Sonicmojo

For the past few days I have been dealing with some frustrating SMBv1 issues with one of my key apps (Desktop Central) which is a critical part of the existing server (and the new one). I had to get some very odd issues straightened around first as I am planning on moving this DS install from this old box to the new one (which is really the same box). Now that I have solved the issue - I can get back to the hardware fun. But as noted - I am treading very slowly here to ensure I do not compromise my existing pool or render this box "unstartable" but switching the SATA modes etc. I need to bench this box first, remove the existing pool drives and then pop in a spare to get this SAS controller going. That will most likely happen on Saturday. I will report back with either success or failure! Sonic.

Thanks for this - I am certain I would have been right back here asking about this! Cheers Sonic.

I read that post - but since I cannot see the actual controller before trying the update (CTRL-C does nothing) I cannot get the last 9 digits of the SAS address. I may have to open the box and see if there is a sticker somewhere with the address. Sonic

Jaga, Much appreciated! Sounds like it should be relatively painless. And thanks for the "configuration" tip - I knew I forgot something. I tried to take a look at the SAS controller about an hour ago - and now I have a different problem. I cannot even get into the SAS ROM/utility since it does not display when I boot the box. I found out I need to switch the SATA config in the BIOS to "RAID" instead of ACPI - which now makes me super nervous that I will not be able to get back into the server with the drives connected via normal SATA. Is it even possible to somehow switch into "RAID" mode just long enough to examine/flash the firmware and then switch back to ACPI so I can complete a few tasks on the existing server before I ditch it? Thoughts? Sonic.

All, This week I am finally considering activating the LSI 2308 SAS controller that I have on both of my file servers and wanted to understand how to get this working with Drivepool (and scanner). Ever since I have owned my two Supermicro X10SL7-F server boards - I have only used the standard SATA ports for drive usage. Seems to have worked just fine but I would like to move to the SAS controller on these boards for (hopefully) more stability and (hopefully) even a performance boost if possible. My understanding is that this controller should ideally be in "IT Mode" in order for it to allow the connected disks to act like JBOD - so I plan to flash the firmware on it later today. Assuming that works fine - I would then install the latest LSI driver during my server install and then move to reconnecting my three drives for Drivepool. Can anyone walk me through the basics of getting Drivepool to play nice with the LSI? My big concern lies with my existing pool. In a perfect world - I want to simply disconnect the drives - get the LSI up and running - reconnect the drives to the LSI, install Drivepool on the server and have it "see" the old pool and have it work as if nothing had changed. As opposed to backing up all the data to another server, building a whole new pool, transferring the data back in etc and wait who know how long for the pool to be back to normal. Appreciate any info from the field on how to do this right. Cheers Sonic

Chris, Bumping up this old thread as I have finally reached the point of upgrading my server OS. However - this week I am also considering activating the LSI 2308 SAS controller that I have on both of my file servers and wanted to understand how to get this working with Drivepool (and scanner). Ever since I have owned my two Supermicro X10SL7-F server boards - I have only used the standard SATA ports for drive usage. Seems to have worked just fine but I would like to move to the SAS controller on these boards for (hopefully) more stability and (hopefully) even a performance boost if possible. My understanding is that this controller should ideally be in "IT Mode" in order for it to allow the connected disks to act like JBOD - so I plan to flash the firmware on it later today. Assuming that works fine - I would then install the latest LSI driver during my server install and then move to reconnecting my three drives for Drivepool. Before I tackle anything however - I need to understand the risks of any possible data loss etc with respect to my existing "pool". As you mention above - Drivepool should "recreate" the pool automatically once I reconnect the drives but what if it does not work? My fear is that any monkeying around with the drives may suddenly corrupt the pool and leave me hanging with major problems. Are there any real dangers I need to be aware of when switching from the standard ports over to the LSI SAS? I see my new order of things going something like this: Deactivate the StableBit DrivePool license on existing server build Shut down the system Disconnect data drives (but leave them in the box) Upgrade firmware on LSI and confirm it is in IT mode Power up Install Server 2016 (wiping C during install) Ensure that LSI controller driver is working in Server 2016 Do basic config of new server install and shut down Reconnect existing data drives Power up and ensure data drives show in Disk Manager Create new mountpoints for data drives Install/Activate the StableBit DrivePool (And Scanner) software for new build Let it to "automagically" (automatically) recreate the pool on this new build Continue with rest of server config. Thoughts? Cheers! Sonic

I am getting this as well on assorted folders but VERY infrequently. Like I will go to a location that has not been accessed a very long time - say 6 months - go to create a folder and Windows complains that the folder cannot be created - then I check the parent folder properties and get various messages about permissions being in the wrong order etc etc. But this is happening on Windows 10 as well. I did run Windows 7 on this machine about a year ago and pool was created well before that. Would a "reset permissions" session be in order here? And would I apply it to the entire pool? My concern is that I am running my pool using drive points - so on my Windows 2012R2 server - it's one giant 14.5TB D drive. I am sensing this could take a long time to reset? Appreciate any comments or tips before I attempt this. Sonic.

So something like this? Deactivate the StableBit DrivePool license on existing server build Shut down the system Disconnect data drives (but leave them in the box) Power up Install Server 2016 (wiping C during install) Do basic config of new server install and shut down Reconnect existing data drives Power up and ensure data drives show in Disk Manager Create new mountpoints for data drives Install/Activate the StableBit DrivePool (And Scanner) software for new build Let it to "automagically" (automatically) recreate the pool on this new build Continue with rest of server config. Anything else I should be aware of? Sonic.

Drashna, I found this older thread where I asked you for some specifics on migrating disks from one server to another. I am back for more confirmation on what to do with existing disk sets (16TB in Server A and 6TB in Server B) if I plan to install a new OS. Within Q1 2018 - I want to upgrade both of these servers from Windows Server 2012 R2 to Server 2016. I have read a bit about "in-place" server upgrades - but I think I will start from scratch and install the OS clean on each - meaning I will need to power down the storage disks - disconnect them and then power them back up when Server 2016 is installed and ready to go. On both of my systems - I am using drive mountpoints to ensure each Pool - is displayed via a single Drive letter (D:\ in this case). Using your suggested procedure: Deactivate the StableBit DrivePool license, if needed. Shut down the system physically remove the drives Put the disks into the new system power on the new system install and activate the StableBit DrivePool software on the new system Wait for it to "automagically" (automatically) recreate the pool on this new system What other steps do I need to do (and when) within this list with regards to mountpoints etc on the drives without upsetting any data on them - and hopefully being able to recreate the pool and get them back on the network with minimal downtime? Appreciate your insight as always. Cheers! Sonic.

Getting the drive out of the pool was the only way to get DP to reorganize and to remove the "read only" state it placed on the pool as soon as my drive went "missing" My assumption all day yesterday was that the drive was suspect and I was going to remove it anyway, copy the files somewhere safe and either replace the drive or leave the pool usuable but smaller. If you read all about Drivepool here: https://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool/2.X/Manual?Section=Removing a Drive from the Pool It apparently does a bunch of nice things for the user - if the drive is healthy: When a drive is removed from the pool, StableBit DrivePool will move all of the unprotected pooled files stored on it onto a different drive that's part of the pool. StableBit DrivePool will also regenerate every protected file part that is on the disk being removed (unless Duplicate files later was selected). Then, the virtual pool drive shrinks in capacity by the size of the drive that was removed. But if a drive is unhealthy (or supposedly missing like mine was) - DP does a lock down on the pool. So the only way to get the pool usable (Read/write) again was to remove the drive. Regarding Windows Server Backup - there is so much bad press on this - it's not worth my time. As soon as I turned this thing on a few weeks back - the event log started filling with bizarre errors. I do not trust anything that is that difficult to get working. A clue prior to yesterday's problem was the sudden appearance of Event ID 157 ("Disk 1 has been surprise removed.") one minute before Scanner notified about a missing disk. If I cross-reference that message ID - with messages like this from various forums - starts to form an interesting picture on where the problem most likely lies... "On a recently deployed 2012 R2 system it looks like these warnings were generated during (or immediately after) a "Windows Server Backup". "Ever since my upgrade to Server 2012 R2 I too am logging this error. It is always in the 04:30AM time frame daily since the upgrade" "My server throws these messages every day while finishing its backup job (using Windows Server Backup)" Another thread is here: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/463141-windows-server-backup-causing-eventid-157-disk-n-has-been-surprised-removed Could it be a bad cable - remotely possible - but this server is racked and cannot be opened - so it's not loose. I will continue to monitor and act if necessary. Cheers! Sonic.

Update Yesterday prior to heading out for the day - I shut the server down to ensure the drive in question would not be subject to any further data loss etc. I spent some of the day researching Scanner, Drivepool and some of the other event log messages I was seeing on the server early yesterday morning when this disk went missing. When I returned home from work - I read that my first move here should be to get this drive out of the Pool - as DP invoked it's "read only" mode to the entire pool due to the missing disk. So I fired up the server expecting to see the missing disk in DP. Much to my surprise - the server came up normally. All disks were online and acting normal. No messages in Event log. No messages in DP. No messages from CrystalDiskMark and no message from Intel Rapid Storage manager. Basically no messages from anything about anything. I immediately moved into analysis mode and started Scanner to have a good look at this disk. It scanned the entire disk and found nothing. All SMART readings are normal. As far as I can see - there is nothing wrong with this disk given all the angles I probed it from. A more interesting viewpoint is what I saw from other research regarding Windows Server backup (on 2012R2). I found a few articles and forums posts going into details about VSS, hot swap, filter manager and other oddball scenarios - where basically the Intel Rapid Storage Manager somehow thought that Disk 2 on this server was a hot swap disk and Windows (if just for a short minute or two @ 3:00 am yesterday (the time server backup runs) - decided this disk was pulled or disconnected and marked it as "missing". Even a reboot did not bring it back online. But after a complete shutdown? Success. I have had similar situations when using hard disks in hot swap trays on my workstation and the odd time Windows cannot "eject" a disk properly during hot swap and suddenly decides to make it invisible in Explorer etc - even tho the disk is clearly in the tray and running. Only a complete shutdown makes resets the disk subsystem and the disk does appear normally in Explorer after a restart. While I remain a tad skeptical on this - and have since stopped the clunky Windows Server Backup (I was only backing up the C: drive anyway) I cannot find anything in the slightest that makes me think this disk is suspect. I have backed up all data on it to be safe - but as of right now - it seems 100% solid. Good news is that Stablebit stuff was rock solid and I am glad I had it on board to give me peace of mind. Cheers! Sonic.

I do have duplication in the pool - but only on one specific folder in the pool (Videos). Will this make a difference? But i agreed with you on the process. If I can get this drive to behave (new cable, different port etc) - I would most certainly try to put in back in the server - add the new drive and then try the removal. But let's say the worst happens - like for example - I can only spin this disk up long enough on another machine just to get the data off of it? Is there another more manual guideline out there to move the data back into place AFTER a new disk has been added to the pool? Without actually having the old disk in the server? My fear is that if this suspect disk is getting actually close to a major failure - I really do not want to chance trying to spin in up in the server - and possibly compromising it completely. Thoughts? Sonic.

Thanks! Yes - I shut down the server before leaving for work today. As soon as I get back home - I will pull the drive and bring it over to my personal workstation and see what I can see. If I can spin it up on another machine - I will move to data copy immediately. I have never seen a drive simply die without any warning whatsoever - especially a NAS specific drive that should be a bit more resilient. The most ironic part about this is that I did not have Scanner set up correctly on this server for months and months and now - after just two days of having it correctly auditing the environment - I sudden have a drive fail? Karma or what? Now - assuming I can spin this drive up - and I can get at the data - what is the best way to get the data over to a replacement (which I am going to move forward with anyway) and rebuild the pool? Sonic

Hello, After months and months of solid service - I suddenly received an email from Scanner this morning saying a disk was "missing". I am using both Scanner and Drivepool on a Windows 2012R2 server. I have 5 drives in the system - one SSD for system and 4 4TB Seagate NAS drives to form the pool. ALL NAS drives are setup with mount points (No drive letters). All I know so far is that the disk is not visible in Disk Management or in CrystalDIskMark when run each within Windows when booted. I have done nothing else so far. Changes to the system within the last few days has only been to update to a beta edition of Scanner 2.5.2.3129. While I am realistic and drives do fail - this is most odd. The only other issue that may be a contributing factor is that Windows Backup was set to run at 3:00am on alternating days and I do see a series of "disk" type messages in Event viewer around these times for the last 2 weeks or so - but this is the first instance of an actual problem,. What should be my next move so as not to make things worse - AND to avoid data loss? Should I run Stable bit troubleshooter? Power down the box? Appreciate an update ASAP. Cheers, Sonic.

Chris, Have checked and now have the Start/Stop Automatically set right. I also have the "Unless disk scans are past due by X days" option enabled - and I assume since these disks have not been scanned for over 18 months - that is why Scanner is doing them now - outside my set "work" window (12:00am - 5:00am)? Scanner is grinding away since I posted this morning - and it looks good. With regards to this beta - is there anything special I need to do to install it? Do I need to shut down the existing Scanner - and if so - how? Appreciate an update on this. Sonic.