Christopher (Drashna)

Ah, you mean moving the existing shares onto the pool, then? If so, then you'd want to "Seed" the pool, and then you should be able to run the WSS Troubleshooter utility. To "Seed" the pool: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4142489 Yeah, the utility should allow the shares to be accessible to the Dashboard, so you can manage them from there.

Just FYI, you can max out PCI Express 2.0 8x by maxing out 34 HDDs (that's how many it takes to hit the max throughput of the card). So PCI Express 3.0 8x, it would take 68 HDDs to hit that limit. So there really isn't need for it.... As for the ASRock boards? I have had good experience with them (after replacing the bad SSD that I had). Though, I'm partial to SuperMicro and ASRock Rack. But I don't mind paying the premium, and use PCs for more of workstation/server stuff. Depends on what your doing. It really does. For most people DDR3 1600 is just fine. However, if this is going to be a server, I'd recommend ECC RAM and a board that supports it. It's around $200 anymore, IF you can find it. And IF you can find a reputable seller. I've seen somebody on the Home Server Show Forums that looks like they got a counterfeit.... Also, Server 2012R2 Essentials is $400, includes active directory and MUCH better Windows 8 backup support (I've seen a lot of cases were the UEFI/GPT patch for WHS2011 causes even more issues...) And if you're not sure about the price, Microsoft has a 180 day (6 month) eval copy that you can download, and then "upgrade" to a Retail or OEM key. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2012-r2-essentials

Well I'm glad to hear that you are happy with StableBit DrivePool and that you're trying out StableBit Scanner as well! As for the shares, we have a utility to do this actually, as the "move folder" option will error out if the new folder has existing content. http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Utilities Download it, run it on the server and select the "Rebuild DrivePool Shares" option. This will (cheat and) reshare the pooled locations, bypassing the dashboard. However, you'll notice that it will show the shares in the dashboard just fine.

Okay. I think I missed that then. If the webUI was reporting SMART data, then it depends on if the controller and driver was passing that along. Next time, try using the DirectIo Test utility to test it out. Or use another product to see if it's able to get SMART data as well.

The "IT" mode makes it "just" a HBA card. No RAID or anything. It passes the disks through to the OS directly. Also, "JBOD" is actually a JBOD, and considered an array, IIRC. There is a passthrough option for the IR (RAID) mode, IIRC, but as I don't intend on using RAID at all, it's simpler for me. As for performance gain, there may be, but I haven't tested it out. And as for flashing it back, or at least to IR mode, yes, you should be able to do that as well. In fact, the "server the home" link above includes instructions on how to flash it to the other modes (or even back to "factory"). And yeah ,the card is very reliable. I've been using the cards for a while now and am very happy with the stability. Also, LSI is an enterprise storage company, so I'd expect them to work very well. Though, after researching it, I only need one card. A single PCI Express 2.0 8x card can support running 30-35 HDDs maxing their throughput (~100MB/s) at the same time. Since you would need an SAS Expander card to hit this number.... you'd only need one of the M1015 cards. That SAS expander card would get you 5 SAS connection from the one (so 20 HDDs). Two expanders would get you 40 drives (in theory). And if you're using the drives with DrivePool, no need for RAID, so you're not going to be maxing all the drives at the same time. More than enough drives for just about anyone.

I do agree with p3x-749 here. He's right about the hardware stuff. To clarify, a PCI Express 2.0 8x (8 lane) card can handle up to 34 HDDs running at max speed (100-120MB/s) at the same time. That means you could scan that many drives at the same time, and it would barely max out the card's bandwidth. With a 16x card, or a PCI Express 3.0 8x card, that's doubled. As in 68 HDDs. And this is with ALL of them being maxed. As that's not a normal situation, you could fit more than that number of drives comfortably. However, if you you want a AM3+ board... I have an ATX (not micro) board that I have laying around (the CPU burned, literally... there is a scorch mark on the top of the CPU), that I could sell you for real cheap, if you wanted. It's an ASRock 990FX Extreme3. It's missing the heat sink assembly (well, it has a noctua on connected), and I can't guarantee the stability (though I'm certain the CPU was at fault). And power isn't the only thing. Energy efficiency is very important too. As is heat output, as well. That's why I stay way from AMD, and make comments about getting "burned". If you're going to be gaming on the system as well, then it's a good idea to spec out like that. But if it's "just" going to be a server, then you may want to look at the bare minimum of what you need. I would still say at least one or two SATA III ports (for a SSD for the boot disk), but that's not need for HDDs. And even if you needed the PCI Express ports, the 3.0 isn't necessary for storage (a lot of even the high end, enterprise cards are PCIe 2.x still). So you'd be buying for potential at best, rather than necessity. Again, don't let us discourage you. But we are trying to help, and ... well, cut the fat out of the specs you're looking for. Why pay for features you're not going to use?

It depends on the what is being used for media streaming. And more specifically, if the transcoder is designed AND optimized to use just the CPU or to use the GPU as well. As for Plex, I'm not sure. But I think it's only CPU. So a good CPU is worth more than GPU power. As for the APU CPUs.... I've been burned by AMD in the past, and too many times. They run very hot, they don't perform as well, and IMO, they aren't worth the money. As for the intel, a Core i3 or i5 would cost about the same and get you a similar or better CPU (also, depending on the board and socket, you could upgrade to a i7 or xeon later, if you so desired).

I'm not sure about the "pain to configure". The Essentials wizard walks you through the setup and does all the configuration for you. It's dead simple. As for configuring the Essentials to work without the domain, it's "simple": http://www.tinkertry.com/how-to-make-windows-server-2012-r2-essentials-client-connector-install-behave-just-like-windows-home-server/ As for DNS, if you do plan on using the domain functionality, configure the "DHCP" on it to use the server as the primary DNS server. After that, it's simple. There are definitely caveats to running Essentials, and to joining a domain. But if you have any questions about it, feel free to ask. As for more details: http://wiki.covecube.com/Development_Status#StableBit_Server That's it for now. We'll talk more about it, when we're closer to releasing it.

If that's the case, then it should definitely not be doing that. I'm not exactly sure why it would do that in this case. And I apologize for the trouble! If you haven't activated the trial extension already, could you open a ticket at https://stablebit.com/Contact and post the contents of "C:\ProgramData\StableBit DrivePool\" there? If you have already activated, then could you do so anyways, just in case. And I'm sorry to hear that you're having issues with FlexRAID.

If the drives that you are trying to add are empty, then you should remove them from the pool prior to moving them over. This lets StableBit DrivePool know that the these disks are in usage, and are available to add to a new pool. Otherwise, if the drives are just pulled and moved to the new system, it will recognize them as pooled disks and create a new pool. Since this isn't what you want.... However, if there is data on these drives, then it makes it a lot trickier. And this sounds like it is the case here. The simplest way would be to ... well, reverse the directions for seeding the pool, and then.... seed the pool: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4142489 Also, this will not be affected by the duplication status of the files. Though, you will definitely want to remeasure after doing this, so that it can reduplicate/unduplicate/recheck all the files after doing this.

Yeah, the SSD optimizer is for a fairly specific use case. And there are definitely some caveats. But in some cases, it can be very useful.

Hmm, I'm not sure why you'd see that, other than that it may have changed the NTFS permissions for the OneDrive folder. Try changing the permissions from the dashboard and see if that helps. If it doesn't, enable tracing and attempt to reproduce the issue (aka, change the duplication): http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Log_Collection Then upload the logs to us at https://stablebit.com/Contact Regards

Have you previously tried StableBit DrivePool on the system? If so, that will be why. Either way, I've sent you a trial extension, so you should be able to use StableBit DrivePool for another 30 days. You should receive an email shortly, with the Trial extension and instructions on how to activate it. Regards

Ah, you mean of pools. It depends on why, and how they're connected. If you have the option of eSATA over USB, then take it. USB is inherently less stable, so I would recommend against it, if you have the option. And yeah, unless you have the need for a secondary pool, I would recommend against it. However, if the enclosures failing or getting unplugged is a concern: Download the Ordered File placement balancer. This fills up disks one (or two, with duplication) at a time. If you duplicate everything, you could alternate the order of the disks (one from "enclosure 1", the second from "enclosure 2"), that way, if an enclosure gets unplugged, you should still be able to access the contents of the pool, without any issues. https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Plugins

mnemonic0ne, I can definitely understand your setup, and the desire for redundancy. However, the point that I think that ctopherc was trying to make here was this: The synology NAS device and the PC are both working as NAS devices. Why have two NAS', where you have to split you storage between the two. This means that you need significantly more hard drives to store all of your data. One of the nice things about StableBit DrivePool is the built in duplication option (which you can set to higher than just x2 if you so desire). And if you wish to store the data, then a USB or eSATA (ideally) enclosure may be a better idea. Just connect it when you need it. Additionally, a multi-bay enclosure could be used to host a secondary pool, which you could then replicate the important data to. This may be a better (or at least cheaper, and more power efficent) solution for you in the long run. However, this is your setup, and you can do whatever makes sense for you. But it is a suggestion. As for the transcoding, Plex is fantastic. Also, the Core i7 CPU you listed should be able to stream to several devices at the same time. However, if you're using OpenELEC, that should be able to handle the MKV (or other formats) natively.k As for the BackBlaze client, I was able to get it installed eventually... and it appears that it will backup from the pool without any issues. And again, you're not the only one that I've seen that has reported ... well the exact same issue with CrashPlan... ALso, nice connection. Reminds me, I need to call Cox and renew my business plan (and see if I can get better bandwidth now). But again, please do list to our suggestions, but figure out what fits you best. There are definitely a bunch of different solutions that are possible. But only one will fit you.

If you notice, the build number (3055) is not the latest build number. We had pushed it up, and then ran into a serious bug. So we rolled it back. I think Alex meant to remove this file, and forgot. 2.5.2.3074 is the newest version.

It really depends on the size of the "SSD" drives, and the files are you are copying over. And HOW you are copying them over. The simplest solution is to ... well, throw more SSD or larger drives at the problem. You can find "White Label" 600GB 10K RPM drives for relatively cheap. It would be very useful for this, though not as fast as SSDs. Also, what size are the files are you plan on copying? And is this being done over the network? If it is, you may not need to bother with the SSD Optimizer balancer. The reason for this is that depending on the drives, you may see 80-100MB/s speed to the drives. If you're moving files over the network, gigabit's maximum theoretical (raw) speed is 125MB/s, and you're more likely to see ~100MB/s. That means if you're copying files over the network primarily, you may not be seeing any significant gain in performance by using the SSD optimizer. However, if you're using the Pool locally, then you will definitely see an advantage to doing so. Additionally, allowing it to write to slower disks sort of defeats the purpose here (being to put the files on the fast disk, and then move them off to the slower disks).

That's a lot of information, and I'll see if I can answer it as best I can. You mentioned Drive Extenders bad performance, we don't have that issue. Part of the reason that happened was that they were using some more obscure features of NTFS and implementing it in a non-standard way. This cased some pretty bad performance issues. StableBit DrivePool is a virtual file system. Meaning we don't store the file system anywhere but in memory. This means that you will see closer to native disk speeds. In fact, if you are duplicating, you may see better than that, as we do "read striping" in this case. As for backup strategy, it depends on how BackBlaze's client works. I'm trying to test that currently (though it seems to not want to download the client ATM). But I suspect that it shouldn't have a problem, but you never know. As for CrashPlan, I'm sorry to hear that. I've heard of weird issues with it, in the past... which is why it's always a good idea to test out recovery, to make sure it's working as expected. (also, there is no such thing as too many backups). As for migration, yes, it's as simple as reinstalling StableBit DrivePool and reconnecting the drives. It will recognize the pooled disks and recreate the pool automatically. And as for the drives, you can add or remote disks at any time. ANd this is (usually) a simple and straight forward process as well. Just connect the drive, and add it. And removal is basically just a couple of clicks (and a long wait as it moves files off of the disk). Though, CTopherC has some good points in his post, so it may be worth reading all the way through that, as well.

That is a good question. I'm not sure about that (I suspect that you may not be able to), but I'm not sure. I've flagged this for Alex (the developer) so he can answer.

Well, great grab! And I'm glad to hear that you are very happy with the system and performance! It's funny how much that can make a difference. And wow, what a jury rigged system! I'm sure you're just as happy about moving out of that, as you are about the performance!

I'm sorry to hear that it's being a problem again. But I'm glad to hear that the fix was just to exclude the folder.

And to add, if you have issues applying the permissions here, you may need to take ownership of the files, as well. On WIndows 7, the "Advanced" window, has a "Owner" tab. Open that, and set the owner to "Administrators" and check the "Replace owner on child objects" option. On Windows 8, after click on "Change permissions", fine the "Owner" section and click "Change". Set that to "Administrators", and check the "Replace owner on child objects" option.

From what I saw, rebooting always causes the drives to show up as RAW, no matter what else is installed. Though, as I said, I was not using an auto-mount option (didn't see one). And I'm glad to hear that BitLocker is working much better for you.

Once StableBit CloudDrive is released, then Alex will have a lot more time to look into supporting ReFS. ANd yes, we would like to add ReFS support, but it will take time to verify that we can and change the code to be able to properly support it. And part of that verification is that it supports all of the file system features that we need. If it doesn't, it may not be feasible, or will require significant changes to implement support And there should be no limit to the size that the pool can grow.

I think I may have misunderstood the issue, and I apologize for that. The issue is that it still has the couple of GB of duplicated data, and you're not able to find where that is, correct? If so, then you should be able to safely delete the .covefs folder (and no worries, it's not ignorance as most people will never need to use any form of Reparse points on their system). Also, I would recommend deleting the Recycle Bin and System Volume Information folders as well (you may need to take ownership to do so). Regards