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Upgrading Server - can i move the pool from the old server


johnc7803

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Hi all, 

 

I've managed to acquire a wild selection of bits and pieces to put together a possibly overblown new server.

 

The main question will be, can i put the drives from the old WHS2011 machine into the new box, start up Drive pool and hope it all mysteriously finds everything. Tried reading various posts, but seem to have confused myself - never a difficult task.

 

The new box will be :

Fractal XL R2

OS Drive - Kingston 120gb SSD

Data drives from the old server, a mix of 3 and 4 tb - WD and Samsung ,currently 9 in total

(the case has got space for 12 drives, with the SSD mounted away on the back of the MB tray, so 11 data, and 1 backup drive in a hot swap tray)

 

I've installed Win 8.1 pro - as i had it sitting around from a previous project.

 

And the hardware, 

MB = ASUS Z9-PE-D8

64gb Ram

2 Xeon E5-2650's

Power - Corsair AX1200i

 

Before i move all the drives over - is it easy enough - or should i take a deep breath and go down the pub for a while..

 

Looking for any suggestions or advice (or the address of a cheap shrink)

 

Thanks

 

John

 

 

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[...]Can i put the drives from the old WHS2011 machine into the new box, start up Drive pool and hope it all mysteriously finds everything. Tried reading various posts, but seem to have confused myself - never a difficult task.

 

Yes. Absolutely. 

 

When you connect "new" drives to a system, StableBit DrivePool checks for the PoolPart folders (where the pooled content is stored). When it find that, it automatically recreates the pool, from the attached disks (you'll want to connect all of the disks, otherwise, it won't "know" about the entire pool). 

 

It will retain the duplication level for the drives (this stored locally, in very hidden files), and the contents. But that's it.  The balancing settings, file placement rules, and drive letter are all stored "locally", so they don't go with the pool to new systems.

 

 

 

And very nice hardware! :)

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Thanks Chris

 

That puts my mind at rest !

 

I can now start to add all the drives and cables into the box - this time making a note of what gets plugged in where. I've already been through the fun of labelling all the HDD's, after trying to locate a failed drive "somewhere in that box"

 

Will post some pic's when it's all back together.

 

John

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You're very welcome! 

 

And making recovery/migration was a major design focus, because we wanted that to be very simple.

 

 

And I can definitely understand that.  It's a pain when a drive dies anyways... and if you're not even sure which one it was ... that just makes it even worse. :(


And definitely feel free to upload pictures into this thread: http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/5-my-rackmount-server/(rackmount or otherwise)

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Update..

 

Drives all installed into new machine, one at a time so that i could reset the drive letter as i went.

 

Installed Drivepool - and bing! One 30tb pool is back on line.

 

Thanks Chris, almost too easy to be true.

Glad to hear it!

 

And yeah, that's what we were shooting for! So glad that you're amazed by how simple it is (at least, I'm assuming that). :)

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i seem to have hit some issues with permissions. Is there a quick fix that i've missed. 

Actually, there is. :)

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Utilities

 

The WSS Troubleshooter utility. It's designed for WHS2011, specifically. The main purpose is to reshare the pooled shares without going through a bunch of hoops (musical "folders") to get it working.

However, it does include an option to Reset the NTFS Permissions on the entire pool.  This sets them back to a "stock" state (which mimics a newly formatted drive, but it does not format anything... just uses the same permission settings as) 

 

 

Otherwise, you can do this manually.... which is not fun:

  1. Right click on the pool drive
  2. Select "Properties"
  3. Open the "Security" tab
  4. Click on the "Advanced" button at the bottom of the page.
  5. Open the "Owner" tab
  6. Click on "Edit", and tehn set the owner to "Administrators"

    Check the "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" option, and hit OK and accept all of the prompts.

  7. Close the Advanced page by hitting "OK" one last time.
  8. Re-open the "Advanced" page by clicking on the button for that again. 
  9. Click on the "Change Permisions" button.
  10. Add "Administrators", give it "Full Control"
  11. Repeat this for "SYSTEM" and "CREATOR OWNER".
  12. Add "Users" (but leave it at the default permissions).
  13. Check the "Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions for this object"
  14. Hi "OK" and accept all the prompts.

Caveat here, depending on the size of your pool, and how many files/folders you have, this could take an hour or more to complete (for the ownership and the permissions, each).   The WSS Troubleshooter does this for you automatically, so you can see why I recommended that first.

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Chris, 

 

as always as star.

 

The utility on your link work like a charm,

I had searched around and downloaded a different version that did not seem very happy with Win 8.1

(Wss.troubleshoot_2.0.0.1) but your one has done the trick.

 

Run this, and then added the new shares correctly at the appropriate levels.

 

Much better than trying the windows way..i'd started to have a go at that, and given up.

 

Folders are now happily appearing on the media centre downstairs again, and I have all my music back.

 

Thanks again.

John

 

PS, note to self, don't get greedy when there's spare slots in the server, and try and re-use old drives again. It doesnt work - Drivepool rejected it before for a reason - and wiping off the dust and putting it back in a different place does not make things better, the drive was duff - so throw it away.

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Hi Chris, 

 

Sorry to rehash an old subject, but just been through another upgrade.

Finally threw out Win8.1 and hammered and stamped Win10 onto the Asus motherboard - that is technically not supported due to Graphics drivers unavailable - so i bought another video card and it seems to work.

Just seem to be having a similar problem with permissions.

One drive is showing as inaccessible to File Manager, but is included in the pool total.

I may have broken something when moving all the drives around.

I tried the WSS.troubleshoot_1.0.0.169.exe but it says the current system (W10 i guess) is not supported.

 

Any ideas ?

 

Thanks

 

john

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Hi Chris. 

 

Thanks for the reply

 

I tried what you said, and it come back repeatedly with errors "failed to enumerate objects in the  the container. Access is denied"

 

I tried click continue - but gave up after about 2 minutes, so many files...

 

Any other ideas ?

Or should i remove the drive and reformat ?

 

Cheers

 

john

 

(What would we do without you :) )

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Make sure that you've set the Owner first.  And that you apply this to ALL folders.  If this isn't done first, it can cause this issue to occur.

 

Double check that you did do this.  And if it is erroring out, let me know what folder it's erroring out on.

 

 

If that does fix the issue, then great!  If not, then it may be worth running a chkdsk /f pass on all of the disks, and then retrying. This may fix the issue and allow it to complete properly.

 

Otherwise, enable file system logging, and reproduce.  Once it comes up with the error, turn off the logging and then upload the files to us.

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection

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Hi Chris, 

 

This seems to have worked on the pool. 

 

One disk in particular is being awkward, so I'll remove that from the pool and reformat it completely - I'm sure I did that when I moved it from another machine, its only about 12 months old.

 

Thanks for your help as always

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Version 2.1.1.561

Creating folders manually works ok.

Using Makemkv to translate all the old movies, and that worked fine up to a couple of days ago, now that fails to create a new folder (so i did that manually) but then it cannot write the files.

 

A manual copy of a single file from another networked pc prompts for "You need to provide adminstrator permission to copy to this folder", click on "continue, and the copy completes.

My account is set as administrator.

 

Puzzled as to what I've managed to break (again)

 

Thanks

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Hi Chris , I'll install the new version later today.

 

I started to get all kinds of weird stuff happening, at one point Drive C disappeared from Explorer, which was a bit perplexing - as that's the OS drive....

So I bit the bullet and did a full Windows reset. It gave a list of the apps uninstalled, so I go through that step by step and see if anything starts to misbehave.

 

Will keep you updated, thanks for all your help - and patience :)

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Hi Chris,

I've installed that version, and because of so many issues (probably from over exuberance on my part trying to install various unsupported drivers to get the Marvell chipset expansion to be recognised) , I just went and reset Windows completely.

Only installed the essentials, and it seems a lot happier now.

 

I'll see how it goes for a few days before tinkering again.

 

Thanks for all your help and patience..

 

John

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