grimpr

Very handy and useful for debugging and error reporting, comes in Windows 10 Anniversary Update.
 
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/stordiag-exe-storage-diagnostic-tool

A nice tool to have.
 
http://www.permissionsreporter.com/Download/

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.

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?
 

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
 
 

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.

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?
 

Ouch, I'm sorry to hear that.  
 
I know that VMWare ESX has less issues with passthrough.  
 
But for enterprise, it's mostly Clustered file systems, or hardware RAID for storage, and then VHD created on those.   Drive passthrough is more pro-sumer stuff. So not as well developed in some hypervisors. 

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.

Very handy and useful for debugging and error reporting, comes in Windows 10 Anniversary Update.
 
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/stordiag-exe-storage-diagnostic-tool

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.
 

 
 

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. 

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
 
 

A nice tool to have.
 
http://www.permissionsreporter.com/Download/

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

Aside from what you've outlined?  
 
No. Duplication passes occur at 1AM, IIRC, when real time duplication is disabled. This is configurable in the advanced config file. 
 
 
Otherwise, you're set.  Just keep in mind that files won't be duplicated if the files are still in use when the duplication pass occurs. 

I'm moving this to the "Off Topic" section, as this doesn't really involve StableBit DrivePool. 
 
As for the Intel RST based RAID, I'm not sure honestly. 
 
It should be fairly reliable though. But the performance out of it may not be great, because it's onboard/pseudo-software RAID. But that shouldn't matter much in this case. 
 
As for unplugging it, I honestly couldn't tell you as I've never done this.  
That said, I think that it does, at least if you have the software installed on the OS.
 
 
But either way, this would essentially require reinstalling the OS, to get it to work properly. 

The lastest, which is 13.
 
Specifically, I bought the "Smart Bundle", which was the server version and 5 Pro versions (for $150).  The server license is $100 normally, so it's not a bad deal.
The "home server" may work, but it looks like it's still using v12.
 
As for the setup.... I use the "SSD" option for the SSD drives, completely disabled the Pool drive, but I use the "SMARTPlacement" for the rest of the disks, and use the "Performance Aggressive" option. This stores the boot and directory info at the beginning of the disk. Then the "Recently" modified files, so they're at the beginning as well, and will load faster. Then the occasionally and rarely modified files (in that order).  In theory, this should favor frequently modified files, as these are arguably more important.

After the initial installation, you need to manually specify an IP address to connect to the box, as it doesn't have the DHCP role installed/configured.  It does set that up as part of the installation wizard, but until then....
Check out this link for details: https://drashna.net/blog/2014/09/installing-sophos-utm/
 
And yeah, if you're using virtualization a lot, a dedicated box is a better idea for it. THat way if something goes wrong, it doesn't affect anything else.  Also, it means that you don't have to split the CPU and Memory between the VMs *and* the file server. 
Also, that said, you should definitely have multiple NICs. Honestly, I'd recommend 3 minimum.  2 to dedicate to the VMs (especially as you'll basically need to do  this with Sophos) and 1 NIC to manage the host system. 

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.

Well, if you want to take a look, I've documented a lot of the setup: https://drashna.net/blog/sophos-utm/
 
A lot of the setup isn't exactly straightforward, but I've covered a good amount. 

Thanks for the Sophos UTM recommendation, i will try this in a VM.
 
Here are my recommendations for nice backup programs.
 
Crashplan
Veeam Endpoint Backup
Macrium Reflect

Well, there are a few additional things to help here:
 
Never, EVER use an administrative account, or use credentials for an admin account on another system.  Windows Server and Windows Pro create administrative shares by default and (as far as I remember, cannot be disabled). This means that each drive letter has a shared folder, including the system drive (eg, c$, d$, e$, etc), and these shares default to "everyone" for permission and fall back onto NTFS permissions. Meaning an admin has full access here. 

Meaning that an administrative login will give full access of other systems, and can spread the malware with ease. 

For Windows Server Essentials, it means that you should NEVER use the domain admin account for normal usage. (you can set a normal domain user as a local admin per computer, so there isn't a need to use a domain admin account).
  Always use restrictive permissions.  Eg, do not get write or modify permissions on folders or shares to groups. Give them to specific users, and only users that need these permissions.  Everything else should be read, execute and list permissions only. 
  Don't download for untrusted sources. And if you must, quarantine the files (eg, use a virtual machine to test and scan first). 
  Always use a virus scanner on systems that directly download data from the internet, and keep it up to date. 
  Back up data to an "off site" solution. One that isn't easily accessible.   
 
Also, something else that helps is a good hardware firewall. Personally, I use Sophos UTM, and it scans most of the downloads on the network, as well as web scanning.  This means that things are much less likely to make it onto my network.  pfSense has some web filter options (but are very complicated to set up IMO), Untangle has paid options here, as well. And There are other solutions, also.  
 
Additionally, most modern virus scanners have a firewall/web filter option as well.
For instance. BitDefender does, but doesn't advertise and scans all traffic, including HTTPS without real consent.  ESET's Smart Security product does, also (but they have NOD32 which is just a virus scanner). Etc.

New variations of ransomware encrypt unmapped network shares, i suggest to NOT share the whole pool and start using FTP to backup your files. I locked down my pool, put Antivirus on it the Drivepool server and the Virtual Machines and opened up only folders that are temporary, like torrent downloads,temp etc, duplicated stuff are out of reach in the network and are accessed only through FTP. Also, Crashplan is a nice choise to backup your client pc's since it doesnt use shares or ftp but its own secure protocol.
 
Be strict and proactive and you're pool will be safe.
 
 
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/dma-locker-ransomware-targets-unmapped-network-shares/

Thanks, i'll think i just use Windows 10 and only run Drivepool /w Scanner on it, everything else will be run in virtual machines with the included Hyper-V, its the better way to do this for me, no need to mess up with complex solutions.