Christopher (Drashna)

You should always be concerned about the disk health. However, if this number isn't changing (or more specifically, continually growing), then there may have just been a defect on the disks surface. However, if this number is rapidly OR continually growing, then move the contents off of the disk and RMA it, as this would indicate a serious (and probably mechanical) issue with the disk.

You are very welcome. And hopefully, we can figure out what is going on and get it sorted out for you soon. And if you couldn't tell, I really do enjoy helping people.

I'm not sure this is a bug. It looks like that you may have accidently click on the "Drive Letter" column and caused it to be sorted by drive letter. c/d, e, f, g, h, l. Instead of by port number, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. If this is the case (and I suspect that it is), don't feel bad at all. It took me a few minutes and a couple read through's to actually notice that.

Okay, thanks for the feedback guys. I'll pass it along to Alex.

Yeah, the "System Volume Information" has some pretty draconic permissions setup to prevent access to it. Taking ownership (and "replace child entries") usually does fix that. And yes, if you removed the drive from the pool, and t here are files that were not removed, it will leave the visible "poolpart" folder, so you can "take care" of the remaining files. But I'm glad that you got it sorted out.

Taylor, Yes, we would prefer if you did upload them. At the very least, it may let us see what is going on, and how to fix it for the future. Regards

Okay, that's what i thought, but I wanted to be sure. Could you grab the information from above and upload it? Just make sure you include the link to this thread there. http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/388-is-this-screen-shot-showing-an-error/page-2&do=findComment&comment=2426

Martin, You can definitely trial version 2.x as well. But for WHS2011, I'd recommend the 1.3 version as it is designed for WHS2011. It includes much tighter dashboard integration. But you can use either version, without any issues. For DrivePool, it can initialize and format the drives automatically for you. That is the ideal option here. Otherwise, I'd recommend initializing them to GPT (not MBR) which allows to create partitions larger than 2TBs. And yes, DrivePool is smart enough to not put duplicate files on the same physical disk. As for the Server Backups, unless you have a truly large drive for this, or a very small amount of data.... I'd recommend just backing up the system disk. If you need to backup the data, I'd recommend backing it up to another drive or drives. Something with much larger capacity. I'd also recommend checking out this: https://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool That has a lot of the basic information that you may want to know. After going through that, if you have any other questions, or need clarification about anything, don't hesitate to ask.

Restart the system. If it's still mis-reporting this, then could you get the memory dump of the "DrivePool.UI.exe" process and the DrivePool.Service.exe process? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Dashboard_Freeze And then reset DrivePool's settings? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q2299585B

Huh? I'm not sure what you mean by that? And just FYI, the "reset permissions" option sets the NTFS permissions back to a "stock" or "newly formatted" state. These should ensure that there are NO issues with the permissions. Also, aside from the OS, and the StableBit products, is anything else installed on the system?

Okay, this does some to be a very, very weird interaction between DrivePool and WHS. Have you run the WSS Troubleshooter to "reset permissions on the pool" yet? If not, do that and see if it helps: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Utilities If it doesn't, could you head to http://stablebit.com/Contact and open a ticket there? Also, could you enable tracing on the server, let it run for a while and then upload the logs? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Log_Collection And then get a dump of the Dashboard, DrivePool.Service.exe, http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Dashboard_Freeze And of the full system, just in case? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_System_Freeze

Okay, that's what I thought. Glad it was just that. And I'll pass that on, and maybe we'll get a more obvious button.

Well, I'm not exactly sure what to say to that. If you hadn't noticed, one of our design tenants is simplicity. And we really do hope it shows. Also, resiliency and recovery are aspects that are very important to us. Which is why migrating the pool is so simple. I'm not sure if you're familiar with WHSv1 and it's Drive Extender. It was a nightmare if you wanted to move to another system. We wanted to avoid that hassle and make the recovery as simple and as easy as possible. A benefit of that is that migrating the pool to another system is just as simple and easy.

It's still sitting there. We don't purge them very often, just in case. I've pinged Alex again, so he'll take a look at it when he gets a chance. Thanks for reminding us though. And we defininitely understand the whole "Christmas happened" bit.

AMCross, Worst case, the files should definitely still be on the pool. You can do the normal "sharing). Just set the share permissions to "Everyone" and full control for that. This will default to the NTFS permissions for access. Which is what WHS does anyways.

Okay. And yeah, as I said, if the missing drive wasn't removed, then that would have preventing the pool from "doing it's thing". Also, for the future, if you have a drive fail like this, remove it immediately. If you swap disks, or even get it re-certed, if the disk has been formatted, it's no longer recognized as part of the pool.

Yes. That simple. Specifically, I'd recommend disconnecting the drives, just in case (you never know). Once the OS is installed, you can reconnect then and install DrivePool. Once DrivPool is installed and activated, it will immediately recognize the pooled disks and recreate the pool. You may need to download the WSS Troubleshooter utility to "restore drivepool shares" though. http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Utilities

If you manually scanned then, you may not have put it back to "automatic". On the toolbar in Scanner, make sure that "Start / Stop Automatically" is selected (highlighted). If it's not, then that would be why it's not scanning.

Glad to hear it. And yes, this is my personal preferred method. It's much cleaner and much more organized. And I may be slightly OCD.

Assuming you have Realtime Duplication enabled (by default), then as soon as you removed the "dead" drive from the pool, StableBit DrivePool should have IMMEDIATELY started a duplication pass. In this pass, it checks all the files and what their duplication status is supposed to be. Too few, and it makes another copy. Too many, and it deletes one. This is done in the background and should be completely transparent to you. Once you plug in the new disk, it should use it just like any other new disk in the pool. However, that doesn't mean that it's going to immediately start using it. Unless it finds that the file placement in the pool is not optimal, it's just going to sit there until you add new data. And then it will probably fill up that new drive first. However, if you haven't removed the old/missing disk, then none of this will have happened yet. From the Online FAQ (http://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool/Faq): Q. What happens when one of my disks goes bad, how do I recover from this? If all of your files are duplicated, simply disconnect the damaged drive and click the Remove link in StableBit DrivePool to tell it that the disk is never coming back. StableBit DrivePool will then immediately start re-duplicating the files that were on that disk to some other disk in your system. While this is happening you can continue to use the pool normally with no down time. Note that if your system does not have hotplug support for the damaged disk, you will have to shut down your computer before disconnecting it. If you have some unduplicated files on the pool, and the StableBit Scanner is installed, it will try to detect the disk failure as early as possible. At the first sign of damage it will send a message to StableBit DrivePool instructing it to begin immediate evacuation of unduplicated data from the damaged disk. You can then remove the disk at your convenience. More information on this topic is available in the User Manual. If you need any clarification or have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask. Regards

Okay, so the Pool drive is definitely the only one not showing up right. And the SYSTEM account has full access on the pool. I'm assuming if you check the Pool's size in Explorer (My Computer), that it reports the capacity, and correctly? Then, I'm not sure why it would be doing that. But could you get a memory dump of the dashboard? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Dashboard_Freeze And after doing that, could you completely uninstall DrivePool, and reinstall it? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q8964978 This will reset the settings, and require you to reactivate. However, your pooled data will remain intact, as will the duplication status. After doing this, if the problem is still there, let us know.

That is very odd. Could you make sure that the "SYSTEM" account has full control on the pool then?

So restarting again fixed the issue altogether? IF so, that's good. Though let us know if it does come back.

Okay, that is a very odd issue. And before you reinstall (hopefully), does the same issue happen outside of the Pool? If it does, then this is something you may want to "bug" with Microsoft (https://connect.microsoft.com/SBS/)

Asturia is completely correct. It's a 50% hit, as the file(s) will be on two different drives, taking x2 the space. As for the location of this option, Look under the pie chart for the pool. There should be a "Pool Options" button/text. Click on that, and there will be a "File Protection" section. Open that menu and select the "Folder duplication" option. This will bring up a window that will allow you to change the duplication status on any of the folders. However, if you want the whole pool duplciated, select the "Pool File duplication" option instead of the "Folder Duplication" option. This will allow you to duplicate the "root" of the disk, and all the subfolders should inherit this setting (which you can verify with the "Folder Duplication" window). Regards