PowerFolder folder sync limitations?

[Jiro]

Hi all,

I have been going through the official documentation and searched for posts on this forum, looking for information about the "green area" that PowerFolder is intended to work fine in when it comes to number of files. Though I have not found what I'm looking for, which is why I write this post.

Some history first. I have over the years tested the free version of the software every now and then and I must say that with version 3 I have been impressed enough in buying a bunch of licenses for the Pro version to make more extensive tests with larger and more files.
The focus of the software is just what I have been looking for in a software, to in a creative way both share files to off-site computer(s), but also as a way to create redundancy of data in my local network.

What I'm at now is to create mirrors of folders on my local network. Setting up "Backup (Source)" on one side and "Mirror" on the other computer. Within in the range of about 10,000 files (places in several subfolders), PF performs just nicely. Even if there are several thousands files in one subfolder. I'm still running the version that has problem with showing the correct number of files/percentages, though I have made sure enough that the folders are copied correctly.
Though getting up in range of 30,000-50,000 files, it seems that it somewhere stops to synch files between the computers or doing so very slowly. I have set the synch time from 5 minutes up to 1 hour on both sides, thinking that PF probably will need that time to complete the synch process with that number of files. Though no better result there.

So, I'm I pushing the limits here for the software?
Should I limit the number of files by putting the files in several folders to be synched? (Though I don't what to do that!)

As a number of these folder that I want to synch are pretty static when it comes to files being changed, I though I'd give PF some help to start with, so I made a manual copy of the folders to the second computer and then set up PF to synch to that same folder. This expecting PF to understand that the files are already synched up and can continue from there on. But I got the impression that it didn't really get that.

So, does PF take in account for any files being in the second computer (acting with the "Mirror" profile) folder from the start, or will just disregard them and only keep track of files that are actually synched by PF.

Regards,
Jiro

[Hannibal]

Hi Jiro,



So, I'm I pushing the limits here for the software?
Should I limit the number of files by putting the files in several folders to be synched? (Though I don't what to do that!)

I sounds, that you have reached the standard memory limits of PowerFolder. This is a restriction of JAVA and can currently only be changed by editing the PowerFolder.l4j.ini or starting PowerFolder via command line.
HOWTO: http://wiki.powerfolder.com/wiki/Memory_configuration



So, does PF take in account for any files being in the second computer (acting with the "Mirror" profile) folder from the start, or will just disregard them and only keep track of files that are actually synched by PF.

PowerFolder detects existing files and skips the transfer of these.
But this can also be problematic if you have reached the memory limit.

[Jiro]

Thanks Sprajc for the quick feedback on my questions! It seems that your suggestion were spot on, as extending the maximum memory limit got all the files to synch just nicely. And upgrading to version 3.1.1 I got the file statistics to show the correct numbers of files in my PF folders. Nice!

Though upgrading PF on my server (Windows 2003 64bit) got me into a new problem. Once I have upgraded PF, everytime I start the software I can only see it in the Task Manager as a process, not as an application. I let it stay there for some time (a couple of hours), and then suddenly get the small dialog telling me there is already a PF started. If I press ok, I will end up with two processes. I do not have any PF service running, it's not in the list anymore. I tried to reinstall again, but came to the same result. Any suggestions? I guess I'm ok with the answer that 64 bit environment is not supported. ;)

Regards,
Jiro

[Hannibal]

Though upgrading PF on my server (Windows 2003 64bit) got me into a new problem. Once I have upgraded PF, everytime I start the software I can only see it in the Task Manager as a process, not as an application. I let it stay there for some time (a couple of hours), and then suddenly get the small dialog telling me there is already a PF started. If I press ok, I will end up with two processes. I do not have any PF service running, it's not in the list anymore. I tried to reinstall again, but came to the same result. Any suggestions? I guess I'm ok with the answer that 64 bit environment is not supported. ;)

Does PowerFolder start after you reboot your computer?

[Jiro]

Does PowerFolder start after you reboot your computer?

Yes, that is actually what it does. After each reboot, PF is there as a process. It seems to use the normal amount of memory. But it's not connecting to any of the other PF clients, as it is shown as offline for them. I'm pretty sure that I removed the option to start when Windows start. Anyway, it's there without me starting it.

[Hannibal]

Please check if PowerFolder is running as system service:
- Start PowerFolder and go to Preferences / Pro Settings / System Service: Press uninstall.
- Check under Windows system settings / Services if there is a PowerFolder service. If yes disable it.

[Jiro]

Please check if PowerFolder is running as system service:
- Start PowerFolder and go to Preferences / Pro Settings / System Service: Press uninstall.
- Check under Windows system settings / Services if there is a PowerFolder service. If yes disable it.

The simple answer to why PF started when the computer started was because it was placed in Start->All Programs->Startup. When I removed PF from there, it didn't start. So that one is solved.
But as mentioned before, I cannot see PF in the list of services (Computer Management->Services and Applications->Services) anymore after the upgrade to version 3.1.1. I have been testing running PF as a service in version 3.0.2, but last time I touched it I set it to "Manual" and stopped it. As I have been running the above tests with synchronizing folders, I wanted to monitor that by running PF as an application. But now it's all gone.

And as I said before, I cannot get PF to show up as an application. Everytime I start PF it ends up as a process that I can see only in the Task Manager, so the application never shows up. So I'm unable to change any preferences in PF.