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Posts posted by ikon
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sanatacruzskim, one thing has struck me: how are you determining which drive the files are going to? I was thinking about it and I'm not sure how I would know.
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Christopher, from my re-read of sanatacruzskim's post, it sounds like you nailed it on the head. I might be beneficial to have a more blatant notice to users of the SSD Cache option that duplication requires 2 SSD drives.
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I get around the data loss problem by having multiple backup drive sets. I have 4 to 5 complete copies of all my data, depending on whether my current off-site drive set is fully caught up.
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Just an FYI, in case anyone is not aware: my father taught me long ago not to put things on HDDs and then forget about them, expecting the data to remain intact 'forever'. He told me magnetic media change over long periods of time (i.e. years): the bits 'drift' and weaken, and that can lead to unreadable data eventually. He said that, if the drives are in a system, I should run a utility like Scanner in the background that will periodically read the data (and re-write it if needed), to keep the recorded data intact and strong. For drives not in a system he said I should connect them to a system every year or so and run something like SpinRite to refresh the data signals.
He never said anything about SSDs. I'm not sure whether there's any 'magnetic drift' issue with them, although I suspect not.
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2 hours ago, Christopher (Drashna) said:
Okay, sounds (mostly) good then!
The only thing is, that I'd use a non-system disk for the write cache, since it may/will get hammered, and may reduce it's lifespan.
OK, good point. Maybe that's a good reason to spend $60 on a 120GB SSD.
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Not a problem: not using DP duplication at all: nada, zip, zilch. All files are duplicated to totally separate pools, in different enclosures. Backup copies are made every night from the main pool to the NearLine and OffSite enclosure pools.
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Christopher, are you saying I can use the leftover space on the SSD in my server as a cache for the main pool, even though it's the drive with the OS on it? Is this possible? If so, awesome!
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Ah. I think I've got it now (takes me a while, often). OK, I will set it using the File Scan section. Thanks.
UPDATE: just set "Mark all filesystems as unchecked" for the 2 drives that were indicating file system damage, and they're both now scanning their file system. Thanks again.
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I saw that, because of some earlier posts you made in this thread. What I'm asking is if setting All Checked Blocks as Unchecked to initiate a scan will cause the file system to be checked as well, so it can automatically set itself to Healthy.
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The way I've been forcing Scanner to scan a disk is to set All Checked Blocks as Unchecked. Will that do it?
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Just so I truly understand, you're saying that Scanner does not reset its status after initiating a CHKDSK scan and finding no file system issues?
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I'm now having this issue. My version is 2.5.2.3129 Beta. CHKDSK /f x: has 3 times reported no problems with 2 drives, but Scanner continues to report file system damage on both, even after setting CHKDSK to Verbose. I have run the troubleshooter to upload the relevant data files.
Oh, and I tried to run chkdsk /r \\?\Volume{c36115c7-9b09-4dcc-a6eb-e00483938a84} but it said the volume cannot be opened for direct access.
Oops. I just ran CHKDSK again on one of the drives and it said there were orphaned files that it recovered. I'm rescanning that drive now. On the other drive, however, CHKDSK still did not find any problems and SBS is still reporting a damaged file system.
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I think Drashna was saying to try your existing key on the new install. Since it's installing on the same hardware, it may work. without having to deactivate. If it doesn't work, then email.
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When I swapped my off site drive sets today, I did a screen capture of the USB Safely Remove notification window that shows Scanner locking up the Lian-Li EX-503 USB external enclosure:
Dang: I just realised I should have clicked on the + sign next to Scanner.Service.exe. If you would like me to do that, let me know.
Dang 2: I just tried to get a capture of the Scanner notification window again (so I could click the + sign) and it showed me that DrivePool was locking up the enclosure. I presume DP is measuring the pool that's on the drives in the enclosure.
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On the server, at least, it doesn't seem to have made any difference. I still have to stop the Scanner service. I'm still running the USB Safe Removal program on the server, and it still says the Scanner service is blocking the ejection of my OffSite drive enclosure.
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On 12/21/2017 at 12:29 PM, Christopher (Drashna) said:
Additionally, converting the MBR drives to GPT would help too.
Maybe this explains why I've never seen this issue on USB drives: they're pretty much all formatted GPT. These days, I basically don't bother with MBR.
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My bad. I should have mentioned that I had figured the 'auto move' option would detect and exclude, with a warning presumably, the system boot drive; something like, "the boot drive cannot be added to a Drive Pool". I know some 'other' drive pooling software programs do automatically relocate files.
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OK, I've done it on the server. I'll do the same on my main desktop later.
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Just a quick update to say that, on my Windows 10 server, I had to stop the scanner service today in order to physically remove a drive that I had removed from the pool using DrivePool. It seems pretty consistent on the server.
I may have to spring for a copy of Easy USB Remover in order to keep track of whether Scanner has a drive or enclosure locked up.
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I have been wondering why DrivePool doesn't offer an option to move the files for you; perhaps a checkbox that says, "please move all non-pooled files into the pool on newly added drives". That way, DrivePool could take whatever steps are necessary, such as temporarily halting duplication on the newly added drives, to ensure the movement of the files is handled correctly.
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I have run into the "not all USB flash drives are equal" issue. I was trying to make a USB drive bootable some years ago, and it wasn't working, no matter what I did, and despite my following the instructions I read online in several different places.
Finally, I called my father, and he explained about different flash drives behaving differently. He told me about a make/model of one that worked for him. I went and bought one, and it did work. From then on, I've been kinda careful about flash drives. I didn't think that applied to drive locking however, so good to know.
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Hmmm, not sure what procman or systernals is/are, but I did find a little program called USB Safely Remove. It's kind of neat. After I installed it, I tried to eject a USB drive and it came up with a window that listed 3 items: a Service Host entry, then Stablebit Scanner, then another Service Host. That's when I decided to stop Scanner, and the ejection worked.
I wanted to show you an image of the USB Safely Remove window. I had uninstalled it after figuring out I could stop Scanner to eject, and realizing that, as long as Scanner had the USB drive locked up, Safely Remove wasn't going to be able to eject it either.
So, just now, I reinstalled Safely Remove so I could get the window capture. Unfortunately, it wouldn't show that window to me today. The window it did show said it couldn't find any programs locking the flash drive, but it couldn't eject it either . So, I uninstalled Safely Remove again. Then, when I went to eject the flash drive using the Windows tool, it worked. Perhaps it was the 3 genuflections and bowing to Mecca that did it... I'm not sure, but now it seems I can insert and eject USB flash drives. Just to note: I have not rebooted the computer.
So, at least for the moment, it seems the issue is, miraculously, resolved. I'll report back if it pops up again.
ps. another reason I didn't keep USB Safely Remove is because it costs $20. Compared to what Scanner and DrivePool do, this seems a bit pricey to me.
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Se same. I opened the flash drive with Explorer, then opened a photo on the drive. Then I closed the photo, closed Explorer, waited a couple of minutes, then tried to eject --> no go. As soon as I ran net stop "stablebit scanner service" I was able to eject the drive. Here's a SnipTool of Scanner with the flash drive connected:
And here's a SnipTool of Scanner's Advanced Settings page to show the version number:
SSD Optimizer Balancing Plugin
in Nuts & Bolts
Posted
Thanks santacruzskim. I've never really tested the SSD's performance, but I do recall seeing a boost in performance after installing it. I should mention that I don't use any duplication at all.