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Christopher (Drashna)

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Posts posted by Christopher (Drashna)

    Slow Write Speeds to the Drivepool

    in General

    Posted

    Yeah, messing with stuff late at night is a recipe for disaster. 

    And yeah, cable management can be a PITA when you need to move stuff around. That's why I tend to just jury-rig things into place. Because I like to tinker. A lot. :)

     

     

     

    As for my server, I think I already have. I'm not sure. But the big thing is the HighPoint RocketRAID 2720SGL card. 2x SAS cables, that break out to 8 HDDs total. :)

    Other ?? I have read about.

    in General

    Posted

    Glad to hear that you are loving our products!

     

    And yes, FlexRAID is ... incredibly complicated for doing something that is supposedly simple. But glad you are loving our product.

     

    As for Scanner, there is a Pinned thread that you may want to check out that explains a lot of those settings. Alex (the developer) has a nice long post explaining all the settings. Worth checking out:

    http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/48-questions-regarding-hard-drive-spindownstandby/

    (and it should answer all your questions, so I'm not going to attempt to here.

     

    Basically, no, DrivePool doesn't add much to the RAID card. Sort of. You can definitely add the RAID array to the pool without any issue. But personally, I'd rather use DrivePool and Scanner over the RAID array. Namely because you should be able to get SMART data if you pass the disks through (as individual drives, though this may require enabling "UnsafeDirectIo").   

    The reason I use this instead (I have a HighPoint RocketRAID 2720SGL card), is that you get more disk space out of this, and having both installed will add a "Scanner" balancer for DrivePool that will evacuate data from a drive that Scanner detects as failing.

     

     

    As for DrivePool's disk in Disk Management, that is because we use a "virtual driver" for the drive. 

    And as for the IO, that's because the DrivePool drive doesn't actually exist, and all IO operations are passed onto the disks directly. This means that you should get better performance.

    Setting up DrivePool with Win8

    in General

    Posted

    Tallmomof2,

     

    First, let me say I'm sorry that Storage Spaces ate your data. That's never a pleasant experience. :(

     

    DrivePool operates very similiarly to how WHSv1's DrivePool did. In fact, that's the inspiration for our product. Though we've made a number of improvements.

     

    First, all the files are stored on normal NTFS volumes. So if you decide that you don't want to use DrivePool anymore, you can just uninstall it, and then recover all your data from the hidden "PoolPart.xxxx" folders in the root of each drive.  

     

    Also, if you reinstall the OS, or decide to migrate to new hardware, you can just move the disks over. Once you reinstall DrivePool, it will immediately recognize the "old" pool, and "rebuild" it.

    I'm not sure if you have had to deal with a system disk failure in WHSv1, but you basically had to completely rebuild Drive Extender's storage pool by copying everything back into the pool. A very time consuming process. Like I indicated, for DrivePool, it would take seconds... just reinstall DrivePool and reattach the drives!

     

    If you decide to go with a dedicated system for WHS2011, then I'd recommend checking out StableBit Scanner as well. Namely, because it gets SMART data from the drives, as well as scans them for issues periodically.  And if you have both products installed, Scanner can evacuate a DrivePool drive if it detects errors with it, to help prevent data loss.

    Slow Write Speeds to the Drivepool

    in General

    Posted

    I live in the San Deigo area, so yeah, lots of dust. That, and lots of animals. 

     

    I'd be more inclined to believe it is the box it's in or maybe the controller card. That's where I'd put my money.

    But swapping out the cable should be trivial, and very easy/quick to test.

    Other ?? I have read about.

    in General

    Posted

    Okay, I wasn't sure.

     

    On the DrivePool UI, when it's measuring, it has a small "pac man" type icon in the bottom left corner of the Pie Chart area to indicate that it's still indexing.

     

    And from the sounds of it, it wasn't still indexing. If that is the case, it is possible that it got interrupted. Such as if it got rebooted, or needed to do a balancing/duplication pass.

    Slow Write Speeds to the Drivepool

    in General

    Posted

    Dust and stuff... I live in an area that everything gets dusty, so I have to clean out my server and other computers every six months.

     

     

    As for burning out cables... There isn't a cable type that I haven't burned out at least once. that includes SATA cables, cat5(e), and even Coax. :P

    Server Essentials 2012 R2 compatibility

    in General

    Posted

    Scanner is definitely compatible. The underlying API that it uses has not changed. You can use either the "Windows 7" or the "Windows Home Server 2011" version. The difference is that the WHS2011 version will deploy over the network and will have a dashboard tab.

     

    As for DrivePool, that should be compatible. I know it's been extensively tested with the Preview version, and has no issues with it. And it should work fine with the RTM version.

    Other ?? I have read about.

    in General

    Posted

    ACtually, the other is okay. It's supposed to be there. 

     

    There is a nice post about that, as well as a blog post:

    http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/37-faq-unduplicated-vs-duplicated-vs-other-vs-unusable/

     

     

    But basically, it's any files outside of the pool (such as data on it already when you added it, or shadow copies, or the recycle bin on the hard drive). As well as "misc used space", as in that 1kb file still takes up the 4k sector. And the discrepancy gets reported by NTFS, when is what we read, and calculate the usage.

    SSD monitoring

    in General

    Posted

    Yeah, that will definitely wear the disk out rather fast. But that 97% is after ~220 days of running it as the system drive.

     

    On my desktop, I have the same SSD (Newegg screwed up), running for ~160 days as well, with the wear at 99%.  

     

    Both of these are system disks. But I try to not install anything to the SSDs.

     

     

     

     

    Also, if you're using duplication, you'll want two feeder disks.

    WHS2011 - what are pros and cons of upgrading from V1 to V2

    in General

    Posted

    Things you lose by upgrading:

    • The "Stable" label, for now. It's an RC, but ... still. There are bugs possible. But that's only for now.
    • Major dashboard integration.
      There is a tab, but you lose the tab under storage
    • per folder/type information, 
    • Pie chart of folder distribution

    Things you gain

    • Remote control, without using the Dashboard
    • updated drive for drivePool (most changes are backported, but there is more active development on 2.x)
    • larger list of supported OS's
    • Per folder duplication
    • Greater than 2x duplication

    This list isn't comprehensive. It's basically off of the top of my head.

     

    However, balancing shouldn't be affected, nor duplication. At least not significantly.  Nor is disk usage (however, it is displayed a bit different)

    Data Write Performance - low data throughput

    in General

    Posted

    Well, for Scanner, you can change the disk activity sensitivity. 

     

    And do you have the "Read Striping" and "Network IO Boost" options enabled for DrivePool (should be under Pool Options->Performance)

     

     

    If you already have those enabled, if you wouldn't mind, could you enable "Tracing Logs" on the "server" and try duplicating the "issue" and then submit the logs?

    http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection

    Forum Poll: Reallocated Sectors Count Seagate 3TB ST3000DM001 Drives

    in General

    Posted

    I have seven of the ST3000DM001 drives, and none have any reallocated sectors.

     

    All of them are the -9YN166 model, but still.  And they are the CC9E or CC9F firmware. This could make a difference.

     

    It is possible that the drives are from the same batch, and that batch has a defect (this unfortunately does happen, with *all* manufacturers).

     

    If you are very concerned, check with Seagate support and you should be able to RMA the drives. May be a good idea if the reallocated sector count keeps climbing (as this would indicate a serious defect)

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