Umfriend

Couldn't you just remove the drive letters? DP does not need them.

Somewhere on the map, left side, you can find an option "Mark all sectors unscanned" or something. That will kick off a new one typically. Start check does not do anything, I think, if according to the settings no drive needs to be scanned. You want Automatic Scanning Enabled (press that button until it says that). AFAIK, the scan time is set at the start of it scanning, not the end of it.

Have you looked at the disk sector map?

Just a heads-up: Are you aware of the differences between WSE2019 and WSE2016? WSE2019 basically misses everything that made it sort of a SOHO-OS. If by "have an unlimited number of users back up to my server?" you mean the client backup function of WSE you're SOL. It is gone. AFAIK, Clouddrive (and I don't use it and know nothing about it) is a single user app. It does not allow multiple users to access/write the data. Check that first.

t may be you actually want to press that button. It may then say "Automatic Scanning Enabled". Then you are good to go. It should scan again according to: Settings -> Scanner settings .-> Scanner. DP and Scanner are still actively supported and they are developing other stuff. It's just that they don;t come round these forums much as I see it. For actual support one can contact them through https://stablebit.com/Contact.

I would suggest, again, a reboot. I am pretty sure you can kill the Scanner GUI through task manager. Scanning is a background process run by a service and should continue (check with ResMon). Then restatrt the Gui. My guess is it will be responsive.

Know nothing about VMs bit could you simply reboot WHS? Scanner will be closed and resume where it left after boot ( it may say 0% but thatiis because Scanner expresses as part to be done when restarted. You can look at the disks' map to see this).

Got some screenprints of your setup? Does it say "Automatic Scanning Enabled" right to the right of Start check and Stop check?

AFAIK, trial products are fully functional during the 30-day trial. But I do remember having this issue years ago even as a licensed user. Turned out that if I just pressed the Automatic Scanning Disabled button (yes, it was a button), it turned out right.

In that case, I would consider buying single HDD and as large as you can afford. I assume you have duplication. Not sure how you would backup that much data..

Sure. You could also replace just one 3TB drive with a 6TB drive. Or with a 14TB drive. What kind of issue would you expect?

I can help with some of these as I migrated to WSE2016 about 18 months ago (from WHS2011). 1. I redirected all to my Pool and all goes well. You may get a message for certain folders like File History or somesuch (as DP does not support VSS/Shadow copies) but it should be fine. 2. No clue, but together with 3, 4 and 6), I set up a hierarchical pool. So I have some HDDs as Pool A, x1 duplication, other HDDs as Pool B, x1 duplication, and then created a Pool C consisting of Pools A and B, x2 duplication. That way, I know that each file is write twice, once to some set of HDDs and the other to the other set of HDDs. I then backup only one set of these HDDs. I use the standard WSE16 Server Backup software and it does BMR as well. What I am unsure about is whether it is possible to have WSE16 Server backup write over the network in some way (q2, 3 and 6(?)) and I really doubt it will be able to write to a Pool, even if located in the same machine. Again because of VSS support. Moreover, I am *pretty* sure it will be impossible (or very very hard) to actually do a BMR from a Pool. What *might* work is if you use WSE Backup to a huge HDD in the same machine and then sync with the NAS? I'd do a recovery simulation though and again, you'd have to build a big BMR recovery HDD I would think. If your entire Server won't fit on a single backup HDD, then consider the following: 1. Use WSE Server Backup for the boot/OS drive and related partitions only. Write to a HDD that is in that Server. Periodically swap it out for another HDD and rotate offsite. 2. Use some sort of syncing software to sync the data between the Server and the NAS. I am not sure x2 duplication on both machines makes a lot of sense. I would have it one the Server, not the NAS. Also, even with syncing software, the use of Hierarchical Pools may be very helpful. Hope it helps.

I don't know. I don't but I have duplication and backups. I've never noticed anything going wrong with having all ServerFolders on the Pool.

Has the removal of the drive (through the GUI) been succesful (as in, it is not listed as part of the Pool or missing)? In that case, tried a reboot?

No, that is just fine. There is no issue with adding a disk to a Pool and then place data on that disk besides it (i.e. outside the hidden PoolPart.* folder on that drive).

Yeah, so it might have been better to stop the DrivePool service before starting but really the behavior you describe is unexpected by me.

Ah, you would write files to G:\. DP will save two duplicates to E and F. Each of E and F would divide single instances to A+B and C+D respectively. Do not write to E or F. You can, but those files will only be part of Pool E (or F) and not be duplicated. Much like writing to a drive directly outside of the hidden PoolPart.* folders, those would not be part of any Pool.

I would think that you could simply format the relevant drives. DP will then say they are missing and if you remove the drives in the GUI then it should be done instantly.

Yeah, so now you have Drive A + B = Pool X (with x1 duplication) Pool X + Drive C = Pool Y (with x2 duplication) You can choose to store files in Pool X (and then they will not be duplicated and present on Drive A and B ) Or store them in Pool Y (and then they will be duplicated and present on Drive A/B for one instance and Drive C for the other instance). So you need to move the files from Pool X to Pool Y. The best way to do this is to "seed" them. You would: 1. Stop the DrivePool service 2. In drive A, locate the hidden Poolpart.* folder. The top level shows (part of) Pool X. Locate the hidden PoolPart.* folder within the first, that is (part of) Pool Y. Move files from the outer/first Poolpart.* folder to the inner/second PoolPart.* folder 3. Do the same for drive B 4. Start DrivePool service. DP will now, for Pool Y, find a shitload of unduplicated files and start a duplication run, in this case copying such files from drives A/B to drive C. Not sure what OS you use but you may need to keep in mind that shares do not automatically follow (i.e. in WSE2016 I would move ServerFolders through the WSE2016 dashboard, even if that takes a long time). As an aside, I would actually create three Pools. Pool X = Drives A/B, Pool Y = drive C and Pool Z = Pool X and Pool Y. I think it makes it easier to manage when adding/replacing drives. Only Pool Y would have x2 duplication. The procedure above still holds.

I have WSE2016 with all ServerFolders on an x2 Pool (and I do backup both OS and one instance of the ServerFolder files as well). No issues. x2 duplication is noce but no replacement for a backup (let alone an offsite rotating backup).

I think I understand now. As you say, ECC can correct some corruption in memory, say a bit erroneously flipping. Scanner does not correct the same type of corruption on a HDD. Scanner, aside from polling SMART data, periodically checks whether it is able to read an entire disk. If a bit on a disk is simply flipped (aka bit-rot I think) then Scanner won't pick that up. Scanner will pick up unreadable sectors (and file system issues as it also does a CHKDSK AFAIK), even if they are presently not used to store data. Unreadable sectors anywhere on a drive is an issue IMHO. But if you force snapraid to read everything periodically and have ECC memory to avoid the (remote IMHO) risk that a files' representation becomes corrupted in memory (while OK on the drive) then I guess it gets you could say it gets close enough.

I don't see how ECC memory comes into play into all this. The benefit is that Scanner may be able to warn you of a drive that is starting to fail based on SMART data. Also, if sectors become bad, it would pick that up during a scan (I don't know snapraid, if it reads *every* file every night then that should be close although Scanner also checks sectors not currently in use). Scanner checks drives depending on a schedule that you can set (and you can force scanning of individual drives at any time through the GUI).

Just install DP on the new machine. It will recognise the Pool. There is only one caveat I know if and that applies to the situation where you use balancers not installed by default. In such a case you would only connect the Pooled drives once DP + plug-ins are installed.

That made me laugh. Thanks.

You could have just one Pool with some files duplicated and others not. I understand you want good protection, but against what exactly? One drive failure? Accidental deletions? Fire/theft? For one drive failure and continuity, DP with x2 duplicarion is, IMHO, better (by far) but at the cost of needing more storage capacity. Just some thoughts.