Christopher (Drashna)

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.

I have a reg Phenom 2 945 3.0
 
it overclocks well. u may need a good cooler. and ive had good luck with gskill ripjaws at ddr 1600 (red ones) im using a 4x4gb kit with my phenom or consider the trident kits


btw my phenom have a 1333 base fsb not 1600 like my ram

On the greens you need to run WDIDLE3 and set it to disabled or 5 minutes. Otherwise they are going to have too many Load Cycles (head parks). I have heard of this causing premature failure of these drives when used in a 24/7 environment. I have also heard of WD denying warranty when the rated number of load cycles has been exceeded.
 
Scanner or any SMART reader will tell you how many cycles the drive(s) have. I didn't know about this issue for almost a year, so I'm at over 143,000 load cycles on my green drive. Scanner keeps track of what the manufacturer rates these drives at, and Green drives are rated for 300,000 cycles. Reds are rated for 600,000 cycles.
 
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=609&sid=113
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hacking-wd-greens-and-reds-with-wdidle3-exe.18171/
 
And so that Christopher doesn't have to say it, this is flashing your firmware so you do run some risk of losing the data on the drive, or even bricking your drive. I have not heard of anyone having issues with it though. 
 
When you find out how many load cycles you have, post it up. I'm curious.

I should probably stress it with some of my SQL stuff but I don't like to spend the time right now. On my lappy I have an SSD for the DBs but I had the tempdb on the spinner. When I moved it to the SSD as well it boosted a script by 40%. Hate to think what would happen on the Seagate Archive HDDs, I imagine queue depths well in the hundreds.
 
Anyway, love the wbadmin.msc, it there something similar for client backups in WHS2011?

Hey jandrews, I recently switched from DP 1.0 to DP 2.0 on my WHS 2011 box. Couldn't be happier. I like some of the features in 2.0. There is still integration into the dashboard, if you care about that. 

Parts ordered today. Hopefully by Friday I'll be assembling my new server. My current one crashed again last night. I'm about to go change out the memory and check all the connections to see if that's the problem. Also going to turn off the 10% overclock, although it's been stable up to now.
 
I bought another 5TB Red drive, so I'll have 2 5TB in the new server, along with the SSD boot. In the existing WHS 2011 server, I have two WD Green 3TB drives. That'll work. 
 
I'm going to need more copies of DrivePool and Scanner. How do I add new licenses to my existing license?
 
My plan is to move all the media that is going to the new server using the WHS dashboard to the specific 5TB drive letter. No issues with that, right? Then once it is migrated and in the new server, I add the second drive and create the pool on the new server, and all is good.

Crashplan isn't going to offer duplication, it's backup software, not syncing software. The advantage (one of them anyway) of backup software is versioning.  You can get back different versions of your files.
 
If you simply want to sync a copy of your pool or some subset of the files on it at different intervals, look into Syncback, FreeFileSync, etc.  I've used others, but none with the simplicity and robustness of those two.  I use Syncback for automated syncing, and FreeFileSync for one-offs.

Hey, thanks for the reply!
 
I think the hardest part so far is FINDING these files!   The recycle bin is empty.   Not sure where do look...
 
Once I find them, I can probably delete them (I've been resetting permissions on my pool most of the day, I created some problems making and switching accounts trying to get OneDrive to work)...
 
SO nice to have this resource when you need it!  

WHS2011 so .vhd files, not vhdx unfortunately. I'll check for a while but overall. In two weeks my WD Red Backup HDD is up in the roster, I'll take a look at that as well and compare. So far, I am happy. They may not be the best write-performers due to SMR (still unsure) but they get the backup job done it seems, I can grow my server to about 8TB in unduplicated backupable data at low cost and they read like crazy.
 
It is a ST8000AS0002-1NA17Z and the ID number is J1PO37PU

Are you also running Scanner?  I have DP running on both machines, with Scanner on both machines as well. Makes me feel safer anyway.

Most likely, you need to allow remote management of the event viewer. 
This link should help.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/server_core/archive/2008/01/14/configuring-the-firewall-for-remote-management-of-a-workgroup-server-core-installation.aspx
This is EXACTLY what you're looking for, and it covers MORE than just the event viewer. It should cover EVERYTHING that exists in the Computer Management console, which is even better.
 
Personally, I went and set up a group policy for this on my domain, so I don't have to do anything ever again.

thank you for the info... just wanted to make sure I didn't do anything wrong with setup.. guess my system is set for a long while now

This server is a BEAST lol xeon 1246-v3 = fast fast o and did I mention fast

Congrats! And yes, that is one hell of a machine.

Firstly. Thanks for the prompt and informative reply. As many others have said, customer service here is amazing, and although I haven't needed to get in touch much, now that I do need some assistance, you are right here waiting
 
Had one other question whilst I'm preparing for my system migration to start
 
Assuming I'll just build my new WHS 2011 box and then install DrivePool and insert disks and boom! I'm there. But re DrivePool. Which version should I install. As I'm running WHS2011 and was with you from the start, I am currently running V1. Does it make sense to move straight to V2 as I may need that eventually anyway.
 
If I install V2 and just stick my v1 disks in will that work. Or would I need to switch to V2 on existing box first. I'm not sure if individual drives are tagged by the system or if it's purely a directory structure constructed on the system drive.
 
Thanks again in advance.
 
Jon

I'm starting to see 500GB SSDs for $199. That's pretty amazing. Certainly not as cheap as spinny drives, and not necessary for streaming movies, but they are getting cheap(ish).

my abosolute longterm goal is a 25 drive setup (1 for os and 24 for drivepool) lol guess im liking the idea of collecting storage drives.

Hi Chris check out xcase.co.uk i got my cases from there and they have been Brilliant my setup is listed in the my rackmount section on here.