Christopher (Drashna)

The option to merge pools is a good idea. It should be rather simple to implement in the code, but may be a bit more difficult to implement in the UI. (Feature request here: https://stablebit.com/Admin/IssueAnalysis/13491) To do this in the meanwhile... on the disks in question, find the 'PoolPart' folders, move the contents to the root of the drive (out of the PoolPart folders), delete the now empty PoolPart folders, and then restart the service. Once that's done, the old pool will disappear, and then you can "seed" the other pool: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4142489 As for the removal stuff, I'll have to make sure, but there is a number of background tasks that occur during removal. As for preventing the disk from being used... check out the "Disk Usage Limiter" balancer. You can uncheck both options (duplicated and unduplicated data), which would prevent ANY files from being placed on the disk, as well as move out any existing files. This is great for preparing disks for removal, as it essentially does what you want. (https://stablebit.com/Admin/IssueAnalysis/13492)

Ticket already answered (I believe). However, when the license is in an "unusable state", the contents should be accessible, but the pool writes may/should be limited.

I double it does anything like trim. With an SSD, it's fine because it's instant... but for a HDD... that's putting data at risk, in the case of sudden power loss. I suspect that it won't do anything. The big issue here is with how it writes. Reads should be "fine" for the most part. Again, this is speculation, until somebody gets their hands on one.

Ouch, I'm sorry to hear that! As for migrating off... I personally use the "Disk Usage Limiter" balancer, uncheck both duplicated and unduplicated options and let DrivePool clear out the drive. Then remove it.

That depends on how old the drive is. If it's less than a couple of years old, then yes, that is getting rather high. As for WDIDLE3, be careful. This reflashes the firmware, so make sure you don't have anything you can't lose on the drive (aka, backup the drive or make sure you have copies of the file elsewhere). But otherwise, this may be a very good idea. As for the WD Red drives, these are MUCH better about head parking, and shouldn't need to be It's mainly JUST the Green drives that suffer from the overly aggressive head parking issue.

That may be normal, depending on your settings. The "reset settings" option in the Balancer window should restore that to default. Baring that, if you're using StableBit DrivePool 2.X, click on the gear icon in the top right corner, select "troubleshooting" and then the "reset all settings" option.

I would avoid CrashPlan. More and more lately, I've seen issues with it. Such as corrupt backups which can't be restored from, just not completing backups, etc. As for Carbonite, I'm not as familiar with them, but they may be better to go with....

Yup, but I figured it was worth repeating, as Databases would be absolutely horrible on the disk. As for a media server/NAS type device, that is the question. Since these drives haven't hit the shelves yet, it's hard to tell how well they'd do. Which is part of why I'm curious. As for the CPU "upgrade", if you're going to be using Plex a lot, it will definitely make a big difference!

And yeah, it would definitely would be nice to quickly see.

Glad to hear it. If you have any other issues, don't hesitate to contact us.

Could you grab the contents of the "C:\ProgramData\StableBit DrivePool" folder, and upload it to us (via "https://stablebit.com/Contact")? Also, could you get a memory dump of the service while it's in this state? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Service_Memory_Dump After doing that, could you try restarting the system, or restarting the "StableBit DrivePool Service (by running "services.msc", finding the service, right click on it and restart it). If the issue doesn't go away after doing that, then let us know. And either way, I've emailed a trial extension to you, which should fix the issue. Otherwise, use the contact form to request a license deactivation.

No, there should be no problem with multitasking. Scanner uses very little CPU or memory even when scanning. As for seeing if the disk is sleeping... it's a catch 22... The only way to see if the disk is sleeping is to query it. Querying it will cause the drive to wake up if it was sleeping. The "Power" column does indicate the state, as best we can determine though.

Well, the information is there when you open the disk sector details (the "+" on the left side of the disk). However, we can see about adding this.

defragmentation, operation system disk, databases, cache drives, page file, temp storage, etc.

This is an issue with the Windows Home server installer.... It fails to roll back properly when there is an issue (at least in the dashboard). Please uninstall the Add-In, and then reinstall it. This will ensure you're on the proper version (you're stuck on 2.4 right now). If needed, uninstall it from the control panel first, then uninstall it from the Add-Ins section in the dashboard.

Also, depends on if you're using a block based backup solution or a file based solution. A file based solution is obvious. You back it up (sync) it to a StableBit DrivePool volume. A block based solution? Get a RAID card. But to be honest, the 8TB drives are meant to BE the backup drive. They're Archival disks, and designed as such. The "Shingled writes" system imployed by them is great for sequential writes, but supposedly atrocious for random writes. This is why they're great for Acrhival. They're "write once, and store in a safe" drives.

Doesn't matter if it's on or not. But StableBit DrivePool doesn't support Shadow Copies/VSS. As for the not to use a drive, absolutely. Use the "Disk Usage Limiter" balancer. Which you've already discovered. In fact, I recommend using this to prep a drive for removal, to prevent your exact issue (and a couple of other). As for the blue arrows, those are the "target" arrows, meaning that it will try to move the content around to hit that marker. Which is what you want. As for the red arrows, these are the "real time placement limiters". ... ugh, my brain is not working properly right now... I'm having issues describing these ATM.... But basically, "new" files will only be allowed to be placed on the disks UP to those markers. So if they're set to 0 bytes, then no new files will be placed on the drive, unless the balancer moves it there.

Yup. But I've heard reports that using MS DOS and other variants still produce the issue with drives larger than 2TBs. So it's likely a code issue (address range size, likely).

I've had a couple... the newer ones are okay, but the older ones.... all sorts of troubles. Between absolutely horrible performance, to the LCC issue.... Just better to avoid, IMO. You'd be better off with a desktop drive... But by "soon", I mean that I really want to get my hands on one and test it out in the pool. Some of the Greens were fine, some just ... needed to be put out to pasture... It was very dependant on model and then random chance. As for temp, ~40C isn't bad. It's when you start getting into the 50C range that you need to worry. But airflow is definitely important, and it makes a big difference. That said, my 4U norco runs the drives at about 35-40C most of the time. Higher is better, or even just disable. Also, as with any firmware modification, make sure your data is backed up elsewhere (or duplicated) as this process could potentially brick the drive (any firmware modification can).

Well, I'm sorry to hear that it definitely did die. At least you got it replaced with a very nice drive!

I'm glad to hear it! If you have any other issues or any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Well, no Server 10 until 2016. That's been officially confirmed, apparently... As for intel vPro, here is why it's pretty cool. http://www.howtogeek.com/56538/how-to-remotely-control-your-pc-even-when-it-crashes/ And you can access the BIOS/UEFI Firmware as well.

Yup, I did see that, and commented about it. Sadly, though, the Gigabyte board lacks intel vPro at all. But it's not necessary (just nice). And either way, it does look like a very nice motherboard.

By the "head parks", I am guessing that you are referring to the "Load Cycle Count" value, as this is specifically the count of the the load/unload cycles into the head landing zone position. As for the timeout setting, I believe that is listed in the "Disk Control" section for the disk.

Chances are that the BSOD may have corrupted the performance counters, which is what we use to get the performance information here. To fix this issue, do this: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q2150495