Christopher (Drashna)

Well, I got some news that will make some of you guys happy.
 
"StableBit FileSafe".
It's in the planning stage right now. What does that mean? No code for it yet. Especially as we will have to consider exactly how to integrate it into our other products. And what features it will have. Etc.
But it's definitely something we want to release.

Thanks.  I did decide to try Drivepool 2.X.  It was a trivially easy process to uninstall 1.X and the install 2.X.  DId not even have to re-enter my license.  Apparently, it was kept intact.  I actually like 2.X much better than 1.X on WHS 2011.  First, I like the remote management much better.  Lighter and faster interface than Dashboard.  Also, I LOVE the folder by folder duplication option.  I saved about 800GB of space by de-selecting sub-folders that contained info I did not need to duplicate, but were in main folders I did want duplicated.  
 
So I am staying with 2.X.  
 
I could not be more happy with Drivepool after 1 week of use.  Best utility I have ever bought for my PC.  

Is Read Striping enabled by default in V1.x?  I ask because it is an option to select in 2.x, but I do not see the option anywhere in 1.X
 
EDIT: nevermind!  Found it.  I did not even realize there was a "User's Manual" for DrivePool until I saw your link.  Sort of like an Apple product.  DrivePool is so easy to use, I never read anything.  I probably should though!

Unless you need some of the newer features, then using 1.3 would be the better option. It's more tightly integrated into the dashboard.
 
However, if you need/want some of the features such as reparse point support, or the File Placement rules, then you should use 2.1. 
 
Also, it's worth noting that the license is valid for either product, and the pool is backwards and forwards compatible.

Thanks Chris. You are helping me achieve my goal of a perfect storage setup day by day. 

BTW, saw an episode of home server show on youtube and you were on it. Awesome job on that! : )


 

Thanks. The remeasure did not change anything but after a reboot it is now reporting usage correctly.
 
I'm really pleased with the software - does exactly what it says on the tin with absolutely no drama and is usable for a relative novice like myself. And the support gives me a lot of confidence moving forward.
 
Apologies for the stupid questions, and thankyou very much for the help

I had every intention of buying a copy or two for same keeping prior to it going EOL around the holidays last year, completely forgot,  great OS, even better OS for the money, I paid, in the $30 range for the two copies I'm running.  What a shame.  
 
I received a coupon in June from Newegg, 20% off all MS Server OS's, would have been a good deal to get WSE 2012 R2, but I didn't really have a need to upgrade. 

glad the fix worked for you, and good to know that it works on this particular drive.

Hi there,
So I think I have finally remedied (or made HomeGroups behave) the situation based on a combination of the suggestions...
 
Here's how it went, after about a month of screwing around, I think this is reproducible and Windows 8.1's Xbox Music appears to be behaving as it should be.
 
I had to un-join my HomeGroup (in all ways - via the Network and Sharing center and Dashboard Settings - check both just in case) Make temporary folders in your DrivePool ServerFolders for each share you have, move you content in each one So, create "Music_backup" etc. Move all files in your exising "Music" share to "Music_backup" Let DrivePool sit with those changes for a while Reboot Open Dashboard - see if you can remove the old shares (I couldn't remove the default shares - or any really via Dashboard) If you can't, do a "net share "Music" /delete" from a command prompt instead Delete the "Music" folder from your ServerFolders Lather, Rinse, Repeat for every folder Let DrivePool sit for a while - it needs to remove all the folders from all the duplication areas Reboot Open Dashboard You should see it has detected "Missing Folders" That's good Now, open Start Menu, type Search Change Locations Windows Searches Remove all the shared locations it can't find Apply / Close Let it sit This removes all the old entries that help you find all the content you used to have Go back to Dashboard Here's where you create a HomeGroup if you want (skip 13 otherwise) Open Settings Click HomeGroup Create HomeGroup This should finish quickly because there is nothing there... Re-create all your Shares in the default D:\ServerFolders\ locations If you made a HomeGroup, select appropriate permissions Make sure Guest has No Access I guess. Move Shares to your DrivePool location They'll be empty Shadow Copies will probably fail Go to File Manager Move your content back into your folders Click Start Type Search Change locations where Windows Searches Make sure Windows is Searching your locations (DrivePool paths) and nothing is broken If you made a HomeGroup, check your permissions Make sure your Music Library has the DrivePool Music folder After DrivePool has sat for a while with your changes Turn Duplication on for your shares via the Dashboard Open File Manager and remove your "Music_backup" folder(s) for your temporary shares They may not go away until another reboot That's what I did, and now everything seems happy.
I see some folders via HomeServer in a HomeGroup, and ALL shares via my permissions in my NETBUI server path. And all my Dashboard stuff works, and my index is correct now...
 
I had a few other issues going on - it turns out Windows Backup was filling up my drive without removing Shadow Copies.
Also, Windows Search had an invalid library location blocking it from updating my Music index, so DrivePool was having trouble rebuilding its index.
And, I seem to have some sort of "Controller Error" on a USB drive (not part of the pool) that I can't seem to track down.
The drive doesn't report any errors on the disk, so I don't know what to do about that...
 
TTFN
Gregg

Well, I got some news that will make some of you guys happy.
 
"StableBit FileSafe".
It's in the planning stage right now. What does that mean? No code for it yet. Especially as we will have to consider exactly how to integrate it into our other products. And what features it will have. Etc.
But it's definitely something we want to release.

The "Configsections" and "system.diagnostics" sections need to remain.
 
However, anything in "ApplicationSettings" or "UserSettings" can be removed safely.
 
And actually, I've attached a sample config file with the bare minimum of what you'd need.
Scanner.Service.exe.config

I'd be inclined to use the manufacture drivers, especially when it comes the chipset and controllers to name a few.  They typically offer additional functionally over the standard MS drivers, I can't comment on better performance, performance is relative depending on your hardware anyway.  just my 2 cents.

In part because it's a way to generate more interaction on the forum here, and because it's come up a few times...
 
A couple of pieces of software I highly recommend (well, aside from DrivePool and Scanner, that is):
 
Subsonic:
It's media streaming software. It has a "standalone" version and "WAR" version that you can install on your server (or desktop) so you can stream your music and video to the web. Or even to your mobile device. It works great with DrivePool, as well. It does require a yearly subscription for the video, and the app support, but it's dirt cheap.
Personally, I use a fork of it called "Madsonic", as it's much more actively developed (more than one update a year).  ESET:
I use this on all of my computers. I've been a long time supporter of the company and love their product. In fact, I have it installed  on my server (Server 2012 Essentials), though I am using the "ESET File Server" edition. It's cheap, and has all the features that you'd want for a file server. Otherwise, NOD32 works great on all desktop Windows versions, as well as Windows Home Server. 
Their licensing is also "version independent", so you can look for a cheap copy of an older version, and update to the newest version out. It is a good, cheap way to get multiple PCs protected. And it also uses Windows PE to create an offline scanner. Raxco Perfect DIsk:
While it may be debatable if defragmentation is needed... I've seen it greatly improve performance. Especially on WHSv1.  It's even SSD aware, and has it's own method for optimizing SSDs.  And personally, I find that the "Performance Aggressive" SMART Placement option does seem to help with performance.

I have been using it. Seems to be just what I needed. Thanks for this plugin.

I love scanner too.  Not as much as I love Drive Pool though.
 
When I first installed scanner I thought it was a nice package, for what it was - A SMART monitoring program. A really nice one at that.
 
Where it REALLY shines is when used in conjunction with Drive Pool.  That's when the game changes and things get really impressive.
 
Hmmm.. I'm wondering if from a marketing perspective there's a place for a combined program. (I'm probably thinking about it because I just went to purchase a 12 license copy of Drive Pool and I was looking for the option of buying a 12 count of both at the same time.)
 
I'm honestly surprised Microsoft hasn't caught on to this little GEM of code and sent the developers and their support team a fat check.
 
It would make a great feature baked into the OS...Simply right click on a drive and select 'POOL."  Of course it would suck after that so the deal would have to include positions at Microsoft for one or two of the original Covecube developers.  
 
Ok, sorry for semi-derailing the thread and babbling.  Keep up the great work guys.
 
-RF

I wasn't sure how you were migrating, so I wanted to make sure that was covered.
 
As for restoring, you would need to boot from the install disk, and select the "repair an installation" option. This will load up the restore wizard. You do need to have your backup disk attached at this point (or prior to it).
 
However, you do need to make sure that the original partition/disk is smaller than the destination disk in question. That shouldn't be an issue. But if it is.... boot into the system, clear off the contents of the "data" partition on the system disk, then delete the partition (in diskmgmt.msc), and then manually run a backup (wbadmin.msc). Then you should be able to restore properly.
 
That's at least how I've done it in the past. I've actually migrated SBS2011E (the "small business" version of WHS2011) from a 500GB HDD to a 128GB SSD that way. So I do know it works.
 
Alternatively, you could close the "System Reserved" partition and the system partition to the new disk. Once you've verified that's bootable, delete said partitions on the HDD. This way, you can continue using that disk in the pool, and run for the SSD.
 
 
And I'm not sure what you mean by the last question. But it's definitely worth running the system from an SSD. If only for the fact that the dashboard will be a lot smoother and run better overall. And overall, the system will be "snappier".

I'd really like such an app/add in. It may be the absolute best worthless app (worthless in that it may never ever find anything) but the comfort would be so great.
 
OT: Early days I was a console operator at a Unisys mainframe (or, as the IBM-operaters called it, a mini ;-). Late 80s. Everything was double and could survive one failure: 2 CPUs, 2x5 Harddrives (huge machines), 2x2 tape drives, 2 consoles of course, 2 printers, 2 communication controllers etc. The database was duplexed as well. Every Wednesday evenening we would run the Compare. It'd check the contents of both databases. Had been done since the start in 1985, went until the system was replaced in, 1998 or so. Wednesday was overtime day (evening) because the compare ran for 2 to 3 hours and exceeded the last shift. Paid well that and was very reliable. It never ever found a thing. Everyone was happy.

A big thank you to Scanner for picking up this SMART error. I took the data off the drive and removed it, but only just got around to RMA the drive. Segate have replaced it and the replacement is waiting to go in. I'm thinking about running Spinrite or similiar on it before installing as you mentioned.
 
So many thanks to Scanner and the help on this forum, without which I almost certainly at some point would have lost unduplicated data and the hassle of dealing with this after the event.

I must be having some luck, because the uninstall, reboot, reinstall trick worked!  And now we have a drive pool that hosts various folders - backed up online, redundant sync local, just plain not backed up - all combined into a single presentation (shared) folder by way of some symbolic lyncs.  Yay!
 
I need to get my wallet out and send you this $20 you have earned.  Thanks!

Well, too many little weird things going on.  Think the crash may have scrambled more than a couple files.  Rather than hunt them down individually I'm going to try to restore a server backup from before it crashed. (Yes I do back it up regularly, I can learn from my mistakes  )  Never did one one the server itself before, but the process seems straight forward enough.  Hopefully this will squash all the bugs.

I recently moved to WHS 2011 and knew about DrivePool, found out about Scanner, and bought the one machine license for both. I've been spending more time with DrivePool getting things organized.
 
I put a new disk in WHS yesterday and discovered that Scanner can read the SMART data through one of the SATA chipsets on the motherboard that for years I'd given up on; none of the diagnostic tools I used in the past could see it. Then I discovered the shortcuts at the bottom of the Scanner window disclosing everything we'd like to know (or not!) about the drives...
 
I just want to say that you've done an amazing job with Scanner; it's a far, far deeper program than the opening GUI initially suggests. Very comprehensive and I can definitely see a place for it on conventional workstations. Kudos!

Good to hear, thanks for your input .
 
Obviously I appreciate this is entirely my risk and you guys wouldn't recommend doing it!

Defragging is block level, IIRC. So it won't work on the pool. Ever.
 
However, you can definitely defragment the disks in the pool, and there should be no issue with doing that.

That is correct.  Since pass-through does not alter the disk in any way, you can pass-through existing pooled disks to a Virtual Machine with DrivePool installed and still have all your data and have the drives automatically form a pool.

I've just put up a new blog post that introduces some of the functionality of the next StableBit product, dubbed "Product 3".
 
Blog post: http://blog.covecube.com/2014/05/stablebit-drivepool-2-1-0-553-rc-file-placement-and-product-3/
 
I'll quote the text that is the most relevant to Product 3:
 
 
As we approach the first public BETA I'll be posting some more technical detail here about how Product 3 will work and what unique features it will offer.