MrPapaya

I have a drivepool with 10 drives set up as drive Y: Everything in Y: is set to 2X real-time duplication. Is there any way, by using the balancing settings, hierarchical pools etc, to set only one specific folder (and its sub-folders) in Y: to NOT use real-time duplication? I don't want to make a new drive letter if I don't have to. The problem i'm having is with drive image backup software such as Hasleo, Macrium Reflect, etc. They often make HUGE files (100GB and up) and I'm finding that I often get messages such as this: ================================================================================== Duplication Warnings There were problems checking, duplicating or cleaning up one or more files on the pool. You can have DrivePool automatically delete the older file part in order to resolve this conflict. One or more duplicated files have mismatching file parts. One reason why this can happen is if something changed the duplicated file's parts directly on the pooled disk and not through the pool. This can also happen if a disk was altered while it was missing from the pool. You can resolve the conflicts manually by deleting the incorrect file part from the pooled disks. Files: \Pool2\Backup\SYSTEM_Backups\JR4_backups\JR4_RDI\JR4_C_NVME__D_SSD_20240409220013_224_4.rdr File parts different. \Pool2\Backup\SYSTEM_Backups\JR4_backups\JR4_RDI\JR4_C_NVME__D_SSD_20240409220013_224_2.rdr File parts different. \Pool2\Backup\SYSTEM_Backups\JR4_backups\JR4_RDI\JR4_C_NVME__D_SSD_20240409220013_224_3.rdr File parts different. ===================================================================================== Since there's no easy way to know what size the completed backup file is going to be, I figure it's best to let Drivepool wait until the entire large file is completed before duplication begins. Is there a simple way to accomplish this without setting up new drive letters, network file shares, etc?

I'm sure you figured it out already... From the images you posted, it just looks like a simple change is needed. The pool called ORICO BOX is fine as is. The one in the first image is not correct. You should have: A pool that has 12TB1 & 12TB2 with NO duplication set. (lets give it drive letter W:) A pool called ORICO BOX with NO duplication set. (with the assorted drives) (Lets call it drive letter X:) Now, drive W: essentially has 24TB of storage since anything written to W: will only be saved to ONE of the two drives. You can set the balancing plugin to make them fill up equally with new data. Drive X: essentially has 28TB of storage since anything written to X: will only be saved to ONE of the five drives. At this point, you make ANOTHER new pool, Lets call it Z: In it, put Drivepool W: and Drivepool X:. Set the duplication settings to 2X for the entire pool. Remember, you are only setting Drivepool Z: to 2X duplication, no other drivepools need changed. What this should do (if I didn't make a dumb typo): Any file written to drive Z: will have one copy stored on either 12TB1 OR 12TB2, AND a duplicate copy will be stored on ONE of the five Orico Box drives. You must read & write your files on drive Z: to make this magic happen. Draw it out as a flowchart on paper and it is much easier to visualise.

The simplest thing to do would be replacing the sata cable, if you haven't already. Expecially if the same cable was connected to the drive that was removed. Also try a different power connector.

'Other' can be stuff associated with Windows or NTFS, not necessarily DrivePool itself. Would be nice to have a way to get a list of the files or some details. I would try moving some files to a non-pooled drive, then move them back. See if the 'other' amount goes down. I found this elsewhere on the forum... And then there's "Other". "Other" always confuses people, but it literally is everything else. So what else is there? Non-pooled files that exist on that disk. Remember that just because a disk is part of the pool doesn't mean that you can't continue to use that disk to store non-pooled files. NTFS Metadata. For every file on a NTFS volume, there is additional metadata associated with that data stream, like the file name, file attributes, modification times, etc. These typically take very little disk space, but can add up if you have lots of files. Directory entries. On NTFS, directory entries are actually stored as regular files with a "directory" attribute. But instead of a data stream, they contain a little database of index entries for each file (and subdirectory) that exists under them. Slack space. Just because you have a 100GB volume, doesn't mean that you can use all 100 Gigabytes of that volume to store data. NTFS divides your volume into equally sized chunks called clusters, which are typically 4096 bytes in size. If your file doesn't fit neatly into these clusters then there's going to be some space at the end of the file that's wasted. We call this "slack space". For example, if you have a 2kb text file, it's going to use the full 4kb cluster, even if 2kb is empty space. Same goes with larger files that don't fill that last cluster, which is very common.

I was checking which drives had the most ugage. Surprise, you can't sort by age either.

Are there possibly any locked files? For ex. BitTorrent like to reserve space by creating empty files & locking them. You say you 'cleaned' the disk. By reformatting, or just deleting files?

I had Drivepool in use since approx. 2013. I've never noticed that happening. If I move a folder, it disappears from the source once every file is moved . The ONLY issue I have, and it isn't really a Drivepool problem, Is that sometimes network updates are slow to catch up. Ex. If I move a bunch of files to/from a networked pool to a local drive, Windows Explorer still sees 'ghost' files for a while (but can't actually access them!). I've found that creating a folder or file, then deleting it, will refresh the networked folder. I added a button to my file manager that does that when needed.

The only balancers that I have installed are "All in One", "Duplication Space Optimizer", and "Stablebit Scanner". Balancing works automatically if I add or remove a drive. The All in One balancer has a selectible option "Equalize using un-duplicated files". and "Equalize by the free space remaining" which is what I think you are looking for. One thing to try is unstalling Drivepool, reboot, install Drivepool again. (all your pools should be automatically detected for you) This might fix the balancer version install issue.

I have Drivepool v2.2.5.1237 running on Windows Server 2019 (fully updated) & Scanner v2.5.7.3565 I've been seeing about 2-4 Drivepool errors per hour in the Windows Event Log. About 140 error reports in the last 7 days. The details are different in each one, and deciphering their meaning is beyond my tech level. The common line in all of them seems to be this one... System.Collections.Generic.KeyNotFoundException: The given key was not present in the dictionary. Anyone know if this is normal, or something I can do to correct the issue? Heres some examples: Error report file saved to: C:\ProgramData\StableBit DrivePool\Service\ErrorReports\ErrorReport_2021_10_27-10_09_33.2.saencryptedreport Exception: System.Collections.Generic.KeyNotFoundException: The given key was not present in the dictionary. at CoveNative.Util.TimeoutAction.#Oaf.#TSj() at CoveNative.Util.TimeoutAction.Run(TimeSpan timeout, Boolean reportError, Action a) at CoveNative.Util.TimeoutAction.Run(TimeSpan timeout, Action a) at DrivePoolService.Pool.Tasks.CalculateBalanceRatio.#R5c(TaskRunState #xag, CalculateBalanceRatioTaskState #R9f, IEnumerable`1 #8we) ------------------- Error report file saved to: C:\ProgramData\StableBit DrivePool\Service\ErrorReports\ErrorReport_2021_10_27-10_24_33.3.saencryptedreport Exception: System.Collections.Generic.KeyNotFoundException: The given key was not present in the dictionary. at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowKeyNotFoundException() at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.get_Item(TKey key) at AllInOnePlugin.Balancer.PoolPart.ApplyFreeSpaceBalance(LimitOptions limitOptions, List`1 balanceStateInfosDup, List`1 balanceStateInfosUndup) at AllInOnePlugin.Balancer.PoolHelper.ApplyFreeSpaceBalance(LimitOptions limitOptions) at AllInOnePlugin.Balancer.EqualizeByFreeSpace(IEnumerable`1 archiveBalanceStates, IEnumerable`1 feederBalanceStates, LimitOptions limitOptions) at AllInOnePlugin.Balancer.Balance(IEnumerable`1 balanceStates) at DrivePoolService.Pool.Tasks.CalculateBalanceRatio.#1ff.#Ghf() at CoveNative.Util.TimeoutAction.#Oaf.#TSj() at CoveUtil.ReportingAction.Run(Action TheDangerousAction, Func`2 ErrorReportExceptionFilter)