Eraser 6.0.7.1893 - an "improvement", really?

R

rola

New Member
So I am trying this thing, and I fail to see how it's an improvement.

In fact, several key features that I loved from 5.8.8 are gimped and gone.

#1 - Estimated time to completion of a free space erase is no longer available.

#2 - Multiple erases simultaneously, not available? In 5.8.8, I could erase 1 file, while erasing free space on several drives. Now I have to wait 1 at a time? This makes no sense. Why wait for 1 physical drive, when the other physical drive needs erasing?

#3 - No option window popup? I liked to change my erase settings depending on what I was erasing... now I have to go in settings every time?

#4 - Erase move feature = removed? Why?

Now, it's claimed that Eraser6 has lots of bug fixes, improvements, etc.

Dare I ask what they are? Eraser 5.8.8 never crashed, allowed me to do all the above, and I don't see any "improvements" (new features) that have been added?
I'm obviously considering reverting back, as it seems 6.0.7 needs a ton of work to get back to the level it was in at 5.8.8 ... Is there any particular advantage to why I should stick with 6.0.7? If so, please share cause I don't see it.

I can manage without most of the above, but not being able to simultaneously erase multiple folders/drive like I used to, cause now it works in a 1-at-a-time queue system is the part that's really killing it.
 
Old news dude. You're frying up leftovers. Try using the search before you post. I think the new ver was a re-write for certain programming reasons.

In any event, the bottom line is if you don't like it you can use 5.8.8. It's free, so you've already gotten your money back on your purchase. Enjoy.
 
Old news or no, Eraser 6 is a bottom-up rewrite, because (1) the code base had become too messy to be easily maintainable (2) the Windows security model changed pretty radically from Vista on, and the old code was falling foul of the new security restrictions.

As compared with Version 5, I personally find the interface more flexible to use and less error prone. I particularly like the way in which a complex erase (e.g the set of files and folders associated with browser clutter) can be set up as a single task, which can have its own erase method. But there are features of Version 5 that I miss - a complete Command Line Interface, for example, and, yes, the more informative progress and task completion information. I hope that these features will be progressively reintroduced as the volunteer programming team, at present mainly just Joel I think, continues its work.

The key thing now is to find a way of working Eraser that doesn't require tasks such as free space wiping to be run in administrative mode, and which prevents the crashes (or less than graceful exiting) that can happen at the end of a wipe when the target drive is full. Joel has, I believe, made significant progress in identifying the problems, of which there are quite a few, and the associated solutions. Just as version 6.0.7 represents a significant improvement in stability from its predecessor, I hope that 6.2, when it is released, will be another step up.

Unlike the previous poster, I think it is entirely reasonable to ask whether version 6 is an improvement, but, in the end, I prefer to regard it as part of a continuing process of necessary change rather than as an upgrade. Eraser still does what it does better than any other program I know, and it's still free. Versions 5.7 (needed for Windows 98) and 5.8.8 (still very usable with XP) are still downloadable from Sourceforge, so users have a choice. My own advice would be to exercise that choice only if you are still running XP; for Vista and later, I think that Version 6, particularly as it develops, will be much the better option.

David
 
I'm unsure what the OS has to do with it.

I'm on Windows 7, and I don't see why version 6 would be a "better option", particularly when for all intents and purposes it's exponentially slower. (Version 5.88 can do multiple erases at once, version 6... one erase at a time.).

You can imagine that when I'm trying to erase 5 hard drives, how the time spent will be wasted, With 5.88, I can set them all to erase overnight and wake up to a wiped drive, but for version 6, this will take several days!!

I just want to make sure that I'm not using Eraser6 incorrectly. It can't erase multiple files at once, correct?? Cause this is key, without it there's no point in having this.

Thanks
 
In Eraser 6, you can both run multiple tasks at one go (select the tasks, right click and select Run), and add multiple items to a task (in the task editor, invoke Add Data for each item you wish to include in the task). So it can be used as you wish; in fact, it's more flexible in this respect than Eraser 5.

I've never done a free space wipe on multiple drives, but it should be possible. Now you've asked, I'll test this when I have the time. My only reservation relates to the fact that Eraser does not always complete a free space wipe, or exits from the process less than gracefully (I had this happen with Eraser 5 under Vista also). Joel is working on the problem; he's already fixed some issues, and I hope he will have a full fix soon.

How often do you wipe free space? There have been claims that doing this frequently shortens the life of the drive, though I am not aware that these claims have been convincingly documented.

David
 
Please try it, I can't do it. It only does 1 thing it a time, it's really draconian.

It doesn't just relate to free space, it's for every file.

Ie: if I go into D-Drive, and right click a 8gb file to erase, it starts working on it. Now if I go to E drive, and mark a small 5KB file to erase, it queues it, now If I go to C drive and do Free Space erasure, it queue's it, now if I go to F drive and mark a 2gb file for erase, it queues it.

Erase 5.88 would do ALL of that at once.

There's no option to "Run" the task while one is already running.

Please try it and provide a screenshot if possible so I know something's wrong on my end.

Thanks
 
I never tested Version 5 in quite the way you describe, but my recollection is that it worked in exactly the way Eraser 6 works; you invoke a task, it completes it and goes on to the next one in the queue. Once a task is in the queue and as you would expect, no further user action is needed to start it. Eraser 6 (as is its wont) is a bit more explicit about this than Eraser 5, but that's hardly being draconian.

Adding a task to the queue while another is running (which you have done) is tantamount to running the second task, except in one respect. You cannot change the running order of a task once queued. I don't know whether this is possible in Eraser 5; I never felt the need to try it. What does seem slightly odd is that you can only cancel a task when it is running; you cannot remove it from the queue. This would seem to be a desirable feature; maybe Joel would like to comment.

David
 
I think your recollection is a bit off...

This is what happens:

Eraser 5.88

- User goes to "my computer", right clicks a drive (let's say C drive), and chooses Erase Space, a window pops-up and you see the progress bar of it erasing.
- User can now go to another folder, right click a file (size is irrelevent), and choose Erase, another window pops up with progress bar and you can see it's erasure progress.
- User can now go to another folder, right click a file (size is irrelevent), and choose Erase, another window pops up with progress bar and you can see it's erasure progress.
- User can now go to another folder, right click a file (size is irrelevent), and choose Erase, another window pops up with progress bar and you can see it's erasure progress.
- User can now go to another folder, right click a file (size is irrelevent), and choose Erase, another window pops up with progress bar and you can see it's erasure progress.
- User goes to another "my computer folder", right clicks another drive, while the above is happening and chooses Erase space, a window pops up and you see the progress bar as it erases.
Conclusion: All 6 actions are being done at the time time across a single (or several) different physical hard drives.

Eraser 6.0.7
- User goes to "my computer", right clicks a drive (let's say C drive), and chooses Erase Space, the task is added to the task list and you see it start erasing.
- User now goes to another folder, right click a file, erase... the erase TASK is added but NO ERASING ACTUALLY HAPPENS, it is waiting for the first to finish.......
- User now goes to another folder, right click a file, erase... the erase TASK is added but NO ERASING ACTUALLY HAPPENS, it is waiting for the first to finish.......
- User now goes to another folder, right click a file, erase... the erase TASK is added but NO ERASING ACTUALLY HAPPENS, it is waiting for the first to finish.......
- User now goes to another folder, right click a file, erase... the erase TASK is added but NO ERASING ACTUALLY HAPPENS, it is waiting for the first to finish.......
.......
and so on, and so on....

Conclusion: Eraser 6.0.7 only erases ONE thing at a time, while 5.88 was able to essentially multi-task. Removing this "multi-task" ability, is rather draconian from my perspective.
Unless I'm doing something wrong, and you know how to allow 6.0.7 to erase multiple files from different folders at the same time... i'm all ears.

Thanks

But yeah, please point Joel to this thread if he has anything to comment on.
 
I defer to your description, as I don't have v5 running, and my conservative approach has always been to let a large task run on its own. I do recall, however that, when I selected multiple pre-defined tasks in the old pane, all I got (and, frankly, ever wanted) was a single progress report.

There is a lot to be said (among other things, in terms of keeping hard drive seek times to a minimum) for Eraser doing one job at once. What matters (apart from the queuing issue I dealt with in my last post) is the total time taken to complete a given set of tasks, not whether they are run consecutively or concurrently. As I said earlier, my real residual concern with Eraser 6 is the way in which, on a free space wipe, it can sometimes stop working at or near the point at which the disk is full. So I have no problem with queueing any amount of file/folder erasing, but queuing drive wipes is a bit unreliable for my liking. As I also said, Joel is working on that issue; there seem to be a number of contributory factors.

As I understand the plans for Eraser 6.2, the intent is that the core function will run as a service (rather than as a process as at present). Whether this will make it more feasible to run tasks concurrently (or whether this is indeed a sensible approach) I do not know. What I do know is that, like it or not, Eraser 5 is at the end of the line, and therefore potentially at the mercy of the inevitable further changes to the OS. What makes sense for us users is therefore to encourage Joel and the team to keep improving Eraser 6.

David
 
I think this is a multi-threading issue, where you may for instance want Eraser to erase files on one physical disk and do a free space wipe on another physical disk at the same time. This for me is where I think the performance improvement needs to be and it does demand execution of threads in parrallel.

There is no point scheduling erase operations that aare for separate drives to execute in a serial manner it just extends the time required. Depending on your disk subsystem, this may also be true where you are performing multiple erasures in a single drive.

Please put this into subsequent versions, as I have six physical drives in my machine and am annoyed that erasures for each have to be scheduled sequentially.
 
Joel has accepted this point. Eraser 6 was written on the assumption that most erasing tasks run consecutively would tend to relate to the same drive. That assumption can be questioned for the cases you mention, and the last I knew, Joel was considering whether adjustment could be made to the scheduling algorithm. If it can, it would only happen in Eraser 6.2, and that is rather severely delayed by Joel's other commitments. Eraser is a spare time task for Joel, and at the moment he doesn't have any.

David
 
Yes, that is rather high on the list of features I want implemented for 6.2; I use multiple drives myself and scheduling drives in parallel will really maximise the erasure performance.

Haha, I always see Eraser 6 as the halfway mark between the old Eraser 5 and what Eraser 6 really should be :P
 
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