmount or decouple your external drive in software first You haven't met most users, have you?
  - ams6110 15y ago
    Precisely. How many users do you know who "safely remove" thumb drives, and how many just pull them out of the USB slot?
- encoderer 15y ago
  But there's a whole class of problems here, not just removing an external drive. I'm at my friends house, copying files from a network share over his wifi. I'm copying from mounted network shares at home over the internet. I'm putting files on, or pulling them off, a USB stick. If copy turned into the feature you described, there would have to be a 2nd "no, REALLY, copy" command. Hardly a step forward. That being said, there's no reason it couldn't work the way you describe if the system knows it's copying to/from local physical discs.

by Mavrik 15y ago

thisisfmu 15y ago

Why let the exception case (removing an external drive quickly) ruin the main use case? going forward it seems reasonable to assume ubiquitous network connectivity, so you can simply treat external drives as a cache and show a non-modal alert "please reconnect for sync, expected to finish within X minutes" iff the amount of data synced is large enough to matter via a 3G connection.

hnhg 15y ago
Because it is such an important case, and it's not as exceptional as you think.
ori_b 15y ago
Because it's not really the exception. I rarely copy or move files except when I want to transfer them to a USB key. Otherwise,they mostly stay where I created or initially downloaded them to.

yason 15y ago

Describing an end-user experience doesn't need to account for all the details in the first sketch. But pending sync is one of the easiest ones to handle. You obviously unmount or decouple your external drive in software first and that's a good place for the operating system to inform you that: Ongoing I/O for your USB mass storage device. Wait for completion before unplugging. And if there are many parallel I/O streams going on and this dialog is invoked, automatically prioritize anything that's being copied to the external hard drive first so that the user can unplug it as soon as possible.

sid0 15y ago
You obviously unmount or decouple your external drive in software first You do? I'm often too lazy to.
- sp332 15y ago
  I used to just pull it, but a half-dozen missing and corrupted files (one of which was a final project for a class in college) trained me out of that habit.
AndrewDucker 15y ago
You obviously unmount or decouple your external drive in software first You haven't met most users, have you?
- ams6110 15y ago
  Precisely. How many users do you know who "safely remove" thumb drives, and how many just pull them out of the USB slot?
encoderer 15y ago
But there's a whole class of problems here, not just removing an external drive. I'm at my friends house, copying files from a network share over his wifi. I'm copying from mounted network shares at home over the internet. I'm putting files on, or pulling them off, a USB stick. If copy turned into the feature you described, there would have to be a 2nd "no, REALLY, copy" command. Hardly a step forward. That being said, there's no reason it couldn't work the way you describe if the system knows it's copying to/from local physical discs.