Christopher (Drashna)
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Posts posted by Christopher (Drashna)
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The actual pool should be fine. All the files are stored on normal NTFS volumes. and worst case, you can access files in the hidden "PoolPart.xxxx" folders. So the data should be fine.
As for the software, try doing a clean reinstall when you are able to:
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q3017479
That will clear all the settings, and files for DrivePool, and should allow you to install it without any issues.
And just to re-emphasize: We are very very protective of your data. Disaster recovery was one of the top considerations for DrivePool when Alex initially designed it. As long as the drives are intact, (as in recognized by the system, and the partitions still there, and NTFS), then you can recover your pool. Even if that means reinstall the OS, or moving the drives to another system. We value your data as much as you do, and have done everything in our power to make sure that DrivePool will *never* just "eat" your data.
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I've flagged Alex about this, so he can take a look, and see if he can fix it on our end.
But this sounds like a weird issue with Windows Firewall....
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Glad to hear it. Performance is one of those things that we definitely take seriously and is a big thing for our products.
But WantStuff, have you disabled SMB Signing on your 2012 R2 Essentials Box? If not, you may want to do so. It may get you a bit more speed.
Namely, SMB signing prevents "man in the middle" attacks. But if this is at home, a MITM attack means you're already screwed... And it adds additional overhead to each and every packet sent, slowing down network traffic.
It's entirely up to you whether you want to do this or not, but I do personally. But I also am going to be spending the money on ESET File Security soon (NOD32 doesn't install on Server SKUs, and Endpoint Protection is $$$$, while file security is like $45/year, give or take).
http://mctexpert.blogspot.com/2011/02/disable-smb-signing.html
And yeah, WHSv1 had some serious performance issues. I have a huge long thread at We Got Served about it, and a list of possible fixes... It was that bad.
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@x-ares-x:
Yes, that is fine. you're router is adding it's name as a "dns suffix", and that may be normal for it.
But yes, make sure you add the TCP port "27515" to the allowed list for your firewall, on the client. That or...
make sure that the DrivePool.Service.exe file is added to the list of exceptions on both machines.
@sspell: I used to use Symantic for firewall... till I discovered it's a bit overzealous, as you're noting.
Make sure you add said port the the "allow" list, as a network Service, If you haven't already.
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Well, I know that at least some of the chkdsk passes are recorded to the event viewer, but not all of them (IIRC). You *may* be able to find some logs of them there.
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Could you check the Application Event viewer and check for the specific error that it is giving? (filter for errors, to make it easy to find)
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You are correct that Shadow Copies/Previous versions do not work on the DrivePool disk.
You can definitely turn it on, configure it and successfully use it for the drives that are in the pool though.
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Good to hear.
Enjoying 2012R2?
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I'm sorry to hear about the hardware failure, that's never fun to deal with.
And depending on how old that card is, I would see about RMAing it. Worst case, so you can resell it (as new, even) and recoup some of your cost (or just add it so you have more eSATA ports, etc).
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The firewall would definitely do that. But that should have been configured properly when you installed DrivePool. Unless you're using a 3rd party firewall.
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dbailey, that's your choice. Though v2 is in RC, which means it's almost completely stable.
One thing that v2 really does add is the remote control option.
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If you mean the WHS2011 alerts, then you need to ignore it or delete the alerts, or else they tend to not go away on their own, some times.
That or if it is on a client computer, refresh the alerts sometimes fixes that.
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Oh, wow... that's odd.
Well, glad you got it sorted.
And yeah, feel free to check out the wiki pages. It's mostly used for troubleshooting issues, but it's not a bad idea to check out.
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Glad to hear it.
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You cannot encrypt the DrivePool drive, but you CAN encrypt the disks in the pool.
The BitLocker setting that otispresley mentions is specifically for that purpose in fact.
However, you will need to unlock each disk before the pool will become available. And you'll have to do this each time you reboot. And the simplest way to accomplish this is to encrypt the system drive as well. That is the only way to automatically unlock the encrypted drives. And if you don't have a TPM module on your motherboard (95% chance that you don't, they're not standard).... then you'll need to use the password/usb drive method to encrypt/unlock the system.
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You're very welcome.
And as for the backup server, a lower powered box dedicated for WHS2011 wouldn't be a bad idea at all.
And sorry to hear about your issues with Storage Spaces.
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http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q3017479
Could you do that, or verify that you cannot.
As for the dashboard, on a client, launch the dashboard. But on the login screen, click on the "options" button, and select the "allow me to select what add-ons to load" option. Disable the DrivePool one, and see if that helps.
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I do have a good idea, but I'm not sure how much of that info is for public consumption. So I'll let Alex handle this one.
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Actually, there is a "Safe mode" link, that does that. It's in the start menu, under "Windows Server 2012 Essentials".
That or just run "%windir%\system32\ConsoleLauncher.exe /manage".
And either will bring up the dashboard with that "addin" screen.
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Sorry, read striping won't. But the Network IO Boost *may*. I'm not entirely sure.
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On a client machine, load the Dashboard program. Before logging in, click on the "Options" button. This will give you the option to select what add-ins to load. Then you can re-enable DrivePool.
If you still have issues with it hanging, or being very laggy, could you do this:
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Dashboard_Freeze
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DrivePool will see the Storage Space as one gigantic drive. In fact, Storage Spaces works so low level, that nothing but it sees the individual drives.
And yes, you'd want to move the data off of the Storage Space before breaking it. After you break it, I believe you'll have to initialize the disks (just like a brand new disk).
Additionally, if you have enough spare drives (to equal the capacity of the "Space"), you may be able to add the Storage Space to a new pool, and add the additional drives to the Pool as well, then move Storage Space's content into the hidden "PoolPart.xxxx" folder. In that folder, it would be considered part of the pool, and subject to duplication and balancing. You could then duplicate the entire Pool. Once that's done, you could just break the STorage Space, which will cause a "Missing disk" error in DrivePool, which you can then just remove the now missing disk and add the individual disks into the pool.
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Do you mean backing up to the pool, or backing up of the pool.
If you mean "of" the pool, DrivePool does not support VSS (Volume Shadowcopy Service). That means it doesn't support Windows Backup right now. You can, however, backup the individual drives.
If you mean "to" the pool, it should backup to the pool just fine.
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That's absolutely your choice.
And yeah, that is a nice card, so I can definitely understand wanting to keep using it.
But as I said, you could use DrivePool with the RAID just fine.
Two questions about duplication - what if
in General
Posted
I believe you do need to remove the failed/missing disk before it will start re-duplicating the remaining data (should be *all* of it in that scenario). But as long as you have a copy of the data, it will try to duplicate it when it makes a duplication pass.
When DrivePool makes a duplication pass, it compares the files. If it notices that one of the files doesn't match the other two, it would generate a warning and let you know. At that point, you can decide what to do.