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jmone

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Everything posted by jmone

  1. I've done a clean Windows Install and I must have forgotten how to setup the "SSD Optimizer" plug in correctly for File Placement. This is the only plugin I have active and I've got: - SSD checked for the SSD and Archive checked for the spinning rust - On file Placement I've checked a couple of folders I want to remain only on the SSD for performance reasons. I've also marked these folders as "Never allow files to be placed on any other disks" This seems to work correctly in that files are moved onto the SSD, but.... When I run a "Re-Balance" these files are then copied OFF the SSD back to the HDD. Any thoughts? Thanks Nathan Pic of setting --> https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkiTPpgNxBQV8B-pmaKvnfgyVLLU?e=XCrZeG
  2. My backup pool has a 1TB SSD that I use to speed up my backups over a 10Gbs link. Works great, as I can quickly backup my deltas from the main pool --> backup pool and in slow time it pushes the files to the large set of spinning rust (100TB). However, when I try to copy a file that is larger than the 1TB SSD I get a msg saying there is not enough available space. Ideally, the SSD Optimiser should just push the file directly to a HDD in such cases (feature request?), but for now what would be the best way of copying this file into the pool? - Manually copy directly to one of the HDD behind DrivePools back then rescan? - Turn off the SSD optimiser then copy the file" or, - Some other method? Thanks Nathan
  3. Thank Drashna & Umfriend. All seems to work well.
  4. I got around to rebuilding my server and tried to move the ServerFolders onto the Drive pool but got warnings that "Cannot Enable Shadow Copy on the HDD" for "File History", "Folder Redirect" and "Users". It did not give me this warning for "Company" and I did not try "Client Computer Backups" as this is where all the data is. The only difference I have with my Drive Pool is that all my discs are formatted as ReFS. Do I care about Shadow Copy for the Server Folders? Thanks Nathan
  5. I've been running DrivePool on my Windows Server 2016 Essentials just fine. My pool is all ReFS. To date I've kept my Windows Server "ServerFolders" on a separate physical HDD outside the pool and occasionally I've had to get a larger HDD to fit these folders as they get larger over time. I also have a separate HDD that is also used to backup the OS and the "ServerFolders" HDD. I was thinking that I "could" do the following but is it a good idea? 1) Put the "ServerFolders" on the DrivePool with 2 x Duplication 2) Just backup the Windows Server OS drive to a backup drive. Does this make sense or is there an issue I'm unaware of? Thanks Nathan
  6. Thanks - The idea is more about doing parallel removals instead of in series. eg, It would be much quicker if DP would - move the content of Old1-->New1 & Old2-->New2 directly at the same time rather than - move the content of Old1-->New1 & New2, then Old2-->New1 & New2 (current behaviour) The more drives you are swapping at the same time the quicker this method would be.
  7. I'm currently adding 2 new 14TB drives and removing 2 x 8 TB Ones. I'm using the GUI Remove Drive function but it does this sequentially (eg 1 drive removal at a time) and given the volume of data this will take well over a day. One feature I liked with DriveBender is that you could do multiple parallel drive removals! DriveBender did this by Drive Swap function where you could specify a Target Drive instead of using the Balancer and you could do as many of these in parallel as you had disks. I know I could do this "behind" DrivePools back but would prefer to do it through the GUI.
  8. ...and "Remove Disk" is even slower when you are using the "SSD Optimizer" as it first copies the data to the SSD then to the Archive Discs (eg it does not just copy the data to the new disk).
  9. Yup - it is because it does one disc at a time instead of (in my case) 3 Old Discs --> 3 New Discs in parallel. It all went fine BTW. I'm now in the final process of using the balancer to do the final empty of 2 old 4TB disks to one new 8TB disk.
  10. Thanks for the tips. The manual copy of the old 3 x 6tb --> 3 x 8tb hdd has finished, just checking the pool (also with FreeFileSycn the contents against my production pool) and then I'll remove the 6tb hdd, reformat as ReFS 3.1, re-add, then repeat the process starting with the older 4tb hdd. All of this takes ages of course. I'd really rather do this all through the UI but as pools and discs get larger, the lack of parallelism starts making some of the operations very long. To get some parallelism it would be good to allow multiple "Remove Drive 1 and copy to Drive A" + "Remove Drive 2 and copy to Drive B" etc.
  11. I'm adding a bunch of re-purposed 8TB Archive Drives to my backup pool on WS2016 Essentials so I can reformat the existing ones to ReFS V3.1 - Using the File Balancer to do this will take about 15 Days as it reads / writes one file at a time. I know it is not recomended but I could: - Stop DrivePool - Copy the contents from the Hidden DrivePool Folder at the same time "OldDisk1 --> NewDisk2" / "OldDisk2 --> NewDisk2" / etc etc - Restart DrivePool By doing this I could get 4 parallel streams and hence it would be much quicker..... but what am I going to break (if anything) with DrivePool (apart from the pool being offline)? ...or is there a way of making the Balancer do multi streams? Thanks Nathan Edit - I've started the above process on 3 x 6tb --> 3 x 8tb hdds - will report back how it goes but is (as expected) much quicker (if I don't ruin my pool in the process)
  12. Thanks - reminds me to check. I see that the MegaRAID Storage Manager has an "Update firmware" link but it seems to only be for the Controller itself. Looks like I have on the M1015 (seen as a SAS9211-8i) Ver 20.00.04.00 (I "think" the latest is 20.00.07.00). EDIT: Storage Manger made updating the M1015 firmware to 20.00.07.00 easy as! EDIT2: I'm reluctant to try to upgrade the firmware of the Expander till I know what it actually is.... and I've failed! I can find no doco about this board at all.
  13. A couple of pics (one from MSM), + one of my brand new Mid Plane mounting solution (I'm now just using the 2 x SFF-8088 to 8088 Cables to connect to the M1015 and I'll leave the others if I ever need to use the External SFF Board for more storage goodness). Love how you can just plug these expanders in and they just work without any mucking around.
  14. urgh....I can no longer upload images (I've hit some 2MB limit apparently). !!!
  15. Thanks - I'm not sure it shows much (see pic) but the little board is not connected at present (I'll try connecting it later and see if anything changes).... or is there are part of MSM I should be looking at?
  16. So I got the RES2CV360.... well it actually from what I can tell a DELL 010141900-000-G (PN 5R10N??) as per the pic with a bunch of extra bits: - SAS external to internal card - SFF-8087 to 8088 Internal To External 26P Dual Port Card - 2 x SFF-8087 to 8088 Cables - 6 x SFF-8088 to 8088 Cable - 4PIN12V to 4 MOLEX plug pin connector/converter - Delock ATX Power Supply & Fan Controller For now I removed the little board connected by the 2 x ribbon cable (not sure what it does) and just connected the Expander to my M1015 using the supplied 2 x SFF-8087 to 8088 cables and then from the Expander to the Backplane using the existing cables. It just booted up fine with no issue from Windows Server 2016 or DrivePool I've not been able to track down any doco on this card at all so far and I'm not sure what some of the bits even do or if I want to use them. I also need to work out how to mount the card and route the cables.....
  17. ...or has the world moved onto some low cost PCI-e 3.0 16 port HBA?
  18. jmone

    REFS in pool

    Does anyone know if you can "upgrade" ReFS V1.2 to V3.1 on Server 2016 without reformatting? FYI - I've seen on my Windows Pro for Workstations the ReFS gets automatically upgraded between sub versions (as per the table in this post). Thanks Nathan
  19. ... just reporting back (sorry also realised this is probably in the wrong sub forum). So far so good. All seems to be working but it did take a loooong time. Couple of notes: - The installer complained that I had to manually upgrade the domain and AD. Why the installer does not do it I'm unsure and I lost an hour or two working that out - Many rounds of Windows Updates dowloading, preparing, upgrading various "Cumulative Updates". This took 8 hours all up and much longer than the initial install. Why oh Why doesn't the original install download include all these latest patches - DrivePool cam up no issue post the upgrade - Client Backups where kept as well - Seems the bug about adding a new drive requiring removal and re-setup of the OS Backup is gone (finally)
  20. In my 20 Bay Chassis I currently have 2 x M1015 (flashed to IT mode) feeding 16 Discs in the DrivePool and use the Mobo SATA ports for OS, Backup OS, and the Pool's 1TB SSD. I'm currently in the process of rebuiding it with larger HDD, WinServer 2016 Essentials etc. As part of this I was wondering if I should go from 2 x M1015 to 1 x M1015 + RES2CV360. The reason for this is that with my 10Gb Fiber PCI card I have run out of PCI-E Lanes and the Mobo has "turned off" 2 x 6GB Sata Port on the Mobo. I understand that running 1 x M1015 + RES2CV360 may impact the SATA throughput but would it really matter on Spinning Rust (these will end up being a mix of 8TB Seagate Archive Drives and older 4TB Hitachi Deskstars). If I do go with 1 x M1015 + RES2CV360 do I connect 2 x SAS cables between the M1015 and the RES2CV360? Thanks Nathan
  21. Thanks - it was more of a Q on how to avoid the data being written to the smaller SSD during the removal process but have it go straight to the new disc.
  22. ...but I'd prefer to keep my existing PC Backups (which I presume I'd lose with a clean install).
  23. FYI - The approach above seems to be working fine so far....
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