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Newbie Question


twos50

Question

I have installed the trial version of StableBit on WHS 2011 that backs up to a larger capable disk.

 

What I've done so far:

1).  added 2 2TB disks to the pool.   1 was almost full of data the other was almost empty.

2).  Copied shared folders from both of the disks to the pool.

3).  After copying all the data to the pool, disk space on both disks evened out (mostly).

4).  None of the folders are being duplicated. I have deactivated "read stripping" and the duplicate optimizer

       balancer.

5).  Customized WHS backup to back up the individual pooled folders without backing up the originals.

Question:

What happens to all of my data if 1 of the disk goes bad???  

Meaning will I be able to restore the data if part of it was on the bad disk??

 

 

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Well, you opened a ticket for this as well, and I've already answered there.  But I'll post the response here, as well. 

 

(this isn't criticism or the like, but reference for myself)
 

Well, for the Read Striping features and the Duplication Space optimizer, there isn't strictly a need to deactivate these. If the data is not duplicated, then these don't really do anything, and there isn't really any hit to performance (at worst, it queries if the data is duplicated, gets a "no" and skips to the next bit). 
 
As for what happens when (not if) a disk goes bad?  It depends on exactly how it goes bad.

  • If the disk outright fails, and refuses to even power on,  then the data that was on that disk is lost. The data on the remaining "good" disk is still intact and accessible, and you could continue to use it. 
    You'd need to replace the data on the failed disk to get it back (from a backup or the like). As for specifics, that depends on the backup solution (if it's a file based solution, then just copying the files back into the pool should be fine, and skip the existing files). 
  • If the disk is going bad (SMART errors, file system issues, etc), then you could remove the drive from the pool and that will attempt to move the data off of the bad disk onto other disks in the pool. By default, this will error out and fail if there are problems reading or moving the files, but there is a "Force Damaged Disk removal" option that will ignore the errors and move on. 
Also, StableBit DrivePool doesn't maintain a file list of the pooled contents, as it generates the pool dynamically, reading from the underlying disks.  If you want/need to keep an inventory of the files, let us know as a we can recommend a number of options (as this isn't built in). 
 
Additionally, if you have StableBit Scanner installed on the server as well, it runs a monthly surface and file system scan (this is configurable and can be run more often, if you want).  If damage (unreadable sectors) are found, this will cause StableBit Scanner to automatically evacuate the contents of the affected disk, to help prevent data loss.  Additionally, you can configure StableBit DrivePool to attempt to evacuate the problem disk in the case of SMART warnings, as well.

 

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Be very careful, do not consider DrivePool a backup solution. If you delete files or if you have files get corrupted on the primary drive, they will be the same on the pool drive. A backup will save you in the event you accidentally delete or corrupt files, DrivePool will not. 

 

This is not a knock at DP or RAID solutions, it's just the truth. I am a huge DP fan, but please do not consider it to be a backup solution.

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