Drive Bender

Experience Level: Medium

Drive Bender presents multiple hard drives as a single pool of data storage, either as a logical drive letter, or a network shared drive. Drive Bender is able to do this with internal and USB (or any externally) connected hard drives, of any size.

Drive Bender also provides the user with the ability to seamless expand their storage pool by simply adding a new drive. Adding a new drive expands the pool by the size of the new drive. Drive Bender also offers a merge capability, allowing users to take a drive that contains content, and merge that drive (and content) into the pool.

To further ensure data safety, Drive Bender can automatically duplicate any file added to a Drive Bender pool. File duplication is determined at the folder level and occurs on the fly as data is being written to the pool.

Developer: Division-M

More: Download

Release History

v1.3.1.0 (9th May 2012)

• Bug fix: When deleting a pool, the dashboard may not refresh correctly.
• Update: When adding a pool, the newly added pool is automatically selected.
• Added: Introduced a start-up specific log file. This captures all start up logging and ensures it does not get deleted during log rotation.
• Update: Improved file balancing algorithm.
• Update: The way duplication is handled when moving a folder within the same folder tree has changed. For details please visit support.drivebender.com
• Added: Better support for slower connecting drives (i.e. USB drives). Drive Bender will now wait for these drives to connect for a period of 2 minutes.
• Bug fix: If none of the drives within the pool are connected at start up, the loading of the mount point will no longer be aborted.
• Update: Improved mount point conflict resolution.
• Bug fix: You were not able to change some key properties if user security was enabled.
• Bug fix: Remounting of networked mount points.
• Added: Automated release license request option under support.
• Bug fix: Issue with user security and session time out resolved.
• Bug fix: The progress screen in the WHS addin may not close at start-up.

v1.3.0 (24th April 2012)

• Update: New Windows and WHS interface.
• Bug fix: File count feature could report the incorrect number of files.
• Update: Minor health monitor improvements.
• Bug fix: Networked mount points are non-writable on Windows 2008 R2.
• Update: If a drive removal process fails, the drive is no longer mark with an error. The pool will continue to operate a normal.
• Added: Drive swap feature. This allows a pooled drive to be swapped out with a new drive.
• Update: Smooth Stream performance improvements with high volume, small file reads.
• Bug fix: The drive removal process could fail with a “not enough free space in the pool” error.
• Update: Thin provisioning has been implemented.
• Bug fix: Folder rename and delete functions can fail on a folder marked for duplication.

v1.2.5.0 – Beta 4 (10th March 2012)

• Bug fix: During an upgrade from v1.2.x, it is possible that a drive could be added to the pool more than once.
• Update: Check disk feature is now available to volumes.
• Bug fix: An exception can occur during drive removal causing the final process (pool validation check) to be aborted.
• Bug fix: A number of minor file balancing issues including file count tracking.
• Update: Improved handling of queued tasks.
• Bug fix: Under certain conditions the driver can deadlock.
• Update: File read / write performance improvements.
• Update: Drive Bender licenses can now be deactivated.
• Update: License manually activation is now supported.

v1.2.4.5 – Beta 3 (12th February 2012)

• Known issue: The drive format option has been disabled due to a last minute bug.
• Update: Pool configuration and validation has been improved.
• Update: The restore from drives feature has been improved.
• Bug fix: Drive letter mount points will mount even if one or more drives is offline.
• Update: A pool remains in read only mode until all drives are on-line and ready.
• Bug fix: When adding a raw (unformatted) drive, a “drive unrecognized” error can be thrown even if the format option was selected.
• Update: When a drive is removed from a pool, the file are no longer copied, but are now moved from the drive to the pool.
• Bug fix: When removing a drive, an error can be thrown on completion.
• Bug fix: If a drive goes offline, or is offline at start up, files could still written to the pool even though the pool is in a fault tolerant state.
• Update: Improved fault tolerant detection and handling.
• Bug fix: A number of WHS addin / Manager interface updating issues.
• Bug fix: Lockup issue when Smooth Stream is enabled.
• Update: Many improvements to the Smooth Stream feature.
• Update: Enabling and disabling folder duplication has been improved.
• Bug fix: File count statistics count sometimes report an incorrect duplicated file count.
• Bug fix: It is possible that threads scheduled to wake at a specific time fail to do so.
• Update: NFS is now natively supported.
• Bug fix: A number of driver related issues have been resolved.
• Update: Improved reparse point handling.
• Update: Improved folder deleted functionality.
• Update: Improved folder rename functionality.
• Bug fix: Adding a mount to a new pool can result in the desired configuration no being completed.

v1.2.1.6 (12th November 2011)

• Bug fix: During the duplication process (i.e. enabling duplication on a folder) could cause a file to have its read only flag removed.
• Bug fix: The file / duplication count for a pool can sometimes read zero.
• Update: Some performance improvements on file duplication.
• Update: Some performance improvements on file / folder renaming and deleting.
• Bug fix: The Drive Bender Manager does not display changes in mount points.

v1.2.1.5 (9th November 2011)

• Update: Implemented the “Pool setup wizard”.
• Update: Fully integrated help system.
• Update: Documentation has been greatly improved.
• Bug fix: A number issues with add, merge and convert a drive have been fixed.
• Bug fix: Creating a folder now implements the requested attributes against the folder.
• Bug fix: The health monitor could take a very long time to perform a single pool scan.
• Update: The amount of I/O generated by the health monitor has been greatly reduced.
• Bug fix: A number of minor interface and server issues.

v1.2.1.4 (26th October 2011)

• Bug fix: Minor memory leak occurred when the WHS dashboard was open.

v1.2.1.2 (25th October 2011)

• Bug fix: The WHS addin could crash the dashboard if the local users is not the user that it was installed under.
• Bug fix: Under some specific circumstances, file renaming could fail or cause access denied errors.
• Bug fix: The Drive Bender Manager and WHS addin now update correctly if the state of a drive within the pool changes.
• Bug fix: The license messaging system now reports any licensing issue much better.
• Update: The add and remove mount points feature has been improved to provide better feedback.
• Bug fix: A number of minor interface and server issues.

v1.2.1.0 (14th October 2011)

• Update: Transaction are no longer persisted between restarts (this was causing a lot of ongoing issues, mostly with users migrating from older versions).
• Bug fix: The handling of remote Drive Bender servers is now working correctly for duplication, running task, notifications and logs.
• Bug fix: The duplication window now updates correctly after a change to the state of a folder.
• Bug fix: Merging and converting a drive now removes all existing Windows drive letter before the operation. This helps to ensure no files / folder get locked again if a reboot is required.
• Bug fix: Coping / moving a file to the pool could result in the destination files having it’s attributes striped.
• Bug fix: The health monitor is less likely to be interrupted resulting in better file monitoring and file count statistics.
• Bug fix: The health monitor thread is now slower executing, resulting in even less (no) load on the server.

v1.2.0 Release Candidate 1 (4th October 2011)

• Update: New user interface for both the Windows and WHS clients.
• Bug fix: Balancing operations could create a locking issue if there was a file / folder rename or delete request.
• Update: All drives are now checked at start up and an alert is raised if there is one or more drives missing from the pool.
• Update: Drive letter management is now fully implemented (this automatically removes and adds drive letters to drives added and removed from the pool).
• Update: Improvements to adding, removing and merging of drives.
• Bug fix: Improved duplication when enabled on existing folder.
• Update: Orphaned Drive Bender temp files are now cleaned up.
• Bug fix: Logging no longer stops when there are a large number of entries.
• Bug fix: Installation of blank license key is no longer allowed.
• Known issue: Documentation was omitted from this release due to time constraints. This will be supplied in RC2.
• Known issue: The unmanaged pool mode is disabled. Because of the “feature freeze” for RC1, this is still incomplete.
• Known issue: The list view in the WHS addin is not grouping by default. To manually group this view, right-click the view and select “Group”, then “Drive type”.

v1.1.6.1 (27th July 2011)

• Bug fix: Mount points could attempt to load before the required Windows services have completed starting. Prior to v1.1.6.1 this could cause the service to become unresponsive.
• Update: The pool no longer validates duplication when adding a drive (the exception here is if going from one drive in the pool to two). This improves the speed of adding a drive to the pool, and ensure that adding multiple drives does not cause continuies pool validation.
• Big fix: A number of interface fixes.

v1.1.5.9 (25th July 2011)

• Update: Changes to the way DB reports a pools total space. Mount points are now reloaded when the pools total space changes (changing this without remounting the mount points could cause Windows to dismount the mount point without warning).
• Update: Unexpected dismounts of a mount point are now captured, and If possible the mount will be automatically restored.
• Update: Much improved read / write performance when there is heavy I/O.
• Bug fix: Video streaming (with Smooth Stream disabled) no longer stutters if there is are write operations being performed.
• Update: Client logging information improved.
• Bug fix: Drive removal now works correctly.
• Bug fix: Internal file copies can now write to read only folders.
• Bug fix: Creating a new pool and adding drives could leave the mount in a read only state, this is no longer the case.
• Bug fix: Removing a drive could fail on some files because the destination location was the drive being removed.
• Bug fix: Read / write rates are now correctly reported.

v1.1.5.2 (27th June 2011)

• Bug fix: A deadlock could occur when heavy IO was happening. This would cause the service to appear to lockup (and the pooled drive to go offline).
• Bug fix: Validation could attempt to validate a folder that no longer exist.
• Bug fix: Smooth Stream was over allocating RAM during heavy IO activity.
• Bug fix: A number of memory leaks fixed.
• Bug fix: The merge dialogs, select path option no longer throws an error.
• Update: A number of internal changes that have made the pool more responsive.
• Update: Improved feedback during adding, merging, converting and removing a drive.
• Update: The add and merge drive functions now have the option as to weather or not to renamed the volume.
• Update: Many other interface bug fixes and enhancements.

v1.1.5.1 (23rd June 2011)

• Bug fix: A number of minor code changes to fix potential lockup and service crashes.
• Bug fix: The un-installation routine now correctly restores service dependencies.

v1.1.5.0 (21st June 2011)

• Update: A new version of the WHS 2011 addin.
• Bug fix: WHS client backup could sometimes fail, this has been fixed.
• Bug fix: Drive balancing no longer balances Drive Bender specific files.
• Bug fix: Windows update no longer fails (permission issue fixed).
• Update: The drive merge functionality has been improved.
• Update The drive removal functionality has been improved.
• Update The drive add functionality has been improved.
• Added: Drive convert feature to convert an existing non pooled drive into a pooled drive.
• Added: Option – Smooth Stream. This is file read caching to improve file streaming performance (default = disabled).
• Added: Option – CRC file validation of duplicated files (default = enabled). Disabling this reverts to file size validation.
• Added: Option – Log level. The specifies the amount of logging taking place (default = none).
• Added: Option – Drive balancing. You can enable / disable balancing as required (default = enabled).
• Added: Option – Drive renaming. When adding a drive to the pool, it is now renamed to make its use obvious (default = enabled).
• Added: Option – Drive letter management. Allows Drive Bender to manage drive letters for drives added to, and removed from the pool (default = enabled). Note that due to a bug, this feature was disabled prior to release.
• Bug fix: Renaming and deleting files and folders should no longer fails with errors.
• Bug fix: Recycle bin support have been fixed.
• Bug fix: Remove Windows assigned mount points (i.e. drive letters) if there is a conflict with a Drive Bender mount point.
• Added: Pool recovery feature. This can recover a pool (or pools) from connect drive without any configuration information (to be uses with OS re-installs etc)
• Added: Pool configuration repair. Drive Bender now validates and repair broken configurations.
• Added: WHS running tasks and notification windows (full WHS notification integration to come).
• Known issue: Fault tolerant mode (i.e. when a drive is missing from the pool) is still not displaying duplicated files (will be fixed in the next update).
• Known issue: The WHS move folder feature throws an error (to be fixed in an update).
• Known issue: The opening of web links from the getting started tab are opening on the server, not the client.
• Known issue: Documentation incomplete.

v1.1.4.1 (7th June 2011)

• Bug fix: Under high CPU usage, a number of file system errors could occur. This bug also effected other areas of the application, and could have cause a number seemingly unrelated issues. This bug has been known to cause :-Sync / copy applications displaying errors with some files.
  WHS client backups failing.
  WHS backup service crashing.
  Client applications / services crashing.
  Memory leaks on large file transfers.
  Drive Bender slow down after a period of time.
  Excessive C drive usage due to the large log files being generated.
• Bug fix: Deleting a file can sometime leave an orphaned duplicate file.
• Update: Log files are now limited in size.
• Issue: On occasions a deleted file will NOT go to the recycled bin.
• Bug fix: Restarting the Drive Bender service could sometimes cause the service to hang.
• Update: Drive balancing and health monitoring now pause during heavy read / write activity.

v1.1.4.0 (4th June 2011)

• Bug fix: Named streams support was inadvertently enabled in the last build (feature was not ready). This could cause duplicate names to appear in the pool file system. This feature has been disabled.
• Under heavy loads, a request for a file handle could sometimes fail.

v1.1.3.8 (1st June 2011)

• Updated beta license to run until mid August.
• Improved Manager feedback during long tasks.
• Drive balancing has been enabled.
• The Drive Bender log files now rotate.
• Bug fix: Running an exe from a drive letter mount no longer causes an error.
• Bug fix: Save Office files to a shared folder no longer causes an error.
• Bug fix: WHS backup database cleaning now completes successfully.
• Many other bug fixes and enhancements.

v1.1.3.3 (May 19th 2011)

• Much improved file read performance.
• Windows based network shared (i.e. shares creating on folders contained within a drive letter mount point) as now restored correctly upon reboot.
• Drive letter mounted pools now show up and work correctly within the WHS “Server Folders and Hard Drives” tab.
• WHS server folders can now be created on a drive letter mounted pool.
• Drive letter mount points now support WHS client backups.
• Drive letter mounted pools now have full recycle bin support.
• Applying and removing duplication can now cascade to child folders.
• Improved file / folder renaming.
• Bug fix: Renaming a folder twice could cause the rename to fail if the name was previously used.
• Bug fix: Removing a duplicated folder was not working correctly in the WHS adding.
• Bug fix: Renaming a file could cause a duplication file to be created.
• Bug fix: Fixed recycle bin corruption bug.
• Bug fix: Adding drive was causing an error in v1.1.3.2
• Many other bug fixes and enhancements.

v1.1.2.8 (12th April 2011)

• Bug fix: The health monitor no longer checks outside of a pool mount path.
• Bug fix: Drive removal can now remove drives even when flagged with an error.
• Added pool rebuild / repair feature. This will repopulate a pool with duplicated files from a missing missing or failed drive. This will also remove the bad drive from the pool.
• Improved handling of file security and file attributes.
• Bug fix: A pool restart could cause Drive Bender to deadlock, this issue has been resolved.
• Bug fix: A Drive Bender WHS addin crashing issue has been fixed.
• Bug fix: Removing a mount point no longer corrupts references to other mount points.
• Drive Bender Manager interface improvements.
• Drive Bender WHS addin interface improvements.
• Bug fix: Drive Bender Manager node selection now enabling correct options.
• Added partial support for WHS shared folders to the WHS addin (see http://www.drivebender.com/whsbeta1).
• Improved start up performance.
• Many other bug fixes and enhancements.

v1.1.2.6 (3rd April 2011)

• Bug fix – Resolves Windows Explorer lockup issue
• Improves error handling

v1.1.2.5 (2nd April 2011)

• Bug fix: The Drive Bender WHS addin crashing issue has been fixed.
• Bug fix: File security is now handled correctly.
• Bug fix: BSOD issue with XP fixed.
• Improved duplication speed.

v.1.1.2.1 (26th March 2011)

• Bug fix: The Drive Bender WHS addin can cause the dashboard to crash when starting. We have now made this more robust, and included more debug info should a crash occur.
• Added pool instance management to WHS addin.
• Added drive merge to WHS addin.
• Added a driver utility application. This can be used to determine if the Drive Bender drivers are installed correctly.

v1.1.2.0 (21st March 2011)

• Many bug fixes and enhancements.
• Windows Home Server 2011 addin.
• Add drive to existing pool enabled.
• Merge drive into an existing pool enabled (disabled on WHS addin, please use the Manager if you wish to perform a merge).
• Remove drive from a pool is enabled.
• Folder duplication enabled.
• We have included a console output application. This can be accessed from the interface of the Manager.**
• Bug fix: The Manager now starts up correctly after being shutdown while minimized.
• Bug fix: Fixed a number of long file name issues.
• Bug fix: We have fixed a number of bugs that were preventing some third-party file managers from working correctly.
• Bug fix: The health monitor could start looking outside of the pool.
• Important – Please see “Points of note” in the Drive Bender Walk Through PDF for information on known issues and workarounds.

** This feature is intended solely for beta testing and will be removed from the final release.