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Breeze

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Breeze last won the day on June 17 2014

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  1. I mean that after I removed Scanner using "Programs and Features " in the WHS 2011 Control Panel, and after I removed from the Add-in page of the Dashboard, Scanner was still there in the WHS Dashboard menu and could be accessed and functioned normally. There was nothing left for me to remove it further than to reboot, and that didn't even work. However, after the reboot, I ran the new version of the Scanner installer, it was able to update itself to the most recent version without giving me any error pop-ups and the latest version is now running. I hope that's clearer.
  2. Thanks. Just a final FYI: despite the uninstall and removal, the older version of Scanner will remain active on the dashboard even after a reboot, but it can now be updated by running the most recent installer. Reboot after the update.
  3. OK this is weird: I'm not sure which version of Scanner is really running on my system because when I tried to run the update, I get a message saying I'm already running the latest version. And yet, on Scanner's GUI it tells me the version is 2.4.0.2929. Suggestions?
  4. Thanks for the reply. I forced the repair (which took about 15 seconds) and it turns out that "closing handles" basically took the entire DrivePool offline; all the backups came back after a reboot, as well as a new email message reporting the same problem: the drive now reads "Healthy" in Scanner, so I assume that email is no longer relevant (a reporting bug?). So the entire DrivePool was taken offline for the repair. Knowing this is important; my worry was breaking the integrity of the Pool. As for the updates, strangely in the Add-Ins section of WHS 2011, I only see Stabilebit Scanner listed there, with the latest version 2.5.3062 (is this = to 2.1.5.3062?), which is weird because the version that appears at the bottom of Scanner's "settings" window is 2.4.0.2929. And as for DrivePool, it oddly doesn't appear at all on the Add-Ins window. But its GUI clearly indicates 2.1.0.553. Anyway, I'll update both. These could just be old bugs. Thanks for the help.
  5. I use both Scanner and DrivePool on a WHS 2011 system which is only used for system backups of 3 PCs in my home. I don't use WHS for data storage at all. It turns out I'm using Scanner 2.4.0.2929 and DrivePool 2.1.0.553, so I'm a little behind on the updates, although these programs never let me know updates were available which is how I believed I was to be notified... anyway... This morning I received an email from Scanner letting me know that there's File System Damage. It's one of 4 - 1TB drives that are part of the pool containing all the PC backups. SMART data is not "predicting imminent failure" (the drive is only about 20% through its warranty coverage). I looked into this from the Scanner applet on the WHS connection software and after clicking on "A file system on this disk is not healthy and ready to be repaired", I got a popup with the option to repair the disk and warned me to make sure all files are closed to run checkdsk. So I clicked OK but got a second popup called "Force Repair Volume" which would forcibly close any open files and proceed. Here I chickened out. I'm not sure of this but it seems that as long as the drive is in the Pool, it would be considered to be in use. There might be enough free space for me to remove the drive from the pool, but with File System Damage, that hardly seems advisable. Should I "Force Repair Volume"? Should I shut down the machine, extricate the drive and use checkdsk on another computer? I'm somewhat stumped as to how to proceed. Thanks for any help.
  6. Breeze

    Just..."Wow!" ;)

    Actually, the warranty can be re-adjusted to the purchase date (I've done this many times with WD drives). Also when a drive gets replaced on warranty, the warranty deadline can sometimes be changed and in some cases extended. This is why I think this should be a user managed field. Only the OVERVIEW section of the Details page; and yes for ALL the disks in the system.
  7. As a relative noob with DrivePool, I've basically installed it and haven't really played much with the defaults. However I do have an issue: I'm using it with WHS 2011 mainly for client backups and I'd like to be able to backup the entire pool to external media for off-site storage. My client backup is now about 3.25 TB and will likely grow over time so it's outside the scope of the built-in WHS Server Backup feature as far it's not designed to handle over 2TB of client backup data. I see files being redistributed among the drives through the balancing routines and I'm counting on Scanner to clear out a drive when it starts going bad. I'm quite happy leaving this setup do what it's designed to. I have 5-1TB drives installed, and can go up to 7, specifically because they'll be easier and faster to vacate and replace. But all this management means that the pool is essentially in a constant state of flux. An offline backup of the pool would be possible with 3rd party disk copy software but this is a problem if the pool is constantly changing. It would be very handy to be able to essentially freeze the pool and curtail ALL pool-shuffling activity while doing such a backup. Maybe this is already there? Or maybe I'm not seeing this clearly. Actually, it would be pretty cool if DrivePool had a built-in backup routine to backup it's own data, but that's probably outside the scope of the program. Interested in any comments or opinions on the above. Thanks.
  8. Breeze

    Just..."Wow!" ;)

    This is in fact very useful. OK FR's: - Another bit of data I'd like to be able to input manually and see shown is the warranty expiry date for each drive in the system. - I also would like to see a details page listing the Overview from the Drive Details for all the drives on one page. BTW, I put an old questionable drive in the system, got SMART warnings and an email advisory... yanked the drive out... this is just great....
  9. Breeze

    Just..."Wow!" ;)

    I recently moved to WHS 2011 and knew about DrivePool, found out about Scanner, and bought the one machine license for both. I've been spending more time with DrivePool getting things organized. I put a new disk in WHS yesterday and discovered that Scanner can read the SMART data through one of the SATA chipsets on the motherboard that for years I'd given up on; none of the diagnostic tools I used in the past could see it. Then I discovered the shortcuts at the bottom of the Scanner window disclosing everything we'd like to know (or not!) about the drives... I just want to say that you've done an amazing job with Scanner; it's a far, far deeper program than the opening GUI initially suggests. Very comprehensive and I can definitely see a place for it on conventional workstations. Kudos!
  10. Seems there's a lot of "ummm"-ing and "maybe..."'s and generalized pussy footing around on this subject! Could it be because it's never a sure thing? What worked for me, for the record: WHS 2011 SP1 all patched as of 2014-06-12 DrivePool 2.0.1.553 RC Scanner 2.4.0.2929 Note: there were no shared or duplicated folders in the pooled HDDs, just the "Client Computer Backups" folder (G:\ServerFolders\Client Computer Backups). The default shared folders are on D: (2nd partition of the C: disc) To change the letter to P: (or whatever): Close any open files open on the server from your clients for safety, and close any open Dashboards. Via Remote Desktop, change the Pool Drive Letter in the Disk Management Snap-In of the Server Manager (I changed it to P:) Reboot the machine. You'll get warnings about "file loss": that's what step 1 was for. Immediately after the reboot, open the Dashboard from one of your clients. Don't freak out that WHS doesn't know where your Client Backup folder is. I right clicked on the Client Backup share and selected the only option to restore the connection to another drive.*** In the subsequent dialog, "P:\..." was already preselected. On the next dialog, there's an option to edit the backup options, or just close. I just closed; didn't want to alter anything. *** About point 6.: The only option I see now after I did all this is "Move the folder": I don't remember if that was the option or if it was called something else, but it was pretty obvious from the name. BTW, I didn't use the WSSTroubleshooter as Christopher suggested because it was appended with "(OS Reinstall)" and that made me nervous... After this, I tried restoring files, and everything seems to be fine and connected. I tried restarting to make sure, and everything's good. Ta-freakin-daa...
  11. I did this major flub installing DrivePool. Now my pool is assigned "G:", between the real drives F: and H:... this could be trouble down the line when drives get replaced and/or taken out. Wish I'd known this first. All I have currently on WHS 2011 is client backups, all in the DrivePool. Unduplicated Shared folders are on D: (same physical drive as C:). So I'd like to use B: or P: for the pool as others have done. But how do I change the client backup drive reference without losing the client backups? Is it even possible? Thanks!
  12. I found something strange: when I checked up on the WHS machine, I noticed the DVDROM light was going on and off constantly. It turns out I had left the WHS 2011 disk in it. After I removed it, I checked the Windows System logs and found a huge list of consecutive error messages whose source was "cdrom": "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\CdRom0." Not sure why this was happening; never seen this before. Could it be related to Scanner? FYI...
  13. Actually, the driver angle is a valid one: my graphics card currently is using the default VGA driver and doesn't have a proper WS2008-R2 driver. There may well be other issues, though none glaringly obvious. BTW, the first auto-backup worked last night, but a second client backup got hijacked by "update Tuesday"... and now I can't connect to the dashboard from that client... (%!?#&/$!!!). Teething pains. Thanks for all the tips. I'll definitely take a closer look at the hardware config and do some benchmarking.
  14. Done! It took 30 hours. I'm going to have to figure out if this can be improved. I'm hoping the incremental updates are going to be significantly faster.
  15. Thanks for the observations, Christopher. It's now past the 24 hour mark, with 16% left to go. I understand that this is a lot of data, and that there's a lot of management involved in doing client backups, but it's still considerably longer than it took with WHSv1. The only difference, apart with the root OS which I would expect to be at least as efficient, is DrivePool. Everything else, hardware, network & NICs, even drives and clients, are exactly the same. I think it may also have something to do with the drive balancing. I get the feeling that every so often, there's a time where the drives in pool are being balanced and then the backup resumes. Is this the case? Every so often the Performance part of the Addin reports "No disk activity on the pool" for a while... and then resumes. I'm also wondering if DrivePool & Scanner consider drive speed at all. Thanks to Scanner, I do know that the drives are fine, but shouldn't each drive's read/write performance be considered and factored into the performance of the pool? Seems to me one slow drive would bring the speed of the entire pool down. Without testing I can't really tell, but I think one of the drives in the pool is consistently slower than the others; that could be the problem. BTW, are you interested in my log?
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