Caching network-aware filesystem?

Mark Komarinski mkomarinski at wayga.org
Tue Feb 24 15:19:28 EST 2009


Hopefully the rise of netbooks will make this question a bit easier to 
answer, but here goes.

I just returned from a trip where I took close to 1000 pictures with my 
cameras.  My Dell mini was a real trooper during the trip, but there's 
only so many photos I can store on it before it starts to run out of 
space.  What I would *really* like is the a filesystem that can:

-Be network aware.  If I can get to the server, automagically connect 
and display what is available
-Have a sense of caching, so if I'm offline or on a slow connection, I 
can still load data on to it and have it sync up later.
-Be smart about what files to keep cached.  If I use a file, load it 
locally and then remove it from the local cache if unused after some 
period of time (or the local cache gets filled with new content)
-work over ssh or equally 'secure' manner
-Be something other than coda or intermezzo.  Neither are well supported 
or apparently in use anymore, though both appeared to be exactly what I 
was looking for.  I'd love it if someone could correct me on this.

My current method is to use sshfs to mount a remote directory to my 
Photos directory and import files using F-spot.  At least it sorts files 
by date and can export to Gallery Web, though any other use of that 
software is worthless.  Using sshfs takes care of part of it, but if I'm 
off the network or on a very slow network, it is not very useful.  For 
this purpose, I'll be reading from multiple locations, but writing from 
only one at a time, and I'm only using two cameras (each with their own 
unique file naming format) so concurrency and handling conflicts should 
not be an issue.

On a side note, this idea would work for other types of media as well, 
such as loading music or movies to a local system before going on a trip.

Any thoughts?

-Mark


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