Hacker News Reader

Comment by room505 | Hacker News Reader

None of these cloud storage companies seem to provide a very important feature I can never seem to find in their documentation - file locking. It's the one feature missing that keeps us from using cloud storage.

View on HN

File locking and remote storage go together like fish and bicycles, sadly. It's impossible with detached-operation cloud systems and only somewhat supported on LAN fileserver systems.

Hey there! Do you mind explaining the use case in a bit more detail?

In the architectural industry, we use AutoCAD drawing files that require only one person to open and edit the file. Most cloud storage options don't lock the file when it's being accessed. Other people are able to open and edit the file and therefore the cloud software doesn't know which file was the parent holder and instead updates the file based on the most recent changes.Even Microsoft's Dynamic Cache Service doesn't have a file locking feature. Therefore we need to use something called GlobalScape.

Sounds like architects need a DVCS for CAD files :)

This is the space things like solidworks EPDM are trying to service.

You could try Panzura or Nasuni. They both have file locking and are targeted at use cases like you describe.

AeroFS does allow you to share folders in a read-only way, so that only one-way syncing takes place. If only one user is authorized to edit a file, I think this should work for your use case, no?

My 2 cents: many file systems do not have a file locking feature that can enforce file locking. In unix-like systems, file locks (e.g., lockf(3)) are "advisory" rather than mandatory, meaning it's up to the higher-layer apps to check whether another program has locked a file and voluntarily stop.

Any apps that do implement this feature likely do so by making the original file read-only and having the first app that opens the file work on a copy. However, I think Windows may have a mandatory file locking mechanism.

Sounds like a job for a version control system like perforce (it deals well with large binary files, supports locking and is free for up to 20 users)

That's because it's async. You want to use Samba (or whatever the Windows version is called) for that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com