Christopher (Drashna)

Yeah, the surface scan bypasses the normal access to the disk, and doesn't use NTFS permissions. However, the part that identifies the files *does*, and can cause issues if the SYSTEM account doesn't have access to the files.

Noted, and there is a dashboard tab. Just no "sub tab" for the storage section, nor the shared folder integration.

Well, I'm sorry to hear about your poor experiences with FlexRAID, and their licensing requirements. That's unfortunate. As for your server, that's a very nice setup overall, and a nice case (I've always liked Lian Li's) And I'm glad that you're loving StableBit DrivePool. If you haven't already, a feature you may want to turn on is "Network IO Boost". It's disabled by default, because it adds additional CPU overhead, but it prioritizes network traffic over local traffic. May be great for your network. And I'm sorry to hear about the WD Green drive failures. But you should definitely be happy with those Reds. Also, if you haven't checked it out already, you may want to look at StableBit Scanner, as well. (and you can get a discount on the purchase price if you have a license for DrivePool already).

Well, I'm glad I caught that bit with Avast then! I had initially, almost missed it. Good thing I didn't! And I'm glad to hear that not only has this fixed the CPU and memory usage but greatly "boosted" the disk performance as well! Great news. And yes, Avast (or any other scanner) should detect the files based on the Pool access just fine. The virtual "disk" acts like a normal disk, so there should not be any different in behavior there.

"Legacy" mode is for the Controller card's management interface. Any disk that isn't in an array or JBOD, should show up as "Legacy" instead. At least, that's how the RocketRAID 2720 works. And appears to be the same for the 2320. For the DirectIoTest app, there is an "UnsafeDirectIo" check-box at the top, make sure that this is checked. Then select one of the disks on the controller. Once you've done that, see if either DirectIO or WMI reports a green check-box next to "S.M.A.R.T. Attributes". This is the only setting that really matters. If it doesn't display these green check marks, then please report the methods used (at the bottom of the window". In the picture in the other thread, it's the "Methods: AtaPassThrough" section. That or take a screen capture of the window, and upload it here (or to a cloud storage provider and link it here). You can do that with "Snipping Tool" in windows.

Well, Scanner runs under the SYSTEM account, so it should always have permission. However, I'm not sure it uses that account to actually scan the disk. Alex will have to verify that.

Well, as both Windows and Avast both do automatically update by default... And some of the windows updates do affect the kernel... It's entirely possible that is just a "perfect storm" of issues here. Or maybe, you just hadn't noticed it before. It's hard to know for certain. As for the exclusion, the "PoolPart.xxxx" folders are where the actual files reside, and where we pull all the information from. I haven't used Avast in a while, but in theory, you *should* be able to exclude the folders from scanning. But if the disks aren't being used for anything else... then excluding the disks may be helpful. Specifically, when you read, write, list, etc files and folders from the pool, we're checking the contents of these folder. That's why there is the additional overhead, and why it should be VERY little overhead. And any issue you can walk away from with more knowledge is, well a good thing. And I definitely agree with the "satisfying" part. But I can definitely sympathize with the "frustrating" part, as well. Sometimes those really weird issues can drive you crazy. So many moving parts make it a lot more complicated to troubleshoot, sometimes. Oh, and speaking of which, what mode is the drive controller in? And are you using the Microsoft generic driver or the manufacturer's specific drivers for it? I ask, because we've recently had somebody that had high CPU usage because of the drive controller's driver. It may be a shot at the dark, but I figured it was definitely worth mentioning.

Actually, I suspected as much, but I wasn't certain. I wanted Alex to weigh in, just to be certain.

Nigel, I don't think so, .... yet. But if you notice that the last two official beta releases have both been related (the more recent being a bunch of fixes and improvements to the rules engine)... I've bugged it, so that Alex will definitely see it. https://stablebit.com/Admin/IssueAnalysis/3191

We've had a number of people with issues from Avast lately. Interfering with both StableBit DrivePool (understandable as the AV uses a file system filter which can cause issues, and is why I asked), and with StableBit Scanner (which it SHOULD. NOT. EVER. cause issues with...) Please uninstall Avast, and see if the behavior persists. If it does not,.... bingo. And looking into this interaction is on our to-do list. However, if uninstalling Avast (not just disabling it... as that does not remove the said file system filters) doesn't help, then let us know. And please get the logs and dump to us... And as for "overhead", as Alex has said, this should be minimal. I was using DrivePool on a Core 2 Duo E5200 with 4GBs of RAM (a HP MediaSmart Server EX495, actually), transcoding, downloading to, reading from, etc without any notifiable impact on the system (even with Network IO Boost, which uses more overhead), and minimal resource usage, except for when actively busy transcoding)

Actually... you're evaluation of the situation isn't quite right. First, that you have that mean bad/unreadable sectors is scary. I'm considering tossing a drive that had 700.... And it is likely that this is the same uses space. Windows has probably marked the sectors as "bad" already, and is reporting them as used. And you say you've ran CHKDSK. Did you use the "/r" option? If not, then it wouldn't have touched the bad sectors, as the "/r" switch is specifically designed to try to recover or reallocate these sectors. Just note, that if there is anything on the disk, this will make any data in these sectors unrecoverable. And by default, Windows may try to write to one of these bad sectors. This will "usually" recheck the sector, try to recover it or reallocate it to a spare section. As your write more files, it will do this more and more, depending on the location of the sectors. So you would not normally see corruption of new files on a disk. Only the existing files would be corrupted. But needless to say, this is bad and you should RMA the drive. ANd if it's out of warranty, it may indicate a physical defect, or actual damage to the disk.

The newest release beta version will contain the fix: https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Download And if you check the changelog, it's issue #2166

First, do you have "Network IO Boost" enabled in DrivePool? If you do, that could potentially cause that behavior. Though the option is disabled by default (for just this reason, actually). Is this the release version (2.0.0.420) or is this a beta build (2.1)? Do you have any antivirus software installed? Do you have any sort of disk tools installed (such as Acronis)? What about software from ASUS for the board? Any of these can absolutely cause issues. As for the hardware... you should be fine. Actually, I have a M1115 cross-flashed to "IT Mode" (aka no RAID firmware at all, just an HBA card) in my system. I haven't had any issues with it, but it .... could. A way you could test this is to use StableBit Scanner. On the disks, there is a "Burst Test" option. This can be useful for diagnosing disk or controller issues. From the looks of it, you're running Plex, Media Center Master, and uTorrent, in addition to StableBit DrivePool. And these are the only things installed? If so, could you see able disabling them temporarily. See if it's not some interaction with one of them? Additionally, do you have any of the drivers installed for the hardware? Especially LAN and storage drivers? And what mode is the onboard storage controller using (IDE, RAID or AHCI)? If that doesn't help, could you enable file system logging and try to duplicate the issue (most likely won't catch the issue here, but just in case). http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection After doing that, could you see about forcing a crash dump? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_System_Freeze

Honestly, I'd test it myself but I'm not at home right now. So I'd rather recommend the safety course of action

You should be able to install over/upgrade, but I'd recommend uninstalling it and then installing the exe version.

That would be why, I think. Alex can/will confirm. The MSI installers are meant mainly for managed installation scenarios (aka via GPO on a domain), and haven't been thoroughly tested yet. That's why they're not linked to on the front page. We recommend using the EXE versions, as the installer is much more intelligent. it "knows" when to force and upgrade, and will download .NET Framework, if the system doesn't have it installed. It may do more than just those, but those two things are still pretty big (as you've experienced). Thoroughly testing the MSI installers is on our to-do list, but for now, we recommend against using them (at least for DrivePool).

Yup, known issue, and already fixed. Download the beta build, and you should be good to go. https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Download For details: https://stablebit.com/Admin/IssueAnalysis/101 If you are still having issues after installing the beta build, then do let us know.

Are you using the EXE installer?

Yeah, kind of a "yikes" situation there. Also, a good reason to make sure you have a good backup of the system when it's in a working state!

And more importantly, 1.X is still getting bug fixes, hence supported (if not new features). I just thought it was important to emphasize that.

What are the main balancing settings? Is it set to immediately balance or "every day at" a specific time? Also, if you want to more aggressively move files, then change the "if the balance ration falls below" slider to be a higher percentage. I'd recommend 90-95% for this. Or if you want it to do it if it has ANY data at all, to 100%. Also, is the "or if at least this much data needs to be moved" option checked? And if so, what is it set to? If you've messed around with these settings, and it's still not balancing, then please do the following: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection

I know the guys over at Home Server Show generally recommend running SpinRite on new disks to make sure there are no issues with new disks, and that's a pretty good idea. Though, it requires a dedicated machine (SpinRite is a boot disk), or a Virtual Machine capable of passing disks through (such as HyperV). And a few days. It's not a bad idea, but it does seem to have issues with disk larger than 2TBs unfortunately. But yes, definitely, when it comes to your data, it's always better to err on the side of caution.

Well, I don't think that Seagate has updated their diagnostic tools recently, so it may not interpret that error correctly. In fact, the error indicates silent corruption/damage to the disk, which is NEVER good. However, given the description of your other issues, it does sound like maybe you have a loose or bad cable. Re-seating the cable, or even swapping it out may be a good idea.

Yes, that is unusual and not supposed to happen. However it does, once in a very great while. You've opened a ticket for this issue as well, and I've responded there. However, I'll post the response here as well: could you upload the log folder for StableBit DrivePool? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection Just do steps #5-7 And then get a memory dump of the StableBit DrivePool Service? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Service_Memory_Dump Once you've done that, try resetting StableBit DrivePool's settings and see if that helps: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q2299585B Regards

Yes. Google Drive has issues accessing the Pooled file system. Which is odd, because other utilities don't have the issue. So unless it's relying on some very special file system commands, or VSS.... And since Picasa and Google Play Music are both from Google, and probably use the same code, it's a good bet that they'll have issues as well. I haven't tested them personally though.