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ikon

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Everything posted by ikon

  1. Well, I did manually trigger a scan using the little window to the left of the large grid display of hard drive blocks. It seemed to find the same areas. After I told it to mark all unreadable areas as good, it came back with a SMART warning that some indicators show that the drive may be failing.
  2. The part about 'port multiplier' sounds familiar. So, you're thinking that using a add-in card with 4 external SAS ports (not SATA??), combined with a cable that has 4 SAS connectors leading to a single eSATA connector, would work? I'll have to research those a bit; I've never heard of them.
  3. Yeah. Hard to imagine lowering the price. It's already very reasonable.
  4. The scan with 3129 completed overnight. It still shows what I assume are the same areas as unreadable.
  5. Thanks. I just checked and the version on my server is 3124. I'll download 3129 and try it. Stay tuned...
  6. Ah, gotchya. It seems I have no choice. Which, by the way, is a question I meant to ask: is it normal for a motherboard to have a SATA drive limit like that? I mean, mine won't seem to go past 12 drives. Is that typical?
  7. I'm only just now getting my first coffee: I can certainly try what?
  8. LOL, it's always the little things, like a simple "V" As for the USB, if the spec allows for periodic disconnect, I haven't noticed it, and not just because the periods are shorter. When I first started to set up this new Windows 10 server, I was also migrating from PoolHD to DrivePool (PoolHD is no longer supported). Unfortunately, this required me to recopy everything to each pool, which meant copying the 9TB of data on W: to X:, and then to Y: and then Z:. Each one took a couple of days, at least (I didn't time it exactly (something my father would have done)). In any case, all the copying worked flawlessly. Maybe there's some very specific circumstances required before a USB-connected drive will disconnect? I have no idea myself. Scanner has never seemed to complain either. I wonder if there's some log file or something that can be checked to see there are any disconnects. By the way, I was forced to use USB for the external enclosures (which also support eSATA) because the motherboard's BIOS objected to having more than 12 SATA drives connected... it wouldn't list them all. Most importantly, it always left out my boot SSD Once I reduced the number of SATA drives, by switching the enclosures to USB the problem disappeared. Go figure.
  9. Thanks @Umfriend I think I need to explain a little better. Here goes: 1. Right now, RoboCopy is used every night to copy all files and folders from W: to X:. I'm looking to replicate that behaviour, but using DP. I don't really want to replicate anything on X: to anywhere. I simply want to get everything on W: replicated to X:. What I hope to gain is almost real time duplication of new files written to W:. Hopefully duplication will cause them to be copied to X: very quickly, or at least a lot faster than waiting for a nightly backup. 2. the two enclosures have been connected via USB for a number of years without ever showing any evidence of a disconnect I hope that's more clear. UPDATE: So, I tried an experiment, and it looks like I can't do what I was hoping. I took 2 drives, added each of them to its own pool (A and B), then created a pool of both of the pools (C). If I try to set up duplication on A or B, it says it can't without adding another drive, so they must not be aware of each other. If I set up duplication on C, it does work: the files written to C get written to A and B. So I guess that's what I would have to do: add my W: and X: pools to a 3rd pool, then set up all the server shares using the 3rd pool. That might be a bit of work. I'll have to think on it, unless anyone's got a better idea.... anyone?? Oh, and wasn't it a good idea (albeit a lucky fluke) that I only had 1 drive in each test pool. It made it clear that duplication only seems to work to drives in the same pool.
  10. @Umfriend, your system game me a thought. I'm wondering if you, or Christopher or anyone else can tell me if this is viable. Following on from my previous post, let's say my Main Storage is drive W:, and my NearLine Storage is drive X: Now, if I create another pool, say drive V:, and add drives W: and X: to the pool, can I then turn on duplication only for the drive W: pool and have it automatically duplicated to drive X:? If that would work, do I have to: a> empty drive X: so there's room for the duplicated files & folders from drive W:? I ask this because drive X: is already basically a duplicate of drive W: and there isn't enough room for a complete 2nd set of files. b> move the files & folders on drive X: from inside the PoolPart folder? I'm wondering this because I'm wondering if nesting pools like this creates 2 sets of PoolPart folders on the drives: one for the nested pools (W: and X:) and one for the parent pool, V:. I could go ahead and try it to find out, but then it might take a lot of work to straighten things out if it doesn't work the way I think. Anyway, I'm wondering about this because it might be a way to get an almost immediate backup of files placed on Main Storage, without having to wait for the nightly backup.
  11. Agreed, very clever. My father really believed in the KISS principle, so he set up his backup system so it makes physical copies to other sets of drives. So, he has a total of 5 drives sets: Main Storage NearLine Storage MyDocumentsReserve Storage OffSite A Storage OffSite B Storage As you might suspect, Main Storage is where all files go when they're created. It's also where the vast majority of files are read from when other computers access the server. These drives mounted in the server chassis and connected by SATA. NearLine Storage is a USB3-connected Lian-Li 5-drive enclosure, currently with 3 drives. MyDocumentsReserve is an extra copy of only the My Documents folder on Main Storage. This is the most critical data of all, so it gets an extra measure of security. OffLine A and B Storage are 2 sets of drives that are swapped in and out of a second USB3-connected Lian-Li 5-drive enclosure. One of the sets of drives is kept off site. My father swapped them in and out of the enclosure every day. I'm not that dedicated; I swap them more like once a week. Both sets are in the house overnight on the day of a swap over but, other than that, one set is at another site. Every night, at 2AM, a set of CMD files is run by a single Scheduled Task. These CMD files use RoboCopy to copy the My Documents folder on Main Storage to MyDocumentsReserve. Then, having backed up the most critical files, all the files on Main Storage (including the My Documents folder again) are copied first to NearLine, then OffSite A or B (whichever set is currently in the enclosure). Because of the way RoboCopy works, only new and changed files are physically copied, so the process is pretty quick This procedure ensures there are 4 copies of everything; 5 copies of My Documents. My father used to tell me that many people told him his system is overkill, but he would then tell me he has never lost a file completely since implementing it. Soooo, why would I mess with it.... it works.
  12. Recently I took 4x2TB drives out of service because Scanner said at least 1 of them has unreadable sectors. I then attached 1 of the drives to a test bench computer and ran SpinRite on it at Level 4. It ran for almost 300 hours. At the end it cleared the drive as ready for service again, presumably meaning any bad sectors had been reallocated to some list of bad sectors and spare sectors assigned in the place of the bad ones (at least this is how I think it's supposed to work). Then, as a further test, I used a USB drive dock to connect the drive to my Windows 10 Server so I could run Scanner on it. Scanner came back saying 3 sectors were unreadable. So, the question is: does Scanner read the raw sectors regardless of whether they're in a so-called bad list, or does it skip such sectors? I recall Christopher saying that what SpinRite really does is force the hard drive's own firmware to reallocate bad sectors. If so, wouldn't those sectors be hidden from Scanner? I'm confused.
  13. @Umfriend I'm not sure exactly what you're doing there, but it sure sounds clever.
  14. I remember there used to be something called Safe Mode. My father talked me through how to use it over the phone one time when my computer wouldn't boot properly. I wondered if Windows 10 still had it. It does, but it seems different from what I remember; maybe a bit more involved. Anyway, here's what an article on the Microsoft site says: Here's a link to the page: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12376/windows-10-start-your-pc-in-safe-mode
  15. I'm on Windows 10 Pro, version 1709. Assuming that is the Fall Creators Update, I can still report that it has not crashed. I don't know exactly when it was upgraded because I can't seem to find a place where the dates are shown.
  16. I have noticed that the main download page rarely, if ever, shows the latest Beta version.
  17. I had no idea there are multiple ways to open files. I have a feeling that the details would get ultra-nerdy in a hurry. Oh, and no crashes on my server overnight.
  18. It's interesting how this problem seems to be so specific to certain programs. Maybe I haven't had any issues because I don't use Dropbox at all, and I haven't had a reason to use Excel since getting the Fall Creators update. Sometimes this tech stuff seems so mysterious, like maybe we need a seance or something to fix them.
  19. Interesting. I'm currently on 10.0.15063 on my server. I'm not having any issues overall, but I believe my server does want me to install some updates, so we'll see. I am running 10.0.16299 on my desktop computer and it seems OK as well. It is running DP, but only 1 small, 2-drive pool. UPDATE: I had to manually trigger the update, but my server is now at 10.0.16299. So far, so good, but we'll see.
  20. ikon

    A few notes from a newbie

    The removal of the 8TB 3ware drive from my MainStorage Pool completed sometime in the wee hours this morning. I removed the drives, and the 3ware card, then moved the replacement drives (2x4TB, 1x2TB, 1x1.5TB) into the slots emptied by the removal of the 2x2TB drives. So far, good. Then, when I went to boot up, it wouldn't. After a few tries, I managed to get the system to enter the BIOS. I went to the Boot section. It showed one of the hard drives as the first boot device, and the DVD drive as the second. I pressed Enter to get a list of drives, so I could pick the Intel SSD that I installed Windows 10 on. It wasn't there. Hmmmm... So, I went to the Disk Drives item and hit Enter. It showed 12 drives, none of them the Intel SSD. Double hmmmmmm. I futzzed around with the connections and stuff and, finally, I managed to get the Intel SSD to show up. I picked it as the boot device and it worked. Not sure of all what I did, but I guess it's better to be lucky than good
  21. OK, maybe that's strange, and maybe not. I say that because I don't have duplication enabled at all. My father set things up so his data is duplicated to other sets of drives rather than other drives in the same pool. Since I inherited his setup I just kept things as they were, pretty much. Perhaps DP has to read a file that tells it about duplication even if there is none?
  22. Thanks Christopher. I don't know how to interpret those messages. I guess things should become clearer once I've finished re-organizing the pools.
  23. Hi. I recently learned about the Windows Event Viewer. While looking through Administrative Events I found these 2 entries fairly often. Do they mean anything? I ask that, in part, because I'm doing quite a bit of rearranging of pools: adding drives, removing drives, booting up with some pools offline, etc. Maybe they're just entries related to the changes I'm making? Exception: System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception (0x80004005): The network path was not found at CoveNative.Helpers.File.GetAttributes(String path) at CoveNative.Extensions.NativeExtensions.GetAttributes(String path) at DrivePoolService.Pool.Tasks.FileDuplication.#ugc(TaskRunState #c6c, FileDuplicationTaskState #d6c, #Gfg #e6c, String #O2c, Boolean #P2c, Int32 #Q2c) at DrivePoolService.Pool.Tasks.FileDuplication.#ugc(TaskRunState #c6c, FileDuplicationTaskState #d6c, #Gfg #e6c, String #O2c, Boolean #P2c, Int32 #Q2c) at DrivePoolService.Pool.Tasks.FileDuplication.#R5c(TaskRunState , FileDuplicationTaskState , IEnumerable`1 ) at CoveUtil.Tasks.Concurrent.Task`1.(TaskRunState , Object , IEnumerable`1 ) at CoveUtil.Tasks.Concurrent.TaskGroup..() at CoveUtil.ReportingAction.Run(Action TheDangerousAction, Func`2 ErrorReportExceptionFilter) Exception: CoveTroubleshooting.Reporter+ReporterLogException: {reporter_exception} at CoveTroubleshooting.Reporter.ThrowLogReportN(Exception TheException, Object[] TheParams) at CoveUtil.ErrorReporting..(Exception )
  24. ikon

    A few notes from a newbie

    I hear you about spinrite........ except it seems technology has moved ahead of it: i.e. it hasn't kept up. Oh well, Scanner will have it 'real soon now', right? I did find the task my father set up for the backups. He set up quite a large window for it to run within. What I haven't checked is how long the backups actually take. He wasn't running Scanner on the Windows Home Server, so he probably didn't care. When I get a little more time, I'll check the log files (one of the things I discovered about when trying to read the CMD files--he uses a few of them).
  25. ikon

    A few notes from a newbie

    Drive removed! Still 1.63TB of space open (up from about 300GB).
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