Beaker1024

Christopher - Thanks for the detailed response. I wasn't expecting responses over the Holidays (I just finally decided I needed your software and give it a try this week), Thanks again! I noticed the drive details were a bit less on the Samsung than the WDs I have. They didn't have the fancy SATA connector image and info on port, etc.... That's OK I'll live without that for the extra safety! Especially when you can get me the SMART details safely for detecting drive failure (most important). BTW I found digital pictures of the screen when I did the firmware updates saying successful. Just have tried to always not do the event that causes the error just in case. Really wish they changed the firmware #. I should and likely will start two more threads. I've almost worked through all my setup / concerns and this software set is amazing! Have a great Holiday! I'll be buying the full set of software from you soon + really like the new programs you have slated to develop! Especially the one regarding UPS Power status (IIRC). Can you post a quick step outline on how and what the BitFlok ID is/works? I understand its general purpose just not the more detail view of it.

I have 2 Samsung HD204UI that I am fairly sure that I did the firmware update when I installed them ~3 years ago. Without the firmware patch they had a bug that would corrupt data if it got a NCQ write while the S.M.A.R.T. data was being read from the drive. Problem is the firmware patch did not change the firmware version so there's no real way of knowing if your drive is safe. I have looked at all the options and advanced options regarding SMART data reading in the scanner plugin. I'm not sure the "Do not use Direct I/O when querying SMART" option is exactly what I need or not. Can you expand on what this options prevents in more detail? For the time being I"m checking the "Do not query SMART" for each of these drives to be safe. I'd like to be able to uncheck those boxes and get the Scanner to read SMART (even if only during working hours and infrequently). Do you have any suggestions or details on what some of these options do? Thank you for your time and assistance!

Well my test folder was just one that I added.... Running into an issue with the default share folders: NOTE: You can not "Stop sharing the folder" on the default / basic folder shares in WHS2011. I tired the utility wizard. This didn't work. Failed on "Recorded TV". NOTE: MY case is likely more complicated as I was merging 4 shares for recorded TV (due to manually balancing storage space on 4 drives) back into 1 share on the Pool. So I had to the file suffle to get it to work. Stop Drivepool service. rename Recorded TV folders on all 4 of the hidden dirs and then the Pool that was seeded. Do the "Move Share" for Recorded TV (moving an empty folder to an empty folder). Then rename all the hidden drivepool folders back to "Recorded TV" Start service, reset to defaults. This did it! BIngo. BTW - Christopher I have a quick question. I forgot to "Stop" the drive pool service once before moving a batch of files into the hidden folder (Seeding). My drivepool install was set to all defaults (nothing changed after install). I don't think I had a chance of hurting/losing any files but thought I'd ask. What do you think?

Well I've installed and am trying out DrivePool working with it via RDP to WHS2011 and it's working really really well when I did some test cases. Very nice. If anyone is wondering about your server shares here's the method I've come up with and it doesn't use the utility wizard program: 1) Do the entire "seeding" process in the Wiki. Use WHS2011 dashboard on the "Servers Folders" tab for the following steps: 2) Right click on share name --> View Properties [share tab] & make note of your perimssions per user. Then close this dialog out. 3) Right click on share name --> "Stop Sharing the Folder" --> Go through wizard. 4) Right click on open white space ---> "Add Share Folder" --> Give same Share Name & point location browser to DrivePool folder you want/seeded. (Go through wizard) 5) Right click on share name --> View Properties [share tab] & setup perimssions per user from note in step 2. Then OK this dialog out. 6) Smile alot NOTE: I heavily make use of Win 7 Libraries so I setup a new library to use the test share folder (made before installing DrivePool that I used throughout this evaluation). If you do the steps above correctly and have the new "Share Name" match the old "Share Name" the library doesn't care and upon a "refresh" of explorer's directory listing it's working perfectly.

Come to think of it screen captures of the utility wizard for each option would likely answer some of these questions. Like does the re-linking of shares have user selectable folders for each existing share (which means it'd easily do what I want in both directions [move to drivepool or back away from using it])

Thank you I had read about the "seeding" process and appreciate having that method. It will be what I do for sure! The missing part for me was how to tell the server about the share folder being moved. THe utility sounds like it has that covered. My last question on this would be how do you reverse the process if you decide not to stay with DrivePool. I'm not asking about "unseeding" I think that your wiki on seeding would be easy to reverse. Again it's the Server knowing the shares are located on what drive letter/folder. So moving back away form drivepool pretend the files are all unseeded and moved back to old folders (not hidden pool folders). Does your utiltiy fix the share locations back to non-pool folders if you want to get back to non-drivepool system? PS - Thanks for the quick responses... an actively monitored/responded to forum is one of the first things I look for when deciding to purchase software! StableBit definitely gets an A+ there!

Ok. I've actually only installed the Scanner on my WHS2011 so far an it just finished scanning all 4 of my HDD on the server. I haven't installed DrivePool yet as I wanted to know working wtih the WHS2011 shares will be easy to "convert" over to the pooled folder. Also once using the utilitiy to re-link them do you still have access to working with the shares (folders) on the server with the dashbaord. By working with I mean all the options of permissions for users,etc.... To ask the inverse you are not forced to do RDP and outside of dasbaord user perimsion editing in WHS2011 once the shares are re-linked to inside the share. I figure making really new shares will be easy and fine as the pool acts like a normal drive. It's the existing and the "seeding" process that the final step of "re-link" I was most concerned about. Seems the utillity does that step nicely for you. Will have to give DrivePool a test in the coming weeks.

I'm currently a day into trying the StableBit Scanner WHS2011 addin as well I've gone 3 years on my 2 2TB drives and wanted to know their health. I'm currently doing my own manual rebalancing of recorded *.wtv files across 4 drives of various sizes on my WHS2011 system. But having 4 different named shares for "Recorded TV" "Recorded TV - Archive" "recorded TV - Archive 2".... you get the idea the shares a messy but having Win 7 / MCE Libraries clump all the shares into one library made it just usuable so far. I like your ordered placement plugin idea as it'll replicate what I'm doing manually (each month opening remote desktop and manually moving some *.wtv files around). I also like the gain of turning duplication on for folders (currently utitilizing a 1 a day backup sync with versioning to an off server other PC HD for only some folders). The biggest gain would be the easy of recovering from a drive dieing! So I have read a ton and know about seeding folders and such no problem. My questions is likely for an even easier task but I haven't seen a screen capture or mention of howto do it yet. How do you handle the re-linking of the shares on the WHS2011 server. I doublt you use the "Move Share" option on shared folders tab of the dashboard as I believe that tries to move the files. I just want to know it's a clean process to have the WHS2011 server OS know that the newly seeded folders on the DrivePool are the now correct location for the network share.