Christopher (Drashna)

From what Alex has said, it looks like the feature uses USN Journaling (a low level file system feature), and that is why it's not working here. A work around is to "move" the user folder(s) to a network share. This should prevent it from causing the issue (you could move it to "\\localhost\c$\users\{username}\{foldername}", and that should work).

Did you create an entry for just the one system? If so, try adding the other ones to the list. And try adding similar files to the other systems, as well.

Ah, okay, so there definitely was an issue beforehand. As for the surface scan, I know what you mean. But ... wouldn't it be better to know how healthy the disk is, before using it?

After this happens (before reseating the drives or rebooting the machine), can you still access the actual disk? If not, then this is normal, and is because the system is having issues accessing the drive. There isn't anything that StableBit DrivePool can do about this in this case, and is an issue with the controller or enclosure that you're using (most likely). If the disk IS accessible after this, open the UI and see if the StableBit DrivePool is still reporting the disk as missing. If it is, then try to reproduce this, and enable file system logging. http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection Also, what version of Windows 8.1 are you using (32 bit or 64 bit)?

Thank you for confirming that. We'll look into the cause of the issue, and see if we can resolve it.

Did you create a local cache as well (disabled by default on the local provider). And could you grab the logs from StableBit CloudDrive? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_CloudDrive_Log_Collection Namely, just steps #7-10. Also, do you have any antivirus, backup or other disk tools installed on the system? And could you do this: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q2159701

Dang, you're right. I'm sorry about that. And to clarify whe the issue is that we see in the dumps, is that directory enumeration is hanging (IIRC). However, we've tried to isolate and reproduce the issue, unsuccessfully. Because of that and the type of crash, that is why we suspect hardware failure. On an off chance, do you have any other programs installed (especially stuff related to overclocking/tweaking, such as speedfan, MSI Afterburner, or the like)? However, just in case, could you turn the driver verifier on? Run "verifier" on the system in question, select the "Create standard settings", hit next, select the "Select driver names from a list", and find "covefs.sys" (and anything else by "Covecube Inc"). Let that run, and the next time it BSODs, grab the dump.

Well, we've designed recovery to be as simple as possible, so we're glad that you appreciate that! As for the White Label drive, how did it fail specifically?

Is this from the SMART data? Or is it from the surface scan?

Dang. I've flagged the logs for Alex, and he'll take a look at it https://stablebit.com/Admin/IssueAnalysis/16694

I've flagged the logs for Alex (the develop), so he'll take a look at them soon. Also, to make sure are you using encryption at all here? BitLocker, or per file (by using something like this http://www.howtogeek.com/178912/how-to-encrypt-files-and-folders-in-windows-8.1-using-efs/)?

What provider are you using, specifically?

Well, first, I'm sorry to hear about the drive, as that is never a pleasant experience. As for destroying the pool, you can just format all of the drives in the pool. This will essentially destroy the pool. Once the last disk is formatted, the service will remove the Pool. However, if the data on the other drives is fine, you could just remove the specific disk from the system, and let StableBit DrivePool handle reduplicating the data. You can do this by physically disconnecting the disk, and then removing the now missing disk from the pool. Or you can remove the disk (using the "duplicate later" and "force damaged drive removal" options). Additionally, we would recommend installing StableBit Scanner. It routinely runs a surface scan and file system scan (every 30 days, by default). Additionally, if StableBit Scanner detects unreadable sectors, it will automatically evacuate the contents of the drive if it is in a pool (to prevent further issues with your data).

Alex made a nice long post on the Full Drive Encryption feature, which also explains why we designed StableBit CloudDrive as we have. http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/1269-full-drive-encryption/ And yes, we do store raw chunks of data on the provider. We don't plan on offering functionality like NetDrive (which creates a emulated drive out of the provider and lists the contents). The difference is that because the drive is a "raw" drive, it should support pretty much anything a physical drive would normally (this includes VSS support). It also means that you can encrypt the drive using our product, use BitLocker and/or TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt as well.

Alex has posted a long post detailing information about the encryption. You definitely should check it out: http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/1269-full-drive-encryption/&do=findComment&comment=8450 It's ... a bit of a long post, though.

Yup. The big thing here is that you need to stop the service before starting. Otherwise, it will continue to duplicate and balance, "as necessary". The other, is that once you've finished, you absolutely must re-measure the pool! This rebuilds the information that is used for balancing and rechecks the duplication status.

You're very welcome. And if you're not familiar with it, it can be a bit confusion. Either way, it sounds like it's happily duplicating data.

It definitely sounds like it. And you've definitely got a great start! (and a head start on me!) Only issue with that SAS JBOD case is that it's the SFF-8088 connectors from the look of it. It looks like a bunch of SFF-8644 connectors. Not that that's a problem.

Those are definitely all filters that should be there.

Well, Alex has covered the development side of this, I've been looking into the pricing of the different providers. While "unlimited" is clearly the best option for many here, I want focus on the "big" providers (Amazon S3, Azure Storage, and Google Cloud Storage). Unfortunately, for many users, the high cost associated with these providers may immediately put them out of range. But we still think it is a good idea to compare the pricing (at least for reference sake). All three of these providers include a storage pricing (how much data you're storing), "Request" pricing (how many API requests you make), and data transfer pricing (how much data you've transferred to and from. And all prices are listed for the US Standard region, ATM. I've tried to reorder lists, so that each provider is shown using the same layout for their different tiers. Amazon S3 Storage Pricing (Amount stored) Reduced Redundancy Standard Glacier Up to 1TB / Month $0.0240 per GB $0.0300 per GB $0.0100 per GB Up to 50TB / Month $0.0236 per GB $0.0295 per GB $0.0100 per GB Up to 500TB / Month $0.0232 per GB $0.0290 per GB $0.0100 per GB Up to 1PB / Month $0.0228 per GB $0.0285 per GB $0.0100 per GB Up to 4PB / Month $0.0224 per GB $0.0280 per GB $0.0100 per GB Over 5PB / Month $0.0220 per GB $0.0275 per GB $0.0100 per GB Specifically, Amazon lists "for the next" pricing, so the pricing may be cumulative. Also, "reduced Redundancy" means that they're using mostly only local servers to you, and not redundant throughout various regions. And this is ~$25 per TB per month of storage for the Reduced Redundancy, about $30 per TB per month for Standard and $10.24 per TB per month for Glacier. This may seem like a deal, but lets look at the data transfer pricing. Transfer Pricing Data Transfer In to S3 (upload) $0.000 per GB Data Transfer OUT to the internet (download) First 1GB / Month $0.000 per GB Up to 10TB / Month $0.090 per GB "Next" 40TB / Month (50TB) $0.085 per GB "Next" 100TB / Month (150TB) $0.070 per GB "Next" 350TB / Month (500TB) $0.050 per GB "Next" 524TB / Month (1024TB) Contact Amazon S3 for special consideration That's $92 per TB per month, up to 10TBs Chances are, that unless you have a very good speed, that's where you're going to be "stuck" at So, that boils down to $115/month to store and access 1TB per month. Your usage may vary, but this may get very expensive, very quickly (fortunately, upload is free, so getting the storage there isn't that expensive, it's getting it back that will be). Additionally, Amazon S3 charges you per transaction (API call), as well. Request Pricing (API Calls) PUT, COPY, POST, LIST Requests $0.005 per 1000 requests Glacier Archive and Restore Requests $0.050 per 1000 requests DELETE Requests Free (caveat for Glacier) GET and other requests $0.004 per 10,000 requests Glacier Data Restores Free (due to infrequent usage expected, can restore up to 5% monthly for free) Needless to say, that every time you list contents, you may be making multiple requests (we minimize this as much as possible with the caching/prefetching options, but that only limits it to a degree). This one is hard to quantify without actual usage. Microsoft Azure Storage Storage Pricing (Amount stored) for Block Blob LRS ZRS GRS RA-GRS First 1TB / Month $0.0240 per GB $0.0300 per GB $0.0480 per GB $0.0610 per GB "Next" 49TB / Month (50TB) $0.0236 per GB $0.0295 per GB $0.0472 per GB $0.0599 per GB "Next" 450TB / Month (500TB) $0.0232 per GB $0.0290 per GB $0.0464 per GB $0.0589 per GB "Next" 500TB / Month (1000TB) $0.0228 per GB $0.0285 per GB $0.0456 per GB $0.0579 per GB "Next" 4000TB / Month (5000TB) $0.0224 per GB $0.0280 per GB $0.0448 per GB $0.0569 per GB Over 5000PB / Month Contact Microsoft Azure for special consideration The LRS and ZRS "zones" are priced identically to Amazon S3 here. However, lets explain these terms: LRS: Multiple copies of the data on different physical servers, as the same datacenter (one location). ZRS: Three copies at different data centers within a region, or in different regions. For "blob storage only". GRS: Same as LRS, but with multiple (asynchronous) copies at other another datacenter. RA-GRS: Same was GRS, but with read access to the secondary data center And this is ~$25 per TB per month of storage for the LRS, about $30 per TB per month for ZRS, about $50 per TB per month for GRS, and about $60 per TB per month for RA-GRS. Microsoft Azure offers other storage types, but it gets much more expensive, very quickly (double the of what's listed for Blob storage, or higher). Transfer Rate Unfortunately, Microsoft isn't as forthcoming about their transfer rates. They tuck it away on another page, so it's harder to access. However, it is Data Transfer IN (upload) $0.000 per GB Data Transfer OUT to the internet (download) First 5GB / Month $0.000 per GB Up to 10TB / Month $0.087 per GB "Next" 40TB / Month (50TB) $0.083 per GB "Next" 100TB / Month (150TB) $0.070 per GB "Next" 350TB / Month (500TB) $0.050 per GB "Next" 524TB / Month (1024TB) Contact Micorosft Azure for special consideration That's $89 per TB per month, up to 10TBs Chances are, that unless you have a very good speed, that's where you're going to be "stuck" at This is slightly cheaper than Amazon S3, but not by a whole lot, and it heavily depends on the level of redundancy and storage type you use. Request Pricing (API Calls) Any Request $0.0036 per 10000 requests Import/Export (HDDs) $80 per drive, may not be not suitable for CloudDrive This is definitely much cheaper than Amazon S3's request pricing. It's still going to run you around $100 per TB per month to store and transfer, but it's a bit better than Amazon S3. And that's not counting the request transaction pricing. Google Cloud Storage Storage Pricing (Amount stored) DRA Storage Standard Cloud Storage Nearline $0.0200 per GB $0.0260 per GB $0.0100 per GB DRA (Durability Reduced Availability) means that the data is not always available. While this is the cheapest, it will definitely cause latency issues (or worse). Cloud Storage Nearly is a step cheaper, and is at a reduced performance, and has less Availability. However, this is a flat rate, so it's very simple to figure out what your cost will be here. And this is ~$20.48 per TB per month of storage for the DRA Storage, $26.63 per TB per month for Standard and $10.24 per TB per month for Cloud Storage Nearline. Now lets look at the transfer pricing. Transfer Pricing Data Transfer In to Google (upload) $0.000 per GB Data Transfer OUT to the internet (download) First 1GB / Month $0.120 per GB "Next" 10TB / Month $0.110 per GB Over 40TB / Month (50TB) $0.080 per GB That's about $122 per TB per month, up to 10TBs So, that boils down to $140/month to store and access 1TB per month. This is definitely more expensive than either Amazon S3 or Azure Storage. Additionally, Google Cloud Storage does charge you per API call, as well. Request Pricing (API Calls) LIST, PUT, COPY, POST Requests $0.010 per 1000 requests GET, and others Requests $0.001 per 1000 requests DELETE Requests Free Google is definitely significantly more expensive when it comes to API calls. Backblaze B2 Storage Pricing (Amount stored) Flat Storage Rate $0.005 per GB The first 10GBs is free, but that's a small account, so we won't even bother computing it (it's a $0.05 difference, specifically) But that's basically $5.12 per TB per month for storage. Transfer Pricing Data Transfer In to S3 (upload) $0.000 per GB Data Transfer OUT to the internet (download) First 1GB / Month $0.000 per GB Past 1GB / Month $0.050 per GB That's $51 per TB per month transferred. This is by far, the cheapest option here. And chances are, that unless you have a very good speed, that's where you're going to be "stuck" at So, that boils down to $56/month to store and access 1TB per month. Your usage may vary, but this may get very expensive, very quickly (fortunately, upload is free, so getting the storage there isn't that expensive, it's getting it back that will be). Additionally, Amazon S3 charges you per transaction (API call), as well. Request Pricing (API Calls) DELETE bucket/file version, HIDE, UPLOAD Requests Free GET, DOWNLOAD file by ID/Name $0.004 per 10,000 requests Authorize, CREATE, GET, LIST, UPDATE Requests $0.004 per 1000 requests (due to infrequent usage expected, can restore up to 5% monthly for free) First 2500 are free each day, and this is different from the other providers. However, as above, it's hard to predict the usage without actual usage. Is there a clear winner here? No. Depending on the available, amount of data and traffic, and usage, it varies depending on how you want to use the provider. Well, in regards to pricing, Backblaze is clearly the winner here. But giving other issues with Backblaze (eg, sourcing, reporting statistically insignificant findings, etc), the question is "Will they be able to maintain their B2 business?" And that is a significant one. Only time will tell.

Also, did you notice that the JBOD/SAS case had 2 handles on each side? It's apparently heavy enough (especially once it's loaded with drives, I'm sure) that it's a 2 person carry job!

Thank you. I've flagged the issue for Alex (the developer), and he'll take a look at it soon. In the meanwhile, just in case, do you have any antivirus, backup or other disk tools installed on your system? Could you do this: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q2159701

I don't think that's possible. I've asked Alex (the developer) just to be sure, but I'm pretty sure you can't. Specifically, because of how subnetting works, you can't see or communicate with systems not in the same subnet. However, you could try manually adding the "peers" for the Remote Control feature. This is for scanner, but the feature works the same: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Advanced_Settings#RemoteControl.xml But I am pretty sure this won't work as well.

Yeah, it definitely is. And as the date draws closer, we may re-evaluate the situation. Worst case, the current version does appear to work on Windows 10, so if you must, you can use it.

If that is the case, could you enable file system logging on the pool and run a "pass" again? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection And File History Backup is new to Windows 8 (though, it's intended to be used with an external for ... backups)