Licence & single/dual computer

[Destry]

From your license info, I'm assuming I need a dual license (A$129) because 2 CPUs are involved ; in my circumstances, this is a bit steep and will constrain what I need to do, so I need to confirm this by way of explaining my system as it might be borderline. I should have got an opinion before buying the new hardware in January but I was blind to it at the time. And I don't want all that money to have been spent unwisely. But, yeah... my fault.

• I have an extensive hobby digital collection (comics) from many countries. Tens of thousands of individual books, many/most of which are bundled in series.
• My hardware experience is not so good ; I've lost hundreds of GBs in the past due to disk failure. I need a backup copy of everything (cardinal rule #1 of collections).
• I tried external solutions with HDDs housed in caddies, connected by USB, with incremental backups managed by Windows' own Sync Toy software. It went fine for some months but then the USB seemed shaky and more HDD content lost (with $$$ wasted on imperfect recovery).
• So I was forced to consider backups on internal drives ; but cardinal rule #2 of collections is that backup be stored away from the main copies (in a Swiss Bank vault or something).
• I compromised and decided to go for 2 PCs physically connected to each other with dedicated cables : the Main-PC that holds the original copies of the books and a Backup-PC that stores the backup copies (nothing more than cloned directories). Then, some software (perhaps Dopus Synchronizing) would backup new additions on the Main-PC to the Backup-PC at regular intervals (probably every 12 hrs).
• The 2 PCs sit beside each other, on the same desk, with 20cms of daylight between them, and both are operated by me alone. I don't use/have a laptop -- otherwise the laptop could presumably function as the backup machine and be used legetimately as well with the single license. It's not an option anyway because I need many TBs of storage and I've got no money for it.

• So, in effect, for 95% of the time, the 2 PCs (CPUs) function as 1 PC (CPU), doing the same work, with extra internal HDDs located "externally" in a PC instead of a caddy. I only need to run the Back-Up PC as a standalone occasionally, to ensure that everything gets backed-up correctly and is working without errors stuffing up the backups. Obviously, since Dopus is my chosen File Manager, I'd like to use it on the Back-UP store as well, on those rare occasions.

So, can a GPSoft guru confirm whether or not a dual license must be used, or if single is ok in these circumstances (it's all private hobby stuff, no business or income-generating use at all)?

[Leo]

Two separate PCs requires two licences (unless one is a laptop for personal use, which doesn't apply here).

If the second PC exists just to store backups, does it need a copy of Opus? It sounds like it would just be a file server.

If the two machines are in the same physical location and the main one has network access to the backup one's disks, then I'm not sure much is gained by having those backup disks inside the main PC. Separate backup machines in another physical location are good in case of theft or fire. Drives which cannot be accessed from the main machine are good in case of viruses or similar corrupting the data (file permissions can also help, in a single PC setup, so the normal user account has no write access to the backup areas, as can drives which are only physically mounted at backup time). But neither of those is happening here, so there's little gain to the second PC that I can see, and it's costing you for the extra hardware, OS and software licences.

I use a SATA drive caddy myself, which lets me slot a HDD into the front of the machine for backups. The drive is connected directly to the motherboard, no USB involved (although USB drives are fine as long as you don't have USB driver issues and use USB 3.0 for speed). The drive is physically removed after each backup so the data cannot be modified.

[Destry]

Hello, Leo
Thanks for your reply.
I suspected dual licenses were required, regardless of how the 2nd PC was used. But I asked because I don't see why laptops are so special in themselves that they alone get a free hit, regardless of their use.

"If the second PC exists just to store backups, does it need a copy of Opus?"
I wanted the backups to be scheduled and handled automatically, rather than me needing to manually load backup HDDs to do the job (as you seem to do with your caddy). That way, the sync could be done every "x" hours in the background.
That setup is already acquired now so I can't go for another solution.
As often said, I'm not a technie and rely on advice from others as to what I do.

Issue #1:
The other thing about it is that I was hoping to transfer the Dopus folder properties with the folders as they are backed up.
Without knowing if it was do-able or not. And I avoid asking a lot because it seems that the questions I ask are so basic that only an idiot wouldn't know the answer.
eg. because folders of individual "titles" are either "complete and finished", incomplete and finished" (missing issues), or "ongoing" (series not finished), and I intend colour-coding the folders on the Main-PC in that way (making it easy to see what's missing and what's not, etc.). Just doing that will require a massive effort on those tens of thousands of folders. But I'd like the backup to preserve that property when backing up.

If that is possible with Dopus (I don't know if it is), then I'd expect that Dopus would need to be on the Back-up PC to store those colour-coding properties. If I ever need to rely on the back-up files to restore some, most or all the collection on the Main-PC, I sure wouldn't want to have to do all that coding again because the back-up folders didn't have their colour-code preserved. But if it isn't possible, shouldn't it be? The Back-up PC's hobby files need to be a mirror-image of the Main-PC's hobby files and be able to be exchanged seamlessly, if needed due to loss.

Issue #2:
If I must convert my single Pro license to a dual Pro, I sure don't want to do it now if I have to re-pay for everything again with Windows-10 (if I get it) later. So, can you tell me if it's intended to have Dopus 12 released for Windows 10 at the same time as the O/S retail is released? If "no", any idea when Dopus-12 will be out?

Obviously, techies can arrive at better solutions to do things than I can. But this is my solution. I am who I am.

Thanks.
I hope it's ok to ask this extra stuff here because, for me, it's all 1 issue.

[Leo]

If the backup tool you choose copies the NTFS metadata as well as the files themselves, the folder labels should be preserved. (You also need to backup your Opus config, although if that is lost it's still possible to restore the labels, just more work.)

(Actually, this depends slightly on the settings you have under Preferences / Favorites and Recent / File and Folder Labels, so it might be worth posting a screenshot of that for us to advise on.)

Windows 10 is still an unfinished operating system and Microsoft sometimes made large last-minute changes, so we can't guarantee anything about it at this stage, but reports are that current versions of Opus run fine on current beta releases of Windows 10.

[Destry]

Thanks again, Leo.

The requested screenshot:

If you are suggesting that the Opus properties (colour, in this case) are stored in the folder's metadata, and :
• (via scheduled Directory Opus Synchronize) back-up of a folder from the Main-PC (with Opus installed) to the Backup-PC (without Opus installed) preserves the formatting so that...
• later importing the folder back into the Main-PC from the Backup-PC allows the folder to be displayed by Opus with its correct colour-coding (without any further intervention)
then that would solve all my problems, Leo.
ie. my collection can have everything I (currently) want for it with just the existing single Pro license.

I note that (in the above screenshot) the Labelled files and folders: box does not list all the colour-coded folders that have been set with that label like my previous incarnation of the colour preferences used to do. But that's fine because there'd be tens of thousands of those, eventually. And what's listed doesn't match the actual label that's highlighted/selected (02 Missing issues) above.
As long as I could, say, change the setting (eg. uncheck the Bold property) and have all those particular folders automatically tweaked from bold to regular, then that does the job for me.

Just in case you needed to (as well) see the creation of the original (empty) Context Menu colour menu that those choices populate :

(I thought Windows 10 retail was "promised" for end-2015, which is why I mentioned it).

[Destry]

I did a quick check of Dopus metadata... and I expect these labels would be "Non-editable properties" and are supposed to be shown in the Metadata pane.
But there doesn't seem to be anything stored for one of the folders I colour-coded?

Sorry for all the bother.

[Leo]

Apart from that one Y:\Downloadtemp folder, that means all the labels are stored in the filesystem. That's good. (For that one folder, if you remove the label and then re-add it, it'll probably move to the filesystem. I'm guessing the label was added a long time ago in an old version of Opus. It's also possible the Y:\ drive does not support NTFS metadata, however.)

I would not recommend trying to schedule the Opus sync tool. It is designed for interactive use and isn't well suited to automated background syncing.

Labels aren't part of the metadata panel, at least at the moment.

[Jon]

No one will get too upset if the computer you use the free laptop licence on isn't actually a laptop

[Destry]

"No one will get too upset if the computer you use the free laptop licence on isn't actually a laptop".
haha.
Well, thank you very much, Jon.
I do think that 1 man's laptop is another man's desktop.

But as Leo points out, I may not need Opus on the Backup-PC anyway and for the moment I'm going with that. I'll do it that way if I possibly can.
I've just hit a couple of potholes. Or maybe speed-bumps.

Ok, current status of my bumbling:
I applied the labels to all internal drives on the Main-PC.
The drive name indicates what they are: C = SSD, M = Seagate, rest = HGST 3TB Deskstar 0S03662.

Of those 4 HGST 0S03662, the labels appear to be "stored in the filesystem" for 2 drives (F, G) but not for the other 2 (T, Y).
Note that:
• they are new PCs (Jan 2015)
• all the HGSTs are new (purchased Jan-Feb 2015, manufactured during 2014)
• NTFS is the file system used on all.
• all are formatted with the GPT scheme (3TB).
• all screenshots are from the currently used Opus v11.13 x64.

As all 4 HGSTs are the same model and capacity, there must be another, Opus-specific (?) reason why the label wouldn't get stored (in the filesystem) with a backup in the T & Y cases.

Anything I can do to try to find out why?
If I can't solve this, then my whole backup strategy (and investment) is gonna get vapourised.

Thanks for any help.

[Leo]

Maybe the folder permissions in T:\ and Y:\ do not let you modify the folders ("Current viewing" and "DOWNLOADtemp") themselves.

Right-click the drives and compare the Properties -> Security tabs for, say, G:\ and T:\

[Destry]

Hey, Leo

Thanks very much for your latest suggestion.
I checked the permissions at the drive level as you specified but I can't see any difference between G and Y.
But it supplied the clue (problem at the folder level).
The back-story is that :
T: all the content on T was copied from older drives onto the new HGST so the files/folders brought their attributes with them.
Y: some of the content of Y was copied from older drives but the main culprit (DOWNLOADtemp) was manually created by myself in Opus as an empty folder and then populated with downloads... so that's an anomaly / exception to the rule.

Anyway, the problem folders are those with the Read-Only attribute set... see Attr column in the screenshot below.

I can easily clear those in the Metadata Pane and it fixes the problem (Yes ! I went through the testing process).

Wikipedia says : "Read-only: When set, indicates that a file should not be altered. Upon opening the file, file system API usually does not grant write permission to the requesting application, unless the application explicitly requests it. Read-only attributes on folders are usually ignored." -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_attribute
From the above tests, it seems that -- while the Read-Only attribute on folders may be ignored for data purposes -- "R" is taken account of when metadata changes are involved and will stop changes if the attribute is set.

Sadly, I've been reading a lot of tales about Windows setting Read-Only for no apparent reason, after folders/files had the attribute cleared for years. That happening is my biggest (potential) problem (because I'm a pessimist). I'll have to be vigilant. Sometimes I fear Windows might reverse the earth's poles (then I'll wake up in the northern hemisphere).

Ok, I need to test the backup process next to ensure that I can backup a folder to the 2nd PC and then read it back into the Main-PC and expect to find the label intact.
My head hurts right now but I'll do that over the coming days.

Thank you very much for taking the time to assist me, Leo.
I'm happy with the outcome so far.

Big thanks to Jon as well for the generous "concession" (I hope I don't need to take it up).