What is AllMyNotes Organizer? ‹ Some technical details of our database storage format

Frequently customers ask - What file format does the program utilize, is the data encryption trustworthy, and is it strong enough to store sensible personal information?

AllMyNotes Organizer saves all the information within a single, low-level-encrypted database file with self-repairing functionality (.ddb file). This is both optimized for speed, and is highly failure-resistant.

We are justifiably proud of our data storage format and can support this through the evidence of the technical details written below:

Major features

• Optimized for performance. When AllMyNotes Organizer starts up, it doesn't actually loads all your data in to the computer's memory! It loads only a tree structure, taking up just a few kilobytes in size. That's why AllMyNotes Organizer is able to start up almost instantly. Later on, when you open a particular note, it loads just that document in to the RAM, and unloading it immediately when you switch to another note. This ensures minimal memory usage.

• Highly failure-resistant. We are using an advanced data protection technology, it's engineered and stressfully-tested to assure your data safety. Your data is duplicated in several places to assure maximum data safety on unintentional or intentional failures on software and hardware levels, such as: viral activity, or partial file damage due to HDD crash. AllMyNotes Organizer can restore access to your data even if up to 90% of data file is corrupted - even if deceiving majority of data records are lost, AllMyNotes Organizer will do its best to automatically restore access to survived data. If minor data loss will happen, you even will not notice it, our smart database engine will silently restore your valuable data from duplicate areas, without disturbing you.

• Encrypted. Aside the fact that an access to your valuable data can be protected by password, your data is encrypted on the disk at all times, even when password is not assigned. We are using strong 1800-bit encryption to assure high encryption level. Thanks to it, no readable traces of your data is left on your disk, knowing this you can feel safe when saving your data file on removable USB media, leaving it on someone's PC, or sending it over email or file-sharing services.

• Unlimited data file size. There is no limit on data size and on number of records in it. Data size is only limited to file system limits (ex: for NTFS it's 16 EB - 16 Exabytes, that's a lot!). Though, we recommend to keep single Note/Document size in reasonable range, try to do not attach many huge images and file attachments to it, as on loading Notes all of them are loaded in to the RAM, so make sure that your PC's memory can hold it.

• Smart/Quick Search. When searching across all your data we are using smart search hash, which means, we do not load all your data when you are searching for something, the disk access is always minimal, and search speed is high.

Interesting facts

• There is a whole virtual file system inside the single .ddb file, unused file fragments are re-used for new data for better performance. Each time when you exit the app the data file is being automatically defragmented for 5 seconds, assuring good data file shape for you at all times.

• AllMyNotes Organizer is doing automatic backups of your data on exiting application, each time it backups to new file name, with file stamp, assuring you'll have history of backups. Backups older than 7 days (number of days can be configured) are deleted automatically to save disk space.

• It's so easy to move data file to any other location! Easy to backup and move it to any location - external HDD, or LAN, wherever you want, just use Save As menu item, or simply copy the file using Windows Explorer.

• No dependency on third-party libraries. We're using our own robust, compact, smart, and built-in database engine, no need in .NET platform, no SQLite dependency, nothing like ADO, nothing like that, at all! It just works :)

• Native Unicode support. Data storage on api level is storing text fields in Unicode, allowing work with multiple languages easily.

• When data is locked by password, the password is NOT stored in the database - we story only password hash, which is another level of security for your data safety.

• It took us 6 months to develop our own, advanced database engine, and we believe, it's worth the development time indeed :)

FAQ

Q: Is my data safe with proprietary data storage format?

A: Yes, it is! And, unlike other, evil software vendors, we do not lock your data inside, you can export and import your data freely, at any time. Also, we do have Lite edition, which can be used to view/edit data even without purchasing the application.

Q: I've entered 1000 characters of text, and my .ddb file got bigger at 7000 bytes, why?

A: These days data storage space is cheap, and textual data is still not that big to worry about its size, therefore we've put major accent on data safety (duplicate data record is stored in 2 places), performance (search hash), and we do pre-allocate little disk space for faster disk operations. In addition, data is stored in Unicode format, which means that for each character needed 2 bytes of disk space. Therefore, to store single character is needed in average, 7 bytes.

Q: Do you compress data on the disk?

A: We do compress pictures in .png file format, which saves a lot of disk space. As for the plain text, we believe text takes very little disk space, so there is no need to bother about compression.

Still have questions? Feel free to contact us for details.