Christopher (Drashna)

Darkeuh, I know you don't have a "dashboard.exe" process, but you should definitely have a "DrivePool.Service.exe" process. The process for getting the dump is identical here, which is why I linked that article. It was originally for getting dumps of the WHS2011 dashboard, but as the process for any other .... well, process is the same, it's easier to reuse the same article. So basically, use that method to get create a dump of the "DrivePool.Service.exe" process, instead of the "Dashboard.exe" process.

The SYBA card you linked is a good one. I've used a similar chipset, and did not have any issues with it. Marvell makes pretty decent chipsets. And don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to rag on SYBA. The issue is with the Silicon Images chipset. I've been in the home server community since ... well WHSv1 was released (end of 2007), and I've seen a LOT of issues with there chipsets, and have experienced them myself. And Alex has had his share of issues with them, trying to get Scanner to read the SMART data from the drives, as I've said above. So, definitely avoid Silicon Image chipsets. As for the HighPoint cards, they usually use Marvell, so they're pretty decent. And if it's only for a 4 port card, then they should be good to use.

The reason we don't give the option to hide the drive is that the drive already exists, and we don't want to interfer with your system in a drastic way. Additionally, if there are any system files on it (like shares, or the client backup database), then changing or removing the drive letter would be detrimental to the system, and could cause issue (at least temporarily). And yes, you can manually change the drive letter, or even remove it. But we try to stay as "hands off" of your system as we can. But there is no issue with DrivePool and changing or removing Drive letters. Also, I would recommend mounting the drives to folder paths. The reason is, that you can still access the disks (and run maintainance, like chkdsk, on them easily, but it cleans up "My Computer", so you don't have a whole bunch of drives listed there: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4822624

darkeuh, That is not typical behavior, but unfortunately this does happen every once in a great while. Could you upload the error reports? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Error_Reports As well, as get a memory dump of the "DrivePool.Service.exe" process? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Dashboard_Freeze Once you've done those, reset the Settings for DrivePool: http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q2299585B After doing this, you should have to activate again. But this should be the last time that you have to do this. Regards

Eagleknight... I'm very sorry for your whole ordeal. That's not pleasant. As for the Client Backup Database, we highly recommend duplicating it. Because all it takes is one damaged file, or even one missing file to destroy the entire database. Trust me, I've been there and done that. A restore can fix the issues... but it usually does so by salvaging records. Which means you will lose backups. And while having crashplan is nice.... it's nowhere near as fast for recovery. As for your card.... when you describe what was happening with it, my first thought was "I really hope it isn't an Silicon Images chipset". And yup, it is. Sil3124 specifically. I hate these cards. So does Alex. Not only do that cause issues with Scanner (it only properly reports the first disk on the card, for SMART data), but they tend to fail under high loads. Which is precisely what you were seeing. And that's not limited to AMD or Intel. It's in any system. These chipsets are basically garbage, and should be avoided. If you want, I can give you suggestions for cards to replace them with. But I would recommend just about anything that uses Marvell. And if it's open, one of the PCI Express ports, as you'll get better speed that way.

Could you do this? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Log_Collection Don't enable the tracing option, just upload the folder. Use the thread's URL in the comments in the widget at the bottom. We can take a look and see if it's having issues. However, it shouldn't take 3 days to duplicate 500GBs (or less) of data. But that may depend on how many other disks are in the pool.

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.