Introduction

As a hybrid Cloud storage solution, some common practices used with local storage can cause issues with Morro Data.  This document will briefly cover some of these situations.


Browsing Inside Compressed Files and Folders

Compressed files and folders are stored as a single file in the Cloud.  The entire file needs to be downloaded to the CacheDrive to get the filenames and directory structure, which can mean unintentionally large downloads and slower than expected performance.


Content Indexing for Search

To index the contents of a file, the entire file must be downloaded to the CacheDrive.  If content indexing is enabled for a directory or share, then all of the data in the directory or share may need to be downloaded from the Cloud.  Searching by filename or metadata can be done safely.


Large Frequently Modified Files

Large files that are frequently modified should not be used with a CacheDrive, such as live databases and high resolution videos for editing.


Uploading Large Quantities of Data While a Pre-Fetching CacheDrive is Offline

While safe to do, the offline CacheDrive may have a huge downsync queue to work through when it is brought back online.  This can affect performance and syncing until all queued downloads have been completed.


Using Cold Spare Devices or Unmapped Drives in Spare Devices

If you have an extra CacheDrive for redundancy, always keep the spare device online and in sync with critical shares.  Booting a device that has been offline for an extended period of time can make shares on that device unavailable until a long sync process is completed.  Unmapped shares cannot be mapped without downloading all of the metadata for the filesystem, which can also take several hours or more.  If a spare device needs to be made available immediately when needed, then it's best to keep it online and in sync at all times.