[Microsoft leak reveals new Windows 10 Workstation edition for power users.]

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/5/15739192/microsoft-windows-10-pro-for-workstations-advanced-pcs-features

 

 

In a leaked slide, Microsoft describes the edition as “Windows 10 Pro for Workstation†with four main capabilities:

• Workstation mode: Microsoft plans to optimize the OS by identifying “typical compute and graphics intensive workloads†to provide peak performance and reliability when Workstation mode is enabled.
• Resilient file system: Microsoft’s file system successor to NTFS, dubbed ReFS, is enabled in this new version, with support for fault-tolerance, optimized for large data volumes, and auto-correcting.
• Faster file handling: As workstation machines are typically used for large data volumes across networks, Microsoft is including the SMBDirect protocol for file sharing and high throughput, low latency, and low CPU utilization when accessing network shares.
• Expanded hardware support: Microsoft is also planning to allow Windows 10 Pro for Workstation on machines with up to 4 CPUs and a memory limit of 6TB. Windows 10 Pro currently only supports 2 CPUs.

[NAS server with Drivepool under KVM/Proxmox Hypervisor.]

Update, i switched back to Windows 10 Pro with Hyper-V because Hard Disk Passthrough in Linux KVM had problems in my Windows 7 VM's, when checkdisk was run on any hard disk the virtual machine crashed immediately, after investigation i found that nobody in the professional/production vm crowd uses hard disk passthrough, they only use virtual hard disk files on top the hard disk because its much safer this way, the host hypervisor OS must always have direct control of the hard disks. So, SMART works under hard disk passthrough in Linux KVM but the are hidden problems, thankfully no data was lost and since i prepared for something like this it was only an image restore to bring me back to my previous setup.

[MBR to GPT Partioion change]

I've done GPT and NTFS 64K cluster size on all of my Stablebit Drivepool drives sometime ago, one by one i've emptied the drives, removed them from the Pool, initialized them as GPT, formatted them with 64K ntfs cluster size and readded them to the Pool, it took time but it was worth it.

[Network drives from within a virtual machine?]

I'm wanting to check something before I start working on a project; Currently I'm running DrivePool with 4 drives on a Windows 10 machine. I want to convert this machine to a Linux host, install Windows 10 as a guest using VirtualBox, share my four drives to have read/write access between the host/guest machine, and then run DrivePool from within the Windows 10 guest to manage these drives. Virtualbox mounts the shared drives as network drives.

 

Does anyone see possible issues with using DrivePool in this way? I don't have a huge performance demand, so read/write delays are OK. I'm just more worried about DrivePool even being able to manage networked drives in this way. I enjoy the product and find it an effective alternative to what I was using RAID for. I also have to much data on these four drives to off-load and re-establish as a RAID array under Linux. So I'm trying to do a work around to allow me to continue using the program within a virtual machine, with a few other Windows only programs I can't part with.

 

Also, with the above example, would I need to remove the drives from my pool prior to reformatting the current Windows machine? Or would DrivePool find the data when I re-add them as a new pool, once everything is setup under the VirtualBox guest machine?

 

 

Dont use Virtualbox, its performance is very bad especially on network and storage. If you want to virtualize your NAS go full bare metal hypervisor on Hyper-V,ESXI, KVM or XEN.

 

I currently run a fully virtualized Stablebit Drivepool with Scanner on a Windows 7 guest running on top of a Proxmox Linux KVM Hypervisor, the hard disks are passed through to the Drivepool VM along with SMART data, it runs great with good disk and network performance and no problems for almost a month now.

[Need some help troubleshooting]

i do see in the event viewer a warning :

 

Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued.

 

To get the system back up, i had to unplug the sata cable of a single drive and then boot the machine, windows booted into diag mode and then once it was done i restarted again. this time the machine went straight into windows. Then i shutdown, plug back in the sata cable of the drive, turn on and the machine when back in normally...i have had to repeat this exact same pattern twice in order to get back in.

 

This my friend was a nasty problem that plagued 2 of my clients machines and got me 2 weeks to finally fix it, its random in nature and a great bugger, destroyed 2 ssd's from both client machines with bad sectors.

 

Its a Windows 10 specific problem, you must disable Fast Boot and PCI Express / Link State Power Management in Windows Power Options. Do them both and this nasty bugger will disappear.

 

 

 

[NAS server with Drivepool under KVM/Proxmox Hypervisor.]

Hard disk SMART attributes are passed succesfully to a Windows 7 VM with Stablebit Drivepool and Stablebit Scanner under Proxmox KVM Linux Hypervisor, using SCSI Virtio and hard disk passthrough on the Windows 7 VM.

 

[NAS server with Drivepool under KVM/Proxmox Hypervisor.]

I don't believe that KVM supports SMART passthrough.

 

However, I do believe that it supports device passthough, so if all f the drives are on a single controller, you may be able to pass that through, and get the SMART data. 

 

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/13/html/Virtualization_Guide/chap-Virtualization-PCI_passthrough.html

 

Otherwise, the only hypervisor that I know that does this is VMWare's ESX. 

 

Thanks Christopher, i have my Windows 10 Drivepool server backuped already, will try Proxmox and report with my findings.

 

Seems like SMART works with a SCSI passthrough in Proxmox, this is good news since Stablebit Scanner will work now. Will test and report back. Cant really decide which setup is best, a pc windows nas running vms or a hypervisor running a virtualized nas.

 

https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/s-m-a-r-t-in-kvm-on-virtio-drive.30282/

[NAS server with Drivepool under KVM/Proxmox Hypervisor.]

I was thinking running my file server under a Linux KVM hypervisor like Proxmox, pass the disks to a Windows 10 with Drivepool, are there any considerations? anyone knows if SMART works under KVM?

[Simultaneous mass NTFS corruption: 2 Pools (2 pairs of 2 drives in 4 drive USB chassis...)]

Looks to me you lost the partition tables, in which case you had the hard disks as MBR, switch to GPT to stay on the safe side of partition table corruption.

[Interesting article about the pitfalls of ReFS and Storage Spaces.]

Long recovery times when disaster strikes, expensive recovery software needed plus more. Looks like Drivepool with duplication, good old NTFS and single non raided hard disks is the most stable way to maintain a home nas.  

 

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-features/31836-data-recovery-tales-when-windows-storage-spaces-go-bad

 

 

[Snapraid functionality in Drivepool.]

I propose that the developers should seriously think about adding Snapraid like functionality in Drivepool, its a great combination along with the duplication feature of Drivepool, those two features, parity and duplication support will make the product better than Unraid.

[Unduplicated files with Pool file duplication]

Glad to hear it, Drivepool needs a new stable release soon, Clouddrive took a lot of developer time from the main product.

[Reliable Client Backup Solutions]

I tried and use Macrium Reflect Free and Veeam Endpoint Backup Free, both excellent programs, try them and choose according to your needs and wishes.

 

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

https://www.veeam.com/endpoint-backup-free.html

[Best defragmenting software (or none at all)?]

 

Also, speaking of pre-emptive defragmentation.... They use "File system filters" to do so, and normally, DrivePool bypasses them. You may need to disable the bypass to get benefit from them.. 

 

 

But really, there isn't a huge need to defragment drives anymore.

 

From personal experience i recommend disabling all real time defragmenation features in defrag programs like OptiWrite in Perfectdisk and others, they only mess things up especially with other system filters running like AVs or Drivepool, a simple free space consolidation or smartplacement defrag once a month is more than enough nowdays. 

[StorDiag, a new command line tool for storage diagnostic report from Microsoft.]

Very handy and useful for debugging and error reporting, comes in Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

 

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/stordiag-exe-storage-diagnostic-tool

[Best defragmenting software (or none at all)?]

Hi, from recommendations and personal experience, i find that using Perfectdisk Pro with Smartplacement Performance strategy and having the hard disk drives formatted with 64K NTFS cluster size, is the best combination for speed and quick times, i defrag only once per month my hard disk drives.

[Permissions Reporter for Windows, Free edition.]

A nice tool to have.

 

http://www.permissionsreporter.com/Download/

[SSD as cache/seeder disk with no realtime duplication enabled.]

I'm moving my drivepool setup from default settings to an SSD cache/seeder disk that accepts files from the network and feeds the hard disks later, also the realtime duplication will be disabled since there's only 1 ssd in the system and manually set the time to duplicate at night, what are the recommended settings for such a setup?

[Create file list of drive contents?]

I use Foldersizes but Space Sniffer would work too, it has command line with file export, schedule it with Windows Task Scheduler and you're set.

 

http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/index.html

[Scanner compatibility with Hard Disk Sentinel.]

I like Sentinels tray icons and temperature statistics, would like to keep it on the drivepool fileserver and take a look sometimes through teamviewer.

[Scanner compatibility with Hard Disk Sentinel.]

Is there any problem running Scanner along with Hard Disk Sentinel? Would like to run Sentinel too on my file server and keeping a tab on the hard disks.

[Copies from DP to external drives freezing to 0 Mbps]

I had many problems using Windows copy function in the past and started searching for a reliable and robust copy program to handle multiterrabytes of data, imho nothings comes close to http://ipmsg.org/tools/fastcopy.html.en which has proven fast and robust for my usage.

[OS Drive on Motherboard RAID-1 or a better raid card?]

Want to upgrade my OS drives to RAID-1 on my Stablebit FileServer and my Workstation, does the Intel raid on the motherboards that support works reliably? If i unplug a disk from the motherboard raid will the Intel raid proceed to boot degraded and report it?

 

[Idea for new feature: cryptolocker defender.]

Thanks Christopher, i did manually setup a manual ip fom the internal network lancard to connect to the sophos vm from the windows 10 host, as found in user guides and your guide  but i couldn't connect with neither microsoft edge nor chrome from the same box, tried multiple times without success and rolled back, the best solution now, as you suggested and i agree,  is a dedicated vm box with 3 adapters, keep the file server and the vm host separate and tidy is the best way to do it.

 

Found the microatx case for the Hyper-V box, isn't it a beauty?

 

http://www.chieftec.eu/en/chassis/mini-tower/xt-01b.html

 

[Virtualization Rebuild; Thoughts?]

I have almost the same setup as you, i run 2-3 VMs ontop of Windows 10 Pro with Hyper-V on my Drivepool fileserver, works great BUT i wanted more vm's to play with and could not risk the file server for this role. I decided to build a new box exclusively for Virtual Machines using a cheap celeron, plenty of ram and a 240GB SSD, the Stablebit fileserver will be left alone running only a antivirus on it, everything else will be moved to the new vm box.