Christopher (Drashna)

Yes. As soon as you change the duplication status, it will start a duplication pass. It will then delete one of the "extra" copies of the files, to get the duplication to the right level. As for which files it deletes, that depends on your pool, the balancers, and how much space there are on the disks.

I'm not sure what your asking here, it's not exactly clear. However, the "Ordered File Placement" balancer plugin will cause the pool to fill up one disk at a time (or two, with duplication). And it attempts to keep the contents of a folder on the same disk. https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Plugins ALso, the "File Placement Rules" feature of StableBit DrivePool 2.X allows you to specify that a folder or files ends up on a specific disk. http://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool/2.X/Manual?Section=File%20Placement

You are very welcome. We would rather provide too much info than not enough. Yes and no. The SMART query may keep the drives awake, but you can reduce the frequency of queries. Open up the "Scanner settings". You can set a work window on the "General" tab. On the SMART tab, you can throttle the frequency of queries, or allow them ONLY during the work window. This should help keep the disks asleep. As for the externals, they may need to be plugged in for more than an hour to be scanned. Depending on the settings (eg the work window), and .... well the stability for the USB chipset in your system, ... It could be preventing that.

That's very odd. The only thing I can think of is if the disks got converted to dynamic disks. If that is the case, then that would be the issue. The beta versions of StableBit Scanner have a fix for this, but DrivePool doesn't support it (due to some technical issues).

The lastest, which is 13. Specifically, I bought the "Smart Bundle", which was the server version and 5 Pro versions (for $150). The server license is $100 normally, so it's not a bad deal. The "home server" may work, but it looks like it's still using v12. As for the setup.... I use the "SSD" option for the SSD drives, completely disabled the Pool drive, but I use the "SMARTPlacement" for the rest of the disks, and use the "Performance Aggressive" option. This stores the boot and directory info at the beginning of the disk. Then the "Recently" modified files, so they're at the beginning as well, and will load faster. Then the occasionally and rarely modified files (in that order). In theory, this should favor frequently modified files, as these are arguably more important.

Well, it still sucks. Hard drive failure always sucks. ] If you're getting a lot of reallocated sectors, or it's increasing, then you may want to consider replacing (or RMAing) the drive. And you can ignore the current or future increases to the value, in the SMART details options, if you want.

Reboot the system, and then retry. If it's still having issues, let me know.

Ah, okay, The text there should be "Balancing...." in english.

To be honest, I haven't really looked. I use BitLocker on my blue iris (IP Camera) server, mostly in case somebody steals it. As for something as transparent as BitLocker, I'm not sure. The best one I've see is "Disk Cryptor", and that's not seamless.

If that's the case, could you confirm WHICH drive that it's complaining about? And could you open a ticket at "https://stablebit.com/Contact/"

Is this under the "Pool options" section? Or where? Could you grab a screenshot of where you mean?

yeah, it was a steal. And I'm glad that you're enjoying HyperV. Well, you could run MySQL from a linux install. Also, Newegg had it for a day or two. But stock sold out very quickly.

The meaning of the sizes are here: http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/37-faq-unduplicated-vs-duplicated-vs-other-vs-unusable/ ALso, if you ahve files in the root folder of the pool, they may not be duplicated, and could cause the issue. Enable the "Pool File duplication" option to enable everything. Also try running the remeasure option, as that may fix the issue.

If you need to change duplication, there is always the "dpcmd" command line utility: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Utilities#DrivePool_Command_Utility As for finding the file, you need enable "Show Hidden Files" AND to show protected system files. Then the file should be in the "System Volume Information" folder in the root of the drives. However, to delete the file, you will need to take ownership of the folder and it's contents.

We recommend BitLocker, actually. It's baked into windows, and works seamlessly with the system. Additionally, the "Automatical unlock" option works very well with the pool. However, a lot of people do not trust BitLocker. And TrueCrypt, it's forks and a few other encryption solutions bypass the VDS system altogether. Since that is a big part of DrivePool... they don't work. And would require a nearly complete rewrite of the code JUST to support these products. I'm not trying to start a debate, but just stating this and explaining why we don't support them.

Ugh... I have a guide that I wrote for how to migrate the WHSv1 pool. Because I did it more than a few times.: http://web.archive.org/web/20090411184621/http://wiki.wegotserved.com/index.php?title=Migrate_Shares_and_Backups_to_New_System As for StableBit DrivePool... for testing I have 3 sets of virtual hard drives. Different sizes... I move them between VMs every time I test. And every time, it recognizes the pool on the "new" VM. I've also migrated to new hardware and reinstalled a few times, before coming to work for Covecube, and those went smoothly as well. Specifically, we look for the PoolPart.xxxx folder and some hidden NTFS metadata to identify the pool, so there should be absolutely NO issue with moving the pool. In fact, for the StableBit Server that I've been working on, I have a script that creates a pool automatically. And it works EVERY time. It's that simple, and that effective. A lot of time and effort went into making sure the pool was SUPER simple to recover. Additionally, as for duplication, we store the duplication status of the pool in the same sort of hidden NTFS metadata, so that this information is carried over with the pooled disks, as well. Once the pool is recreated on the new system, DrivePool should initiate a measuring pass. This will check the status, and duplication or unduplicated files as needed (in case you changed anything, or are missing a disk, etc). Additionally, worst case here, you would move all the data out of the hidden PoolPart.xxxx folders, delete those folders, add the disk to a pool and then "seed" the pool (move those files back). And this entire process would take maybe half an hour (at least for me).

I used the stock fan for a day.... I had a very nice Noctua C-14 that I bought for the AMD CPU i was using. Since that burned (literally)... I reused the heatsink. However, the stock fan is fairly quite if it's not spun up all the way... but as I rarely use more than 25% load, even with 10VMs running!.... the stock fan should be fine. However, if you want to water cool, there shouldn't be any issues with that.

Sorry for the delay, I've answered in that thread. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Well, I have a supermicro X10SAT and am very happy with it. As for BlueIris, a core i3 could work, depending on what you're using for the cameras. Or by a barebone ThinkServe (lenovo/IBM) for cheap and set that up as a dedicated blueiris box.

Bjur, I'm sorry for the delay in answering you! (Family stuff) Actually, StableBit Scanner runs in the background as a system service. That means that it is ALWAYS running. By default, it's always grabbing SMART data, so that's always up to date. However, the default profile just determines when the scan window is. If you want it to scan anytime, then select the "desktop" option. Or you can manually configure this in the "Scanner settings". However, you can manually kick off a scan if you want, Just remember to re-enable the "Start/stop automatically" option. Yes. But by default, it will only scan USB hard drives that have been plugged in for at least an hour. No. By default, we avoid doing anything that could risk the integrity of your data. We are aware of the firmware issue with the drive in question (and a few others), and we actively DO NOT send the commands that can cause the corruption. However, this means that we don't get as much data about these drives. If you want to override the safety behavior, then add the model to the "GoodIdentifyOverride" setting. http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_Scanner_Advanced_Settings As for the Recalibration Retries, if that is the only SMART error you're seeing, then the drive may be okay. If you're seeing other SMART errors or damaged sectors on the disk during the surface scan, then RMA it or replace it. Specifically, there is an issue with this and a couple of other similar drives that can cause corruption if you send the "Identify" command to the disk while it's writing. Even worse, the firmware update DOES NOT step up the version number, so there is no good way to tell if the firmware has been updated (aside from physically marking the disk with a sharpie or something). If you're having issues, then it may be a good idea to check for an updated firmware and run it.. Just remember, any time you flash firmware, you risk bricking the device.

Yeah, WHS2011 likes to use MBR, but either should be fine (we prefer GPT). And yes, StableBit DrivePool is smart enough to know which partitions are on which disk, and will place duplicated data on different PHYSICAL disks. And as for the sleep/spin up stuff, yeah, that's why I've never bothered. I use my server a lot, and share it with friends and family, so there is no reason to spin down (that, and we have solar )

Okay, we do have that link already. However, I'm not sure if Alex has access to the installer or not. I'll bring this up with alex, at our next meeting (monday). Also, to double check, you are exclude the pooled drives, and the drivepool program folder?

Unfortuantely, because Windows Server Backup is a block based solution that is not deduplicated, this makes it very difficult to back up the pool. Especially as we don't support VSS. As for GoodSync, that is a file based solution, so it should work without any issues. Additionally, programs like Allways Sync (which Alex, the developer uses, IIRC), Free File Sync, or even SyncToy and Robocopy are good file based solutions that may work very well. Additionally, you could use a set of disks, and pool them for the backup destination, in conjunction with the file based solutions. This. The server backup and bare metal restore has saved me more times than i can count. It's very good (if slow) about restoring, and depending on the size of the backup disk and the size of the disks being backed up, it can store a good range of backups, as well. Additioanly, if you're using Essentials (and the topic header indicates you are), and you're client computers are connected to the domain, then this is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY and even CRUCIAL. Why? because if you reinstall the server, you LOSE all the domain accounts and all the settings in them. A backup lets you restore without this issue.

Yikes. As for the firmware, make sure that you don't have any critical data on the drives before updating the firmware. As with all firmware upgrades, there is always a risk of bricking the device when doing so. As for the full format... that may not have been necessary, after the chkdsk pass, it should have been fine. However, running the surface scan afterwards should have verified that. And I'm sorry to hear about all of the disk issues with the drive.

I've split and locked the thread to keep it clean on very focused. I apologize for any issues there. However, for reference, this is about: http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/37-faq-unduplicated-vs-duplicated-vs-other-vs-unusable/&do=findComment&comment=6570 I think I've already answered that in a ticket, but I'll answer here again. The 1TB of "other" definitely seems off. If you haven't already, "remeasure" the pool. This should hopefully update the contents. Specifically, once the pool is measured, we just update the information as data is added. So if it's off to start off with, it will stay that way until another remeasure is triggered (removing or adding a disk, manually, a missing disk, resetting the settings, etc). Additionally, disk errors can cause this to be miss reported. If you think that is the case, then let us know. Regards