Christopher (Drashna)

Well, PCI-X is still pretty darn fast, so either way, you should be fine! And to make sure, I recommend the IR (RAID) firmware over the IT (passthrough/HBA) firmware. Both can do passthrough, but the IR seems to behave better. Besides, extra options are great. As for Intel SAS Expander card, great catch! And yeah, I've only been able to find them for $200 or so. So finding one for $60 is fantastic! (if you see another, link me!) As for the BSOD, it indicates a CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT bug check. This indicates that an expected clock interrupt on a secondary processor, in a multi-processor system, was not received within the allocated interval. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff557211(VS.85).aspx As for the hotfix, it may be OS specific. And hotfixes aren't usually pushed through Windows Update. They're usually option installs offered to fix specific issues. This is the hotfix you're referring to: https://support2.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;975530 And if you check lower down on the page, there are a couple of registry tweaks that you can try, and see if it works. If it happens again, set the dump to us: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_System_Crashes

I'm glad to hear it. If it the issue comes back, do please let us know.

Well, it's unusual that the pool would get slower when adding more files. That really shouldn't happen. As for the registry tweaks, could you list which you used? Also, if anything may help, then defragmenting the disks in the pool may actually help with performance. And no, the number of disks in the pool shouldn't affect the speed of the pool at all. In fact, I have 14 disks in my pool, and it is 75% filled and I'm still seeing 80-90MB/s writes regularly (no SSDs in the pool). The quality and type of drive may have a larger impact here. I'm using mostly NAS drives, and a couple of Seagate Archive drives. if you're using WD Green or Seagate Barracuda LP drives, this may be the issue, as it may be aggressively idling the drives. This would definitely cause performance issues similar to what you are seeing. As for the second question, migrating to NAS drives may help. They do idle fairly quickly, but they're designed for 24/7 usage and quick access. It may help with the issue you're seeing. Otherwise, no, it shouldn't matter.

Definitely. We'll see about getting this up soon.

I'd seen it before and felt it was worth mentioning. However, if it's grabbing SMART data, then that's fantastic! I ... well, have 3 (though you'd really only need one, as the chipset can handle either 128 or 256 devices, IIRC). They're champs. The RAID5 performance is atrocious apparently, but as I got them to just be an HBA card ... They do great at that. Also, If you're connected at the "proper" speed (both SATA and PCI-e bus), in theory, the card can handl about 40 disks at 120MB/s (maxed, basically). So, it's a fantastic card for a DrivePool system. Only caveat is that some people need to enable the "Unsafe DirectIO" option with these cards. I didn't have to personally, but some have reported needing to. Man, I'm jealous of your skills. Designing your own case is something that is VERY neat! That said, the Intel Expander that you've mentioned is the one that I would recommend. I've been looking and purchasing it myself, and replacing the two "extra" M1015's I have. Though, the card is meant to be used internally, and I'm not sure if it would work elsewise (I don't know, honestly). And many companies do make SATA to Molex power adapters, so that may be an option as well. However, it sounds like you want a stand alone module that you could build a separate case for (if I'm wrong, I'm sorry). If so, you may want to look into something like this: http://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-16-Channel-Port-Multiplier-Rocket-EJ340/dp/B00DWV4SKM A number of companies build stuff like this, which you could build a case around. Oh definitely. The fun is in building it yourself! And yeah, the mounting patterns should be relatively straight forward. And what isn't you can get the actual hardware and then measure, as well. Speaking of which, it may be worth getting some of the parts, and seeing what your options are (I believe that Norco and SuperMicro do sell the "rails" for the hot swappable HDD bays, but they're long, not tall. That could be useful as well. Okay, glad to hear it! Wouldn't want it toppling over!! IPMI and Intel vPro are both very nice! Being able to manage the system as if you were right in front of it makes troubleshooting a lot easier. Especially when you need to performance bios/firmware changes. And looking forward to the finished product!

The biggest issue is the NIC, but it looks like they're not using an Intel NIC, so the Atheros one they have onboard should work just fine. I'm not sure about that, but it looks like it should. But you never know until you test. That said, you'll probably want to opt for Windows Server 2012R2 Essentials. Windows Server 10 isn't due to be released until at least 2016, so there may be a long wait for that. Additionally, you can get an 180 day eval copy of it here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2012-r2-essentials

The Media Pack (or whatever the exact name is) shouldn't need to be installed. It's included in Server 2012 Essentials as part of the base for it. Or should be. If you're using Standard, then it may not be, depending on exactly how you installed everything. And to clarify, the live TV should be completely separate from the server. If you've having issues with the live TV, then there is an issue with the Windows 7 machine (or your network, if you're using extenders). Turning anything on or off on the server shouldn't affect this at all.

Windows 8/8.1 uses a special, "new" type of file system link that we don't currently support. File system links like this are tricky to support, due to how they work. However, we are aware of the issue, and it is on our "to do list" to fix. Regards

We've had reports of issues getting SMART data with some of the supermicro cards, which is why I mentioned it. I'd rather give a heads up and be wrong, than not say anything. And yeah, the cable management would be a nightmare.... Especially if you have more than one card. As for the 9x5.25 bay cases, yeah .... There are some, but more and more, you're seeing then replaced with a large amount of internal 3.5" bays. Lian Li has a few cases though. And there were a couple of other companies... As for the M1015 that you have, I would recommend flashing it to the IR mode, even if you don't plan on using the RAID functionality. The reason behind that, is that the cards I have would periodically (every couple of minutes) ping the attached disks, keeping them active. So something about the IT firmware was ... flawed. The IR firmware seems to work MUCH better! As for the Supermicro board, well, IPMI is REALLY nice! ANd I can definitely understand the space issues. Rackmount cases are not easy to move, and definitely do need some dedicated space. Also, depending on teh specific rack that you have ... if it doesn't the back mounting section, I'd be wary of mounting the Norco to it. Just because of balance and vibration. As for designing a case, that's pretty neat.

You're very welcome. The utility makes the entire process a lot simpler. As for those cards, I do believe that Scanner does have issues with them, so just heads up. Also, personally, I'd rather pick up an IBM ServeRAID m1015 card. They're closer to $80-100 and (I think) require flashing. However, they're SAS cards, so cable management is a lot easier! And you can get an SAS Expander card ($$$) and ... well expand one of the ports (it has two, but they're "4 lane" ports and can connect 4 drives to the one port), into 5 ports (so 20 drives, with "breakout cables").

You are very welcome. And unfortunately, *NIX based solutions tend to be that way. Either very lacking in features, or incredibly complicated to setup.

Alex has taken an indepth look at the dump ... and unfortunately, we're not really finding anything that specifically points to an issue here. It's the same crash as last time, but we've fixed the code where it was crashing last time. As for the vagueness, not a problem. However, I do have a recommendation. Zalman has a very nice USB HDD enclosure. Why it's nice? You can dump ISOs onto the drive, and select one to mount as a virtual CD. It may be useful in a situation like this, actually. And by "CD", it emulates a BluRay drive, IIRC. So you could get just about any ISO working on it, in theory. However, due to the error we're seeing in the memory dump, I don't think this hotfix may work. It could, but it does so by essentially going back to older versions of Windows, in regards to handling the error. The error we are seeing is an issue with the "KeSetEvent" code, which is ... well, critical WinNT stuff and we heavily depend on this (it's a key feature of the windows NT kernel). And Alex has double checked that we're doing everything correctly in regards to this function, so it really shouldn't be crashing. Additionally, because of some of the activity right before the bugcheck (BSOD), we suspect that this may actually be a CPU or motherboard issue. I'm specifically referring to this: These are the last things that were happening prior to the BSOD. and "ClockInterrupt" is a CPU related call. ANd actually, digging into this, I've actually experienced similar BSODs (the DPC Watchdog BSODs) with my last CPU. When I replaced it... there was a scorch mark on the CPU's tin (an 1/8th of an inch in size, which is huge in this case). It is very possible that the CPU has sustained damage or the motherboard. This is why I suspect that the hotfix won't work. If the hardware is damaged, then it may not help. However, I would recommend running an extensive CPU benchmark/test to ensure that this isn't the case. Prime95, folding@home or similar programs may be a good way to test this. Or if you want to contact Thecus, and see if they'll replace the hardware... that may be a good idea, as well.

No issues at all. In fact, it's designed to work in it (hence the dashboard tab you've already noticed). I know it's not really visible (we're going to be fixing this soon), but you should notice that WHS2011 is in the "small" list of supported OS's for the 2.X version.

I'm assuming that you mean for *NIX (linux, BSD, etc). If so, ZFS should allow that, but I think it is picky about the disks you add (same size, IIRC), and removal. However, there is "GreyHole" which was DIRECTLY based on Drive Extender (and part of "Amahi", which was aiming to be a linux style WHS alternative). This may be exactly what you're looking for. https://www.greyhole.net/ http://www.amahi.org/ As for growing a RAID array, this COMPLETELY depends on the controller you're using. Most consumer grade controllers? Nope, not a chance. Enterprise grade ones (like LSI) may allow you to do that. But both won't really let you shrink them.

If this is for WHS2011 (or Windows Server Essentials), we do have a utility to streamline this process actually. http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Utilities The "WSS Troubleshooter" utility is designed to reshare the folders, and bypass the Dashboard's issues with moving shared folders to locations with existing content.

Run the "WSS Troubleshooter" utility. Select the "Restore DrivePool Shares" option. http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Utilities This should fix the issue for you. If not, let me know.

Well, the Windows Memory Diagnostics has an "extended test" option (you have to hit F10, IIRC) that does a much more extensive test. That, or memtest86 is a good idea (in fact, UBCD has this and a bunch of other utilities on it, and may be a good tool to have in general). And I absolutely understand not wanting to install the newer version. Regardless, I've flagged the new dump already. Additionally, you can disable the feature (as it may not be needed) by using this hotfix: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2789962 This shouldn't have any impact on your system, and may prevent the BSOD. If you do experience any other issues after doing this, then please let us know right away.

Yes, the hidden folder would be the corrently used folder. The unhidden folder would be the old folder. Correct. We also "tag" the folder so that the software doesn't try to re-add it (as a precaution). Also, if you want, you can move the contents of the unhidden PoolPart folder into the hidden one, (this will merge the data, basically). You'd want to remeasure the pool afterwards, and it will "unduplicate" files as needed. This or deleting the unhidden folder are a good idea if you do have a lot of "Other" data on this disk.

If the drive has been removed from the pool, it should be safe to delete the folder. We hide the folder to make sure it's ... well, not in plain site. Once the disk has been removed, we unhide it.

I'm sorry to hear that. I've flagged the issue for Alex. In the meanwhile, could you run a memory test (just in case)? And use the newest build to see if it helps: http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/StableBit.DrivePool_2.2.0.616_x64_BETA.exe

I've responded to the licensing issues in your ticket, so you should be able to activate properly now. As for the SMART stuff, I've also responded in the ticket, but I'll post it here as well: And I see that you have configured the settings, but it's still having issues. In this case, set the temp to -16, and see if that helps (we have a 10-15C "buffer" configured in the Scanner settings, that is probably preventing this). If that doesn't help, then open the Scanner Settings. Go to the "Heat" tab, and uncheck ... well, all the options that you can on that page ("Use manufacturer ...." and "Equalize disk temperatures"). This should allow it to scan properly.

Okay, if that's the case, and if you're still having issues, then please install the latest beta version. http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/StableBit.DrivePool_2.2.0.616_x64_BETA.exe This version contains some fixes regarding the measuring, and more logging regarding it.

Glad to hear it!

That's pretty much what we were shooting for.

Well, we have a thread for that: http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/5-my-rackmount-server/&do=findComment&comment=13 Also, the Ikea Lack Coffee tables make for great 4U capable racks: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10065958/#/00104291