Christopher (Drashna)

Was this 2012 R2 Essentials "transitioned" to standard? Or 2012 R2 Standard with the Essentials Experience installed? Or is this just 2012R2 Standard?

To be honest, you should enable duplication. At worst, the duplication is done in the background, to help prevent it from interfering with disk or network activity. And when you copy to the Pool, it duplicates in real time (actually, it writes to both locations simultaneously). Which would be better for what you want. And as for removing a disk, yes basically exactly like WHSv1. It moves the contents from the disk to other disks so it remains in the pool.

You mean a "Duplicate to all disks" option here? If so, I was just thinking about the same thing and was going to mention it to Alex. It's a good idea, and would be nice to have for some things (like internal settings too) You have an open ticket with us, don't you? This request definitely sounds familiar. If so, well, I'll repeat it. Just in case you aren't who I think you are: Ordered File Duplication will do a majority of what you want.

Remeasure, well does what it sounds like. It causes DrivePool to rescan all the files in the pools and .... well, remeasure the contents. As for "Other", normally, it shouldn't grow while writing to the pool. That's is definitely weird.

Yes, DrivePool definitely throttles itself based on network and disk activity to prevent any performance issues.

Yeah, it can take a while. If it makes you feel any better, I just did a bunch of house cleaning (which involved re-partitioning a couple of my pooled drives), so I'm in the same "waiting boat" that you are. But I have 20TBs in my pool...

Okay, that's definitely the newest version. I'm pretty sure you haven't, but have you set up an "Advanced settings" file for DrivePool at any point? (DrivePool.Service.exe.config). If you're not sure, then the answer is no. And I have a couple of things I needed to test on WHS2011 this week, so this just got added. I'm using 2.x and haven't had that issue. But I was using 1.3.3 a while back, and didn't have an issue with IIS... And that IIS issue is definitely a permissions issue. Also, to make sure, did you look up the "site" on the server itself, using "http://localhost" ? If not, do that. The reason is that "localhost" gives a LOT more information about the errors. But it does look like you've done that.

Both of those issues are very odd. As for Scanner, that is definitely a serious issue! Do you have any controller cards installed? And if so, which? And do you have "UnsafeDirectIo" enabled? (if you don't know what I'm talking about, then you definitely don't) And I hate to ask, but if you wouldn't mind reinstalling it and getting a forced crash dump? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_System_Freeze If you don't, I completely understand. But we would like to see what is going on, and fix it if we can. Though, setting the "StableBit Scanner" service to "Disabled" via "Services.msc" while in safe mode *should* fix the lag/hang issue as well. (but disable Scanner)

The Duplication pass can take a long while, especially if you have a lot of smaller files. It not only moves/copies files, it also checks each disk to for duplicate files. So it can definitely take a while.

If you've disabled immediately balancing, the it normally takes place at 2AM. As for Ordered File Placement, it shouldn't really matter. But you'd probably want to have CrashPlan's priority to be the same as Ordered File Placement's priority.

Yup, definitely. And if the controller is in "AHCI" mode, you should be able to "hot swap" the disk (as in remove it without shutting down)

Okay, good to know. VSS not working is not surprising. We'd have to implement that first. But as for deduplication, Alex will probably have to take a look at that to see how it works before we can implement it (if we can).

Could you get a screen shot of what you mean? (in regards to the StableBit Scanner installer) And as for the DrivePool UI, it is supposed to remember. But could you open a ticket at "http://stablebit.com/Contact/" for that?

What version of StableBit DrivePool 1.x do you have installed?

I haven't personally put the MySQL database in the pool before, but that can cause issues. Namely with the way that it locks the database. That could potentially cause issues with the pool. As for the IIS Manager issue, did it allow the folder/site to be used at all? And have you tried adding "IUSR" to the folders' security info, and give it full control? That usually resolves most of those types of issues. However, I just quickly tested it, and it allowed me to create a site on the Pool just fine. But I am using build 2.1.0.432... I'll see about testing the MySQL issue this week to see if I can duplicate the issue. Though, in the meanwhile, if you edit the service and add "-l [file_name]" to the startup string for MySQL, that should enable logging.

Well, using "Disk Management" to set the disks as Offline" may help avoid the Windows Search issue. And any other "read/write" issues.

By your previous comment, I wasn't sure how you had Server Backup setup. So i just wanted to be clear. As for SyncToy, yes, any file based utility should work just fine with DrivePool. And that's basically how WHSv1's backup worked. It created a copy of the files on the "backup drive". I don't know if you've taken a look at some of the other threads, but one idea that has popped up is using a second pool to backup the first pool, and then take that pool off site. As for incorporating something like v1's backup, it is a possibility.... but there are already a bunch of similar solutions out there already (such as SyncToy, or Allways Backup)

Yes, you'd end up backing up duplicate files, unfortunately. As for Crashplan, you can use the DrivePool directly with that, and it doesn't have any issues.

That sounds like a very good plan, indeed. And yes, it may take a while to copy everything over. I'd hope you use something that is 'aware' enough to not copy over identical files. Will save time. And yeah, unfortunately, nothing is full-proof. So yes, the offsite backup is a good idea. And glad to hear about the fire-proofing. I'm sure you're very happy about it.

That looks like a nice card. If you don't get SMART data on the drives attached, you may need to enable "UnsafeDirectIo", I'm not sure though. As for PCI-E... no, you get better speeds with PCI Express cards, as they have higher bandwidth. Cons? Running out of space in the case? Also, power may become an issue, depending on the PSU. Personally, I prefer the HighPoint RocketRAID 2720SGL. But it's defintiely an investment, and not cheap. But that's a good card too, IIRC. Multiple cards? Shouldn't be an issue. And as for the power, that really depends on the drives, the PSU in use and the cable it's connected to. But assuming decent parts, it should be good, I think.

What hub are you using? And which USB controllers?

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience with Storage Spaces, but yeah...it's a horrible solution. :'( As for StableBit DrivePool. No, duplication is not enabled by default. You need to manually enable that if you want it. However, if you want EVERYTHING duplicated, then enable the "Pool File duplication" option (Pool Options -> File Protection). This will enable duplication for everything by default. As for Server Backup, unfortunately, StableBit DrivePool doesn't support VSS (Volume Shadowcopy Service), so you can't backup the pool directly with Windows Server Backup. However, you can backup the individual drives that are in the pool. That is the recommended and only supported method. However, you can use any sort of file based backup (such as allways sync, or Microsoft's SyncToy) And the license, it's a lifetime license. Good for *any* version of the product. So for StableBit DrivePool, it's valid for 1.x, 2.0, and 2.1 (beta). And the same is true for StableBit Scanner. But more specifically, it's good for either the "WHS" version, or the desktop version. And you can switch between the versions without any issues (other than maybe needing to deactivate the license first) If you have any other questions or need clarification, don't hesitate to ask.

Well, ideally, you'd want to add the larger disks to the pool, and the remove the smaller ones. That's the "approved" method. And that accomplishes the above process "built in". But it sounds like you're wanting to clone the disks to larger ones, correct? If so, you absolutely can do that, but you want to make sure that you DO NOT connect the source/original disks at the same time then.

If you have real-time duplication enabled (default), then it's written to both locations simultaneously. So yes, it should be guaranteed duplicated.

Okay, that's odd. It looks like an issue with how it's grabbing the info, then. Also, are you using 2.4 or 2.5? Either way, I'd recommend downloading the 2.5.0.2968 beta version and see if that works. If it doesn't, let us know.