Christopher (Drashna)

Using 'dir /o:n' resolves the issue in cmd.exe and doesn't rely on any default behaviour (which has changed between releases of Windows). Of course it means changing your batch files but that is a one time hit.

I'm going to jump the gun and post my conclusion here: my issues were most likely caused by my add-in controller, even after installing its driver. I haven't yet run the burst tests, but here is a list of events that point to it:
When I first built the pool and relocated some pooled drives onto the new controller, those exact drives began to exhibit file access issues. I didn't mention this when I originally posted because I didn't notice issues immediately after doing so. Removing those same drives and reading them with my USB HDD dock exhibited no access issues (nor corruption). When formatting a DIFFERENT set of drives on the suspect controller, the formats would freeze. This was attempted three times. After flashing the firmware, the formats appear to be progressing normally and are further along. (To be clear, updating the DRIVER seemed to make no difference.) Currently, my pool is rebuilt from drives using the onboard controller only. There are no I/O issues. I could have done more to isolate the controller as the point of failure, but at this point, noticing how everything works perfectly fine until it's connected to the Rocket 640L is good enough for me. I guess by shopping for a cheaper card, I paid the price. So far, the fix appears to be to flash the stock firmware. For anyone looking, the Rocket 640L (not to be confused with the RocketRAID 640L) uses the Marvell 88SE9230 controller.
 
I've started a separate pool for the controller to verify controller stability before I let that controller contribute to my main pool. Also, burst tests will be underway soon.
 
My thanks to Christopher for his patience and guidance. To show my appreciation, I've tried to be thorough in this thread in hopes that anyone who runs into a similar problem with the same card finds this thread.
 
- AJ

Thanks to eBay I was able to assemble the following parts for surprisingly little.
 
1. Supermicro SC846E16-R1200B 24 Bay 4U Chassis with  2x 1200Watt 80plus Gold PSU.
 
2. Supermicro X8DT6-F Motherboard
 
3. 2x Intel Xeon x5570 cpu's.
 
4. 32gb Hynix DDR3 Server Ram (4 x 8gb)
 
5. Supermicro passive heatsinks (brand new in the box)
 
I loaded Win Server 2012 R2 Datacenter (already had) and installed 17.5TB worth of HD's (already had). More to be added later.
 
Everything I got from eBay could have passed for new and it all works flawlessly.
 
I decided to go with Drivepool versus RAID / SS / other solutions for 2 reasons 1. Worst case senario all I can loose is a what's on the failed HD. The remainder of the pool leaves my data unmolested and accessible in any Windows computer (this is important to me). 2. I've been using it for quite some time now and it's proven to be totally reliable and simple (too simple but very good at what it does).
 
I'll be using this server for the following -
 
1. Data Storage
 
2. Media Server
 
3. Backups.
 
4. Blue Iris Server
 
Given the expandability of this system, it will probably outlive me.
 
Yes, it's noisy and sucks up the juice but it won't be running 24/7 and it's not located in a people area so neither matters.
 
Excluding the HD's and SW which I already had, The system cost me well under $1000. I'm happy.
 
 
 

Totally agreed.  I had a couple of USB enclosures.   Eliminated all of them due those very problems...   I do have two TR5M enclosures connected via eSATA.   Fortunately my server lives in the crawl space basement, and have never had a problem with disconnecting, especially since no one ever comes near the thing except me!

Hey, thanks for your perspective on this!   Just for good measure, I moved some drives around so that this big drive was inside the main box and not in one of the external enclosures.   Everything worked just fine!   Thanks for the tip!!!

Thanks for the suggestions, I just needed to know I wasn't going to screw things up too bad :-) Is there anything I need to know about restoring the client backups if I lose the data in the pool and need to put it back from the external backup?
 
On a side note... I noticed from another thread that you started using Emby. What are you using for the front end. I've set up the server on my windows server box and also set up kodi on the same box to feed a mysql DB and i'm running kodi on RPi 2's and PCs for clients. I love the combination and the ability to use Emby for remote access and transcoding.
Emby is like Drive Pool and Flirc in my opinion... these are elegantly designed programs that just plain work and the simplicity of the design is what makes the products great. Like the Flirc just simply showing up as a USB keyboard to the computer makes everything else behind it trivial.
 
Sorry for getting side tracked there.:-)

FYI - I just emailed it directly.  I'm hoping that the screen capture of the error message "Dashboard.exe - Application Error" message will help as it says the exception # and application location of error.

To complete the thread for my part I can report that BETA 612 now has the dashboard working correctly.  NOTE: Reboot client computers too before using dashboard after updating Drivepool.

Have you cleared the status in StableBit Scanner to see if the issue comes back?
 
To do so:
double click on the disk, click on the arrow next to "file system scan" and click on the button with the green circle on it, and select the "mark all damaged file systems as unchecked" option. This will clear the status and cause it to rescan the disk at the next opportunity.
 
Also, a surface scan may not detect file system errors. 
The surface scan detects areas of the disk that are unreadable. Not that are corrupted. The file system scan uses chkdsk actually, to find corrected file system entries (and to fix them).

Unfortunately, properly not.
 
The reason for that is that hard links only link files in between locations/files on the same "physical" disk. Because DrivePool is using a bunch of disks, it makes implementing this ... well, a nightmare.
 
However, we have a workaround to this problem in the works, actually.

With default settings, DP allocates to HDDs with most free space and it seems as if you have added a 1TB drive in a po with rather larger ones that are not filled halfway. It will be quite some time/data before that drive is used.

Hi scanner does just that if the settings are
Correct upon a falling drive it will start to evacuate data providing you have enough space on other drive, good practice would be to leave enough free space to cover the largest drive you have installed. I have mine set to only remove non duplicated data this to me is the quickest and best option then drivepool will start to reduplicate the files once you remove the failing drive.

Windows 10 build 10041 is working fine for me.  Got 44 drives in a pool.

Sometimes it doesn't. 
Maybe the port is question is already being used?
 
But that's why we have the manual list.

And that's nothing compared to my history with PCs.  My first PC (as in DOS machine) was a Compaq Plus portable (4.77mhz 8088) - 512k RAM and a 10 MB hard drive. I ended up donating it to my dad, where we made it the server in his real estate office. I networked 4 PCs together using Artisoft LANtastic on their old DB9 2mbps cables. Those cables were a pain to build. But all that got me into IT, that experience moved me into network installations and maintenance for a software development company which built turn-key systems for law enforcement departments and municipal courts. I have never looked back, been in IT ever since.

My first HTPC I built used an ATI All in Wonder, on XP, using GBPVR. That dates me a bit.

Microsoft makes the support lifecycle stuff overly complicated. 
So don't feel bad if it makes you feel confused.
 
https://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy
 
Specifically, "extended support phase" means that no features are added, and that the product will ONLY receive security updates.
If you get the "Extended Hotfix Support through Premier Support" (paid), you will continue to receive non-security updates.
Additionally, there is no free support.
 
 
What does this mean for us? 
 
Well, for WHSv1, which is based on Server 2003 (not R2):
https://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3198
That you will still receive SECURITY updates until July 14, of this year.
For WHS2011, that is based on Server 2008R2:
https://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=14134
 
 
And I can absolutely confirm this, as my WHSv1 VM is still receiving new updates. They're all security updates though.

We don't really have a minimum requirement.
 
Both products are designed to be VERY light on resources, in most every circumstance.
 
Neither product is doing anything that is very CPU or memory intensive in most cases.
The driver for the pool uses only kb of memory IIRC, and we run at a lower priority when possible.
 
The read striping feature leverages the cache for NTFS IIRC, so even that should be lightweight.
In fact, the only feature that I can think of that really uses a lot of resources is the "Network IO Boost", as it prioritizes traffic, and it is off by default.

You should get Security Updates on V1 for a few more months, it's based on server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 support is ending July 14, 2015.  You should be good on Security updates through January 2020 on WHS 2011, it's based on Server 2008.   As far as minimum requirements, most of folks started running it on WHS 2011 on an HP Micro Server N36l,  AMD Athlon II NEO N36L 1.3 GHz, this was dual core proc,  passmark of 809,  it came stock with 2GB's ram, but most upgraded to 4GB min,   I'm still running DP and Scaner on a HP Micorserver N40l, system performance is slow when you RDP, but overall it's still a capable file server. 
 
this made me laugh, a Intel Xeon Processor 3.0 GHz processor from the DL380 G4, has a pass mark of 398, much lower than I expected, the 3.6 has a passmark of 500.  makes the micro server look like a beast.
 
As far as confirmed minimal requirements,  I'll leave that for some one else.
 
Edit,  added "security updates", which is the most important for any server touching the internet. 

This is probably a networking issue.
 
If needed, you can manually specify "peers" on the system.
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Advanced_Settings#RemoteControl.xml
 
Once you've added the peers, restart the StableBit DrivePool Service, or reboot the system.

Hi,
 after some time experimenting using Drive Pool today I have registered (DP + Scanner).
 I have purchased it for 2 reasons.
 
 1) There is a general stability of the application which is professionally programmed (only few problems encountered). I feel I won't loose my data.
 
 2) Great support. I feel at home here.
 
 Looking forward to purchase the next licence.
 
 Regards,
    Giuseppe Chillemi

Been there, done that. Never shell externals.... I had 6-7 of them go bad in a short period of time. Is what I get for going super cheap.
 
 
As the drive, I'm sorry to hear that, as that's never fun. However, I'm sure that it wasn't Drive Bender's fault... but because of how it works... recovering from that can be a PITA. (though, it's not fun regardless).
 
 
As for which drives, we recommend NAS drives for DrivePool. That's WD Reds, or Seagate NAS, or any other drives designed for NAS usage. They're pretty much ideal for DrivePool.
Though, Green drives to work. They do have problems, as mentioned (overly aggressive idling). 
 
 
As for the virus thing, you opened another forum thread about that, and I've responded there already. But I'm fairly certain that this is a false positive.

Ive already done it and I'm very happy.
 
As I reported above, the new server build went smoothly and although I reported that a good few handful of files went missing, I think the main problem was with the actual disc removal process by WHS.
 
But either way. When the files were migrated. Some files were definitely left on some of the pooled discs. Which is obviously not supposed to happen. But I'm not really sure of any way round this.
 
In order to stop this happening again, and when I recently removed a 4TB disc to put in a new 8TB disc instead. I actually moved files from disc to disc manually and was much happier that everything moved as expected.
 
Anyway. Here is a pic of the new 8TB drive I installed and another of the server fully built and running in my AV rack. Enjoy the server porn.
 

I ended up biting the bullet on a 3rd cage and SATA card last week.  I had a couple extra 2TB drives and one 1TB drive lying around and wanted to get them added to the pool.  Total usable storage now sits at 19.1TB.  I've since enabled 3x duplication on almost everything and DrivePool is in the process of working its magic.  I love that software!

I have a really good cooler on it. When the server had a 610 in it, I way overbuilt the cooler because I wanted it to be as quiet as possible. Of course now with 6 drives in there, it's all moot now, the drives are louder than any of the fans. And I have it in my wiring closet now anyway, so I don't care about the noise.
 
I made it through last night too. So, I think I fixed whatever was acting up. Previously, I had the RAM in the second two slots (the black pair). When I was looking at motherboard specifics the other day, I noticed that the manual says if only two slots are used, to use the blue ones, so I switched them. This is when problems started. So a couple of days ago after thinking about what had changed, I moved the RAM back and ensured all connections were firmly seated in both RAM, and power connections. All seems to be well now. I think it had to do with either where the RAM was, or maybe it was not seated well. 
 
Here is what I ended up with on the new server:
Xeon E3 1246V3 240.00 MicroCenter
Intel Server Motherboard S1200V3RPL 220.00 NewEgg
2x Kingston 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1600 156.00 NewEgg
WD Red 5TB 214.00 Amazon
Cooler Master HAF 912 Mid Tower 43.00 MicroCenter
CORSAIR CSM Series CS450M 450W 40.00 NewEgg
 
I already have one WD Red 5TB that I'll pair up with the one that I just bought, and I have an SSD for landing and processing of files. I'm going to boot ESX off of a 32GB USB 3.0 thumb drive. The new 5TB drive arrives today, so I can start transferring data. I have the case and processor sitting on the desk behind me. The rest of the parts will be here tomorrow. I'm pretty excited to see how heavily I can load this system without maxing it out. 
 
As you can tell, I don't care so much about this or that case or power supply. I don't have a rack anymore (had a Chatsworth I used for years) and just want something I can sit on a shelf in my wiring closet. I see enough pretty racks and 1u servers and blade systems in data centers as part of my job. I don't need that at home.