Christopher (Drashna)

+1.  Go with 2.X.  I run WHS2011 and started with 1.X of drivepool.  Moved to 2.x and never looked back.  I like the stand alone remote DP monitor/control app much better. It starts instantly and you can control everything on your WHS server from any PC.  This is far better than having to start the WHS dashboard which, for me, takes too long to start and requires I put in the password every time.
 
I also recall that you have more file placement options going with 2.X over 1.X of DP.  Go with 2.X, no doubt.   

Thanks for the list of differences, I mostly didn't need them so I'm happy for the integration.
 
DP and Scanner a great team.

Hi Christopher, I know I've informed you of the following in our support conversation but i'll update this thread too in case anyone else has a similar issue. 

 

Stablebit's software is working great of course, and the issue seems with my config.  I was thinking it's an incompatibility with the 6Tb Red Drive, and my HP Microserver.  But something you said sparked a light in my head, which was about the controller i'm using.  I'd been using the generic windows SATA controller. This is because HP doesn't provide drivers for Windows 8 for the HP Microserver (N54L).  But i saw from other people's configurations that they seemed to be using an AMD Sata Controller driver. So i searched the net and eventually found the AMD driver compatible with windows 8 and installed that. Although the disk disappeared after restarting, a full power down and on again got it back.  And so far i've done a complete scan of the disk, this time without any errors. Since that's the first time the scan has completed without errors for that disk i am now working on the assumption that the SATA driver was the problem.  I'm doing more tests but with a bit of luck i hope it's solved.

 

Thank you so much for suggesting the controller drivers could be an issue as i think i never would have thought of that. Shame HP don't support more systems, though yes i expect Windows 8 isn't the first choice of OS for it.

 

Thanks again for the advice and ideas, it may well have saved the day for me

Thank you for grabbing the logs. I've flagged them for Alex and he'll take a look at them soon.

AS long there are back doors, there are back doors. No matter for who.
 
I`m not a programmer but I understand what you`re saying. This approach it was by design. It might be one of the main reasons Truecrypt has such a success.
 
I`m sorry, but I didn`t follow you regarding the "Product 3". I`m new here. Do you have a new product on the horizon?
If that`s the case, congrats and I wish you "All the best!" with the 3rd child.
What`s the product, if you don`t mind?
That means, DrivePool will support Truecrypt in the future?
 
Cheers,

Well, Ping is "N/A" unless you enable the ping test. This tests the response speed for the drive, and is useful for testing for performance issues.
 
So if that's "N/A", there there is no issue at all.

Actually, Server Backup is probably using a specific VSS/Backup Writer for the SQL Server. Since I'm sure this is MS SQL Server that you're talking about, then that would definitely be the case. And in fact, Microsoft has made sure that Server Backup is "aware" of SQL Server, and is part of the "application" section. So you may be able to restore just the database, if needed.
And it definitely takes a VSS snapshot, to prevent inconsistency in the data. 
 
 
It really depends on the database. 
If you're using SQLite (which is most likely the case with OwnCloud), then you should be able to just backup the files. Running a robocopy (or even just "copy") script should be enough to do so.
If you're using MySQL, you can run a script to dump the database into a SQL file (or even use phpMyAdmin to do this manually). 
As for SQL Server, well that's a lot trickier unfortunately. But I do believe you can create a database dump as well.

Yeah, there shouldn't be a problem doing os. 
But you'll want to make absolutely certain that "Real-time duplication" is enabled. (default).
 
However, it is likely that the SQL server will keep the pool activate at all times.
 
Also, keep in mind that running the SQL database on the server may make it more difficult to back up the database (if that is a concern).

I'm still weary of the the proc.  but you've clearly done your home work on your requirements,  check back in in a few months, when you get your build complete,  let us know how it goes.   

Honestly? Not really.
The Microsoft Connect website used to be pretty awesome about that.... but that's since been depreciated....
 
If you know a Windows Desktop or Windows Experience Microsoft MVP, that would be the best way to "pass along the word".
There is also the EECB method.....
 
Aside from those, posting at the technet forums:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home

Well, I'm glad to hear that it's able to see all the drives without any issues (other than not reading SMART, from the sounds of your other thread).
 
64 drives is no small amount!

Hmm, I thought I had replied to this already.
 
On the disks in questions, do you have Shadow Copies enabled? 
TO check, run "control system", and click on the "System Protection" link. Find the drives in question. If "Protection" is "On" for them, select the drive and hit "configure" and turn it off.
 
Also, if you "take ownership" of the "System Volume Information" folder, and delete it, that will also purge the shadow copies.
 
Also, you can use utilities such as WinDirStat to see the layout of all the files on the pool, what folder they're in and how much space they're taking up.
 
Also, if you right click on the the drive, and select "Properties" and let it sit for ... a while, it should show you the space used and the space used on disk (these are different numbers, and that difference is the "slack space" we talk about, and is attributed to "other").
If that equals what is on the disk, then you may just need to defragment the drive.

Well, according to the image, everything is "fine".
 
By fine, I mean that files don't get automatically evened out between the disks. The default file placement strategy is to place files on the disk with the most available free space. It doesn't move existing files unless another balancer (such as Scanner) tells it to move files off of a disk.
 
Though it does look like the feeder disk is slowly balancing data off of it.

That really sucks, and hope you're able to recover your lost data. 

I, too, lost a drive the other day (WD2002FYPS, Mfg Date: 14 May 2012) and it sucked. It died with no imminent SMART warnings at all. But I suspect it died because of the high load cycle count (which still baffles me, as this is an enterprise-grade drive).

I use Drivepool in combination with SyncBack pro to mirror/backup the entire pool to an external disk. On SyncBack I set up versioning so that if files are missing/deleted on the next source->destination check, they will get placed into a versioning directory. At the very least, if a drive died on my pool, the next Sync on SyncBack will show me what files I lost, if any, and I could recover them.

 

Maybe "Product 3" that is currently in development will address this.  I had the same thought.  
 
The great thing about Drive Pool is its ability to use a mix of fast (i.e. local) drives and slow (might be remote), and has the intelligence to read from the fastest drive using 'read striping' option, if you are using duplication.  

I have about 100 rules setup to place my files. The file placement rules are the best thing since sliced bread.
 
I have 72 rules just for my tv shows.
 
\ServerFolders\Videos\TV Shows\The A*
\ServerFolders\Videos\TV Shows\A*
 
I have these 2 rules setup for every number and letter. These rules make sure that shows like The Americans (2013) don't get placed on the drive for shows beginning with T.

You are very welcome!
 
If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Got my new cable from Amazon today (god I love Prime) Powered the drive & server down, swapped out the cable and fired them back up.  Success!  The drive was found and installed on a USB3 port, all of them actually, It was the cable, nice to get a $3.57 solution once in a while.  All is now good on my 12.5 TB of media.

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.