Spider99

Win pro just runs headless - just need to ensure RDP is enabled IIRC its off by default - other than that you are good to go out the box
 
 
You must be one of the few people in the world happy to watch 480p
 
with 30-45% cpu Plex was transcoding that movie - if it was direct streaming then it would be similar to a file copy probably less than 5% - its the client software/device that determines if transcoding is needed or not
 
Good Luck with getting some sleep

Yep it should work fine as you describe
 
Only thing that will not work that well is the Plex server for any transcoding thats needed - you dont mention you clients to play any media as they dictate what does and does not need transcoding
 
You can overcome this by making sure your media is in a format that the clients can play natively so your server streams the media directly
 
If it were mine i would increase the Ram to give windows and plex room to breath say 8gb or 16gb but you could do that after you have it running to see if it needs it and its a cheap upgrade
 
Have fun

As i understand it when the SSd cache becomes full it should fall back to the Archive drives
 
But
 
If you are copying large volumes of data (internally within the server in this case) it will fail 50% of the time
 
Basically what appears to be happening is
 
If the ssd's are beyond their limit % full setting the next file will fall back to the archive drives - as expected - (in my case 95% full)
 
However if the ssd's are not at or near the % full setting and the next file exceeds the remaining space on the ssd's (large video files) then the copy fails with a STREAM(????) error - not good for unattended large copies 
 
If you get the pool to balance and create sufficient space the copy will proceed - however this "paused" copy has an unwanted side effect as it generates a large amount of "Unusable for duplication" data in my case over 700GB worth - checking the disks sizes and comparing file size totals - with checking for hidden files and running a full chkdsk /f on all drives did not show any errors or orphaned files - its appears to be a bug in the calc by DP - as copying more data to the pool reduces the "Unusable for duplication" by the amount copied . In my case there are no other files on these disks only the pool part dir, recycle bin and SVI - both SVI and recycle bin are turned off and empty as they were the first things i checked.
 
Have a suspicion that the amount of "Unusable for duplication" is the size of the copy which "fails" and if you have more than one it is cumulative - difficult to check as it depends what files are copied and their sizes to induce the error.
 
I did reboot to see if it would solve the issue - no joy
I remeasured the pool a couple of times - no joy
 
i just copied 203GB of data to the pool and the  "Unusable for duplication" dropped from 502GB to 299GB - as each file was copied the total dropped by that amount during the copy.
Doing a second copy of 296GB to see if i end up with ~ 3GB left in "Unusable for duplication" - total is dropping by file copied as seen in first copy. [edit] - ended up with 3.34GB unusable left after copy. Now it is back to normal as have copied more data across to the pool and do not have Unusable anymore.
 
DP version 740 Beta
Win 2012r2 SE
Pool in question is not duplicated
Pool is second pool on server - if that makes any difference
 
If you need any logs etc let me know

lol - yes have three of the 950 Pro's
 
doubt you need to raid 0 them as you are unlikely to have anything that will stress them
 
Make sure you get Samsung Magician and the Samsung NVME drivers as Windows 10 only has a basic driver
 
IIRC scanner might have issues with getting the SMART info off the drives - but it will get fixed im sure
 
Make sure the NVME drives are very well cooled as the run very hot 60-80c in operation and can easily overheat - then they throttle their speed 
 
Enjoy

ok good
 
get the whips out an encourage Alex to finish the cloud stuff so we can have a few new feature on DP please :)

I have two Samsung 850 Evo 256GB drives which the main scanner interface is reporting temps as 40c where as the Smart info is reporting 20c
 
Bitflock ID: W8K304UB 
 
whats odd is both have same bitflock id - thought this was per disk id?? Actually all my disks are showing the same ID??????
 
and Scanner is not pulling down any Manufacture Smart Info - possible because its confused with all disks having the same id???
 
It used to be fine not sure whats changed on 3122 beta and have been for a while
 
 

When removing a drive can we have the option to specify which drive(s) to put the data on and/or which drive(s) not to put the data on - obviously DP gives us a list of options based on space and duplicated data restrictions etc.
 
Reason being i am splitting my pool and the first drive i am removing is mainly moving its data onto another drive that i also want to remove - so getting double or more handling of the same files!!!!

When removing a drive can we have the option to specify which drive(s) to put the data on and/or which drive(s) not to put the data on - obviously DP gives us a list of options based on space and duplicated data restrictions etc.
 
Reason being i am splitting my pool and the first drive i am removing is mainly moving its data onto another drive that i also want to remove - so getting double or more handling of the same files!!!!

I have two Samsung 850 Evo 256GB drives which the main scanner interface is reporting temps as 40c where as the Smart info is reporting 20c
 
Bitflock ID: W8K304UB 
 
whats odd is both have same bitflock id - thought this was per disk id?? Actually all my disks are showing the same ID??????
 
and Scanner is not pulling down any Manufacture Smart Info - possible because its confused with all disks having the same id???
 
It used to be fine not sure whats changed on 3122 beta and have been for a while
 
 

Hi
 
Proud owner  of a shinny new Essential Server
 
Its along time since i played with Windows server - some things are the same but a lot has changed so....
 
Any recommendations on what to read/watch on how to set it up and use some of the features etc
 
There appears to be a lot of info but where to start with a good guide etc?
 
Thanks
T

have 600k of small files @ ~300gb on my drive pool in one "Library" no issue as dp emulates an ntfs volume - its only restricted by ntfs limits

Though i would report some good news as forums tend to be all doom and gloom
 
Last night i did some maintenance on my main DP server and as part of that i removed all the drives
 
All went well and i replaced the drives booted the server - checked i could see the shares - and went to bed
 
This morning i logged in to see that one of the drives was missing (had hit the on off switch in the enclosure during the removal/reinstall)
 
During the night DP had re duplicated the data on the remaining drives
 
I powered up the missing drive and approx 30 seconds later DP picked up that the drive was back
 
During the night a backup had run from another server but not moved off the ssd cache drives - i guess as pool in read only mode as drive missing?
 
First DP did a remeasure - then a re balance (emptied SSd cache drives) - then a dup consistency test and then a duplication run(manual run) - the last is slowly reducing the duplication total
 
So in a little while i should be back to x2 dup rather than 2x+ for the 3.7TB which was on the missing drive
 
Also interesting that rather than "just" empty the missing drive - easy option - it appears to be trying to follow the SSD Optimiser rules (don't have any other plugins other than scanner)
 
Once its finished its duplication run i guess it might do a re balance - will wait and see
 
Impressed it's almost seamless

Though i would report some good news as forums tend to be all doom and gloom
 
Last night i did some maintenance on my main DP server and as part of that i removed all the drives
 
All went well and i replaced the drives booted the server - checked i could see the shares - and went to bed
 
This morning i logged in to see that one of the drives was missing (had hit the on off switch in the enclosure during the removal/reinstall)
 
During the night DP had re duplicated the data on the remaining drives
 
I powered up the missing drive and approx 30 seconds later DP picked up that the drive was back
 
During the night a backup had run from another server but not moved off the ssd cache drives - i guess as pool in read only mode as drive missing?
 
First DP did a remeasure - then a re balance (emptied SSd cache drives) - then a dup consistency test and then a duplication run(manual run) - the last is slowly reducing the duplication total
 
So in a little while i should be back to x2 dup rather than 2x+ for the 3.7TB which was on the missing drive
 
Also interesting that rather than "just" empty the missing drive - easy option - it appears to be trying to follow the SSD Optimiser rules (don't have any other plugins other than scanner)
 
Once its finished its duplication run i guess it might do a re balance - will wait and see
 
Impressed it's almost seamless

Interesting article from backBlaze on SMART info
 
Not definitive but interesting
 
Wish they would learn how to present stats and % properly as it makes it difficult to figure out what the numbers mean!
 
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-smart-stats-indicate-hard-drive-failures/

Before i do this wanted to check what is likely to happen
 
I have a pool in pc A and i want to move the drives to pc B
 
But pc B has an existing pool 
 
So will the drives be added to the existing pool once connected? - Hope not as Poolpart should be different?
 
Or will a second pool be created - automatically? 
 
Or will the drives just appear as "new" drives and i can create a new pool?

Hi
 
for 2) - both dp and scanner run as a service - so closing the UI does not stop them running - have changed drive names (my drives are mounted with no drive letter) while scanner and dp we running with no issues - dp and scanner use the unc path for the drive not the letter/mountpoint
 
for 3) if you cut and paste on the same drive all you are doing is changing the "path" to the file - no actual move takes place - this is no different than normal windows
 
for 1) not done this but i suspect it will not cause a problem - if you are worried then stop the two services for dp and scanner - change the drive letter and restart the services
 
4) depends - are you using a ssd cache?

Chris
 
Are there any release notes published (have done a bit of looking around) as cant find them
 
I see with DP the latest is 739
 
I generally just upgrade as one becomes available as (crossed fingers) have not had an issue with upgrading
 
but as my pool if 75% full now i am getting a little more cautious of what i do to the server
 
Hence interested in whats been fixed / changed
 
Thanks

Here you go so more stats on HDD failures
 
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-failure-rates-q3-2016/
 
I am going to tune in for their Friday webinar to see what they have to say

Ok i have turned off the bitlocker option in the xml config file - i.e. false
 
But two to three time a minute all disks are accessed for a couple of seconds and hence wont spin down
 
i disabled scanner and the access has stopped
 
ver 3122 i think
 
what am i missing in the options to stop this??

Hi
 
Proud owner  of a shinny new Essential Server
 
Its along time since i played with Windows server - some things are the same but a lot has changed so....
 
Any recommendations on what to read/watch on how to set it up and use some of the features etc
 
There appears to be a lot of info but where to start with a good guide etc?
 
Thanks
T

That makes a reasonable difference in speed - also upped the priority from -2 to 0 - will experiment further but much better

hmmm the files were on two ssd's that dp had just emptied rather than an archive drive ....
 
A forced remeasure sorted it
 
will ignore in future as long as it does not happen too often  

If you have a large amount of "other" files taking up space on your pool drive and would like to reduce the amount of "wasted" space then...
 
Warning doing this could stuff up you pc so go carefully and if it goes to pot its not my fault
 
Your friend here is the powershell cmdlet "vssadmin"
 
if you run the command via an elevated powershell window
 
vssadmin list shadowstorage
 
it will list your vss stores etc
 
and then run
 
vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=[drive letter]: /For=[drive letter]: /MaxSize=[maximum size]
 
See http://woshub.com/how-to-clean-up-system-volume-information-folder/
 
for more details
 
got rid of 70GB+ of unneeded vss data for me
 
Enjoy

If you have a large amount of "other" files taking up space on your pool drive and would like to reduce the amount of "wasted" space then...
 
Warning doing this could stuff up you pc so go carefully and if it goes to pot its not my fault
 
Your friend here is the powershell cmdlet "vssadmin"
 
if you run the command via an elevated powershell window
 
vssadmin list shadowstorage
 
it will list your vss stores etc
 
and then run
 
vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=[drive letter]: /For=[drive letter]: /MaxSize=[maximum size]
 
See http://woshub.com/how-to-clean-up-system-volume-information-folder/
 
for more details
 
got rid of 70GB+ of unneeded vss data for me
 
Enjoy

Looks similar to the LSI card - there are a lot of manufacturer branded cards around that use the main controller of the lsi but may or may not take the bios from the LSI if thats what you were thinking
 
Check the hardware forums to see if anybody has already done it.
 
For 20 quid extra i went with a true LSI as i wanted it to just work initially as had trouble with other cards - not lsi based