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Mostly just ask.

...just to chime in here...remember that expanders have firmware too. I am running 1x M1015 + 1x RES2SV240 in my 24bay rig for 5+ years now....I remember that there was a firmware update for my expander that improved stability with S-ATA drives (which is the standard usecase for the majority of the semi-pro users here, I think). Upgrading the firmware could be done with the same utility as for the HBA, as far as I remember...instructions were in the firmware readme Edit: here's a linbk for a howto: https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/24075-solved-flashing-firmware-to-an-intel-res2xxxxx-expander-with-your-9211-8i-hba/?tab=comments#comment-218471 regards, Fred

Also, you may want to check out the newest beta. http://dl.covecube.com/ScannerWindows/beta/download/StableBit.Scanner_2.5.4.3204_BETA.exe

16i, 16e, "close enough". The big part being the number of ports. And checking the page: https://www.broadcom.com/products/storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9202-16e#specifications Yeah, it'st he same controller (LSI SAS 2008). So it may be a good idea to use the P19 firmware then.

From what I've seen, no, it hasn't. Had a ticket about this recently, actually. P19 or P15 seem to be the go to firmware versions for stability.

Indeed, that was my typo, guess I should not ask questions after my shift until I've had a java recharge. Thanks for all the information. I'm a regular user of rclone and know that it can be used with multiple devices at the same time, encryption or no, and was just surprised that CloudDrive is not the same way. I wonder if I can add a rclone mount to a DrivePool scheme, guess it is time to google-fu.

Quick update: I went with the LSI 16e that you suggested @nauip, so thanks for that. Couldn't find any other options that were as robust or had as much capacity without taking a large leap in cost (more than double). The card already arrived (OEM version), and was in immaculate condition - clearly never opened or handled. It's shiny, new, properly flashed and humming along in the server now. Having seen it myself, I'm less worried about manufacture date. Mini-SAS cables are on the way, and I've already picked up the 7x8TB drives (in USB enclosures) for shucking later. The drives are being tested by Stablebit Scanner as we speak (of course!). Go figure - the very first unit ended up having controller/sector issues, so that's being returned today. Small side note on the USB enclosures: they have horrible heat dissipation characteristics. Stablebit Scanner was able to push them to 50c within 20 minutes, at which point it suspended surface tests to throttle heat (as it should). The drives sat forever and didn't cool off more than 2c, until I put them on top of case fans blowing up. After that, I was able to resume the surface scans at full speed, with a temp range of ~30-38c thereafter. I'm absolutely certain this is why they have lower warranty periods, simply because the drives in off-the-shelf USB enclosures are going to run hotter, and even thermally throttle on large jobs (which I never even suspected). The catch-22 is that they are 8TB drives, and typically would handle larger jobs... so they are poorly engineered, and should come with internal fans. I think I'm going to try to setup the new Pool drives on the old server and transfer data across locally between the two pools, then build the WSE 2016 server on top of a bare-metal Hyper-V 2016 install before adding the new Pool back in. The thought of transferring >10TB of data on a 1Gbit network makes my skin crawl.

Makes sense - it would make the SSD cache drive more like a traditional cache, instead of simply a hot landing zone pool member which is offloaded over time. +1

Pretty please? Just to reiterate my use case: My media server has quite a few users. As new media comes in, it's likely to have a lot of viewers and therefore a lot of I/O. As files get older, fewer and fewer people access them. So I'd love to have an SSD landing zone for all new files, which then get archived off to platters as space requires. It would be fantastic if I could say, once the SSD drive(s) reaches 80% full, archive files down to 50% using FIFO.

Windows 7 shouldn't be natively creating the thumbs.db files though. The last Windows OS to do that and rely on them was Windows XP. A bunch of helpful information on thumbnails in Windows is here: https://www.ghacks.net/2014/03/12/thumbnail-cache-files-windows/ Starting with Vista, they were moved to a central location for Windows management: %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\thumbcache_xxx.db If they are being re-created on your system PetaBytes, I'm not sure why. I triple-checked my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 media server, and none of the movie/picture folders have the files in them (visible OR hidden). This procedure (and a reboot after) might help your issue: https://www.sitepoint.com/switch-off-thumbs-db-in-windows/ I still maintain a 3rd party utility like Icaros will help the most. What it does (in a nutshell) is maintain it's own cache of thumbnails, so that *if* Windows loses them for a folder, Icaros will supply them back to Windows instead of it having to re-generate them slowly.

SAS2 is EOL, actually. That's why we're seeing a lot of SAS2 hardware for super cheap. SAS3 is the current standard, and the SFF connectors are not compatible.

The LSI LOGIC LSI00276 6GB 16PORT adapter is a pretty good deal with the caveat that you will have the cables looping out and then back in to the case. When I got it @ $35 I figured I could deal with my already ugly closet server looking a lil bit funnier. And it's held up quite well. Amazon no longer has them @ $35, but Server Supply has them at $60. That plus some cables and that's still under $100. Amazon's cables to match: CableCreation Mini SAS 36Pin (SFF-8088) Male to 4 SATA ~ $15 each. editing to add: I found another 8 port internal only @ $66 at the same place.

Well, I'd still recommend those cards. Between one of them and the motherboard, that should get you 10-12 ports that you can use. And while I know that you don't want to dump a bunch of money into it.... keep in mind that if you get a cheap consumer card .... you may end up doing so anyways, as they may have issues and you may end up getting something like this ANYWAYS. As for SAS Expanders ... wow, they've dropped in price: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0042NLUVE/

Ok I've changed my settings to match what you suggest. Thank you for your help.

Sorry to be negative, but I doubt if 3198 fixed it. I uninstalled 3191, copied my previous folders for 3062 back in place and reinstalled 3062: all disk settings and data were then back to normal. Then I went directly to 3204, since that has the new settings backup and restore feature, bypassing 3198. The result was that no settings were retained (except for 1 of 11 disks, oddly) and all disks needed to be scanned for the first time. (This time, however, I did a printscreen of my names & locations, and re-entered everything into 3204. I'll let Scanner rescan everything and just move on to the future.)

I think that this has been asked for before. But just in case: https://stablebit.com/Admin/IssueAnalysis/27889 And extending the "Disk Usage Limiter" balancer would be an easy option, I think. Also, are you experienced with C# programming? If not, no worries. If so, let me know, as there is source for building balancer plugins.

Yep, top level are no problem. DP passes volume commands to the underlying drives, so operations are as "compliant" as possible. And.. that's rather humorous.

A couple of pics (one from MSM), + one of my brand new Mid Plane mounting solution (I'm now just using the 2 x SFF-8088 to 8088 Cables to connect to the M1015 and I'll leave the others if I ever need to use the External SFF Board for more storage goodness). Love how you can just plug these expanders in and they just work without any mucking around.

Thank you for the kind words! And we're glad to hear it! And every customer (and potential customer) should be valued! They are why we are successful!

Yeah. But there are always variations on how the files are placed, and such. As well as metadata that you don't see. Also .... if you're using reparse points, and a LOT of them, .... that may be why too. Depends on the usage, but yeah, it can help with I/O load, as it may spread it out between the disks better. And the Read Striping feature helps to optimize the reads, too. Duplicated data is written out to all destination disks. So if you're using the SSD Optimizer balancer, and duplication, then you need two SSDs, or the second copy is written out to an "archive" drive, and may/will slow down the write speeds. having 2x SSDs, (or ... a number of SSDs equal to the highest level of duplication that you're using) means that both/all copies are written out to the SSD drives, and not the archive drives. Real time duplication can be disabled, but that means that new files won't be protected by duplication for up to 24 hours!

Either would be fine, actually. I've used both configurations, and neither has any issues. If you go this way, you only need to hook up a single cable to the expander. You don't need both cables connected. You mean HighPoint card? *shudders*. No. My personally recommendation is to go with the single controller and the SAS expander. It will get you the most drives connected.

I think you'd need to format the volume, unfortunately.

As per your issue, I've obtained a similar WD M.2 drive and did some testing with it. Starting with build 3193 StableBit Scanner should be able to get SMART data from your M.2 WD SATA drive. I've also added SMART interpretation rules to BitFlock for these drives as well. You can get the latest development BETAs here: http://dl.covecube.com/ScannerWindows/beta/download/ As for Windows Server 2012 R2 and NVMe, currently, NVMe support in the StableBit Scanner requires Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016.

Much sadness.....for some reason my OS SSD will not boot now. It is not even recognised as a boot drive. Stoopid HP ProLiant microserver perhaps, but either way I have some diagnostics to do. It boots to my test mechanic HDD just fine. Strange... On a positive note, my DP files on my data HDDs are just fine. All I need is a platform that will boot and I will be back in business. I tell you, it is awesome knowing that my data is safe and accessible. edit: Tried everything I could think of and got to the stage where a Windows 10 repair install was next. Plugged in the bootable USB stick and the damned thing booted properly! I swear I am going to shift to Linux for this box!! It is driving me nuts. (not really because then I wont have DP....) So frustrating.

They did offer an RMA, but ups ground shipping was going to cost me almost $90 so it’s going to the town dump instead. I have other arrays I’m using now and would rather use the money for the sas setup I’m planning on moving to.