HPLovecraft

...ahem, forgive me for replying to my own post... I've been experimenting with the DrivePool trial software. It obviously requires an entirely different mindset to what I'm used to. It's clever stuff. I haven't found a way of dictating which drive a duplicate of a file is placed on. But it just occurred to me, I could force DrivePool's behaviour by creating more than one pool..? If I want data on a Seagate to always be duplicated on a Hitachi, I could pool only those two drives together? The software will have no choice where to put the duplicates. Then I make a second pool with Seagate#2 and Hitachi#2. I don't mind having more than one pool... my objective is drive redundancy, rather than a single massive pool. Does this sound sensible..? My brain hurts!

Hi Everyone, I've done plenty of reading but am still a little unsure - hope you don't mind a couple of noob questions in a longwinded post... BACKGROUND: I have an HP Microserver N40L as a home server, which until recently had 2 x 2TB disks set up as RAID1 (controlled by the HP's onboard Raid gadget). I was running low on space, so I posted a query over on WeGotServed forum asking how to expand my RAID array. I had tried out RAID1 to guarantee continuity in the event of a drive failure. I also back up of course. A couple of forum members over there were very helpful, and both recommended DrivePool as an alternative. I'd never heard of it, but did some research and realised it could offer me the benefits of RAID1, plus more flexibility and control. A couple of months later, Santa Claus has brought me some new HDDs, and I'm ready to go. I've already dismantled my RAID1 mirror, and have installed my new HDDs in the Microserver. In there I have 4 disks devoted to storage: Seagate 1 - 2TB Seagate 2 - 2TB Hitachi 1 - 2TB Hitachi 2 - 2TB (in fact I also have a couple of extra partitions from the Hitachi drives, but let's ignore those for now...). The system is on a separate 5th HDD, tucked away in the optical drive bay. Next step is to download & configure DrivePool. QUESTION 1: By default, WHS2011 has created a range of server folders (My Documents, My Pictures, My Videos, etc). I planned to keep this structure - the family understand them & where they can find their stuff. Once they are sitting in a big pool, can I still simply replicate what I used to do with RAID... mount each main folder as a network drive on the client computers? QUESTION 2: I gather I can force certain folders onto certain HDDs using the file placement rules. I plan to have My Docs and My Pics on one 2TB drive, with My Music & My Videos on a different 2TB drive. I plan to use DrivePool to duplicate everything - so I will have a max of 4TB of storage from my 8TB of disks, which is plenty for me. But can I also force which HDD the folders are duplicated onto? Here's why I'm asking... the 2 Seagate drives are nothing special, they're not really intended for server use... they're just what I could afford at the time I first built the Microserver. The two Hitachi drives from Santa are superior units - intended for 24/7 server use, with a far better track record than the Seagates. When setting up duplication, I'd like to 'pair' each Hitachi with a Seagate - so for example My Docs & My Pics are on a Hitachi, duplicated on a Seagate. Each pair would, by definition, be balanced within itself) I don't like the idea of my files living on a Seagate, and being duplicated on another Seagate... I thought it might be wiser to mix them up. Is this possible in DrivePool, or am I trying to dictate something that it's not deigned to do? Am I mad? Or paranoid? Or both..? Told you they were noob questions, but any guidance would be much appreciated!