Christopher (Drashna)

Thank you Alex,
 
This was a very clear explanation.
 
Complex product. Just looks simple from the outside.

Yeah, that sounds about right. 
 
Though... if you have the one bay open... once that disk is added to the pool, you should have enough free space to move data out of 3-4 of the 1TB drives at once. i'd recommend using the "File Placement Limiter" balancer to clear the other 1TB disks (by opening that balancers settings and unchecking both "duplicated" and "unduplicated"' options for the disks  in question). This will clear out the disks as well, making it super quick to remove the drives.


As for how long, that dependds on the system, but probably a few hours at least per disk... unless you use the balancer method I recommended (well, it will take that long or longer to remove the disks... but you can let that run overnight so the actual removal process is seconds)

I agree, the PSU will add the lowest amount to your bill, but a PSU too large will be inefficient...depending on where you live, energy may not come cheap.
A PSU should be running at its 20% nominal wattage when the system is idle in order to achieve the 80Plus mark.
 
If this is for a server, why not going for a server board?
I agree the ASUS is nice, but with 10 disks, you will have to add another HBA.
What about the Supermicro X10SL7-F...it comes with a LSI 2308 on-board...this combo is a bargain, but you will need to run ECC RAM and a XEON.
 
As for Plex...how many clients do you need to support concurrently?

Hi Drasna,
 
I'm happy that it was found worthwhile.
 
Thanks, Yossi

Interesting! I've got an Ivybridge i5, so that's odd. I did more testing and noticed that read speed wasn't increasing for parallel reads either, it was locked to the lowest speed HDD, a 5200 rpm laptop drive.
 
But I installed the latest beta and it fixed the problem. Read striping also seems to work now. Thanks a bunch!

Works like a charm. Thanks for the quick fix.

I'm glad to hear it!

I've just finished coding a new balancing plugin for StableBit DrivePool, it's called the SSD Optimizer. This was actually a feature request, so here you go.
 
I know that a lot of people use the Archive Optimizer plugin with SSD drives and I would like this plugin to replace the Archive Optimizer for that kind of balancing scenario.
 
The idea behind the SSD Optimizer (as it was with the Archive Optimizer) is that if you have one or more SSDs in your pool, they can serve as "landing zones" for new files, and those files will later be automatically migrated to your slower spinning drives. Thus your SSDs would serve as a kind of super fast write buffer for the pool.
 
The new functionality of the SSD Optimizer is that now it's able to fill your Archive disks one at a time, like the Ordered File Placement plugin, but with support for SSD "Feeder" disks.
 
Check out the attached screenshot of what it looks like
 
Notes: http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolBalancingPlugins/SsdOptimizer/Notes.txt
Download: http://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Plugins
 
Edit: Now up on stablebit.com, link updated.

Thank you. As a silver surfer it is nice to know that I am not going senile.
 
You guys offer amazing support.
 
Nigel

Thanks for the responses!   Looking forward to enhancements to this great product.

It is working now.  Turns out there was a bug and they fixed it.  Thanks stablebit.

NCage,
 
This is very normal if you haven't really added any files to the pool since adding the disk.
 
The reason for this is that DrivePool tends to add new files to the disks with the most free space by default. If you haven't added any, and none of the other balancers placement settings have been "violated", it's not going to fill the new disks.
 
However, if you really do want your data to be forcibly spread out between the disks, then you may want to install the "Disk Space Equalizer" balancer plugin. This balancer plugin does exactly what it sounds like it does.
https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Plugins

This feature has been one I've been eagerly anticipating and I've got to say it is amazing.
 
I love that no matter what happens to my pool I can take an individual drive and be confident that my entire music collection is there. No trying to merge the contents of five different drives to get my albums back in order if anything catostrophic happens.
 
It's easy to set my documents on the fastest disk and set archival content on a slow archival disk.
 
The sheer level of control is fantastic.
 
This feature alone puts DrivePool head and shoulders above any competing product.
 
So for all the effort to make this happen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks for confirming both parts.
 
And just FYI, we are looking to push out the newer beta version out, but we want to make sure they're stable and ready before doing so.

Changing Smart_NoWmi to True in the scanner.service.exe.config file has resolved my SMART error issues.
 
Thank you!  

If the throttling doesn't work... 
Try this:
http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/597-constant-emails-warning-of-impending-disk-death-but-all-disks-check-out/&do=findComment&comment=3667

That is actually 100% expected. 
 
Specifically the service controls the "Remote Control" feature of DrivePool, which allows you to administer the pool from another PC on the network. 

Well, glad that you're liking it! 
 
And yeah, very simple and very nice to use!

All the balancer options are well, in the Balancer settings page.  Open the UI, find the "Pool Options" button/menu thing (underneath the pie chart) and select "Balancers".
This lets you specify when they're triggered. And then there is the "balancers" tab, that lets you select which balancers are enabled, which order they're assigned, and you can definitely disable them.
 
As for advanced options:
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Advanced_Settings
That includes instructions on how to configure the option, as well a brief descriptions on what each setting does.

There was an issue with the way that HyperV locked the files, that caused issues with DrivePool, and vice versa.
 
Please download the 2.1.0.503 Beta, as the issue should be fixed in that version.
https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Download
 
 
And thank you for supporting out products!
We give support regardless of licensing status, but thanks!
 
If you have any issues after updating, then let us know and we'll see what we can do.
 
 
 
As for balancing/duplication, if you have real time duplciation enabled (default), then the files are written to both disks in parallel. And this should respect the balancing options.
And no, we don't use the same method as Storage Spaces. Storage Spaces uses a block based system, that sits below the file system. We sit on top of it, basically. So it's handled a lot differently.
Also, if you click on "Pool Options", there is a "Balancing" section, where you can control the balancing to a degree.

Sounds like we can start testing with ReFS. We can surely add support, provided that there are no showstoppers.
 
You would not be able to mix ReFS / NTFS on the same pool though.

Well, if you have Real Time duplication enabled, then the writes are done in parallel. 
I beleive that the slower drive would slow down any transfer or access. So if this is an important consideration, then you may want to check out the Archive Optimizer optional Balancer, as this lets you specify feeder disks. These disks are written to first, and then later moved off of the pool.
 
For read access, if one disk is significantly slower, we'll read from just the faster disk, to speed up access. However, if they're close to the same speed, we'll use a technique called "Read Striping". It's basically what it sounds like. We read ahead from both disks, and cache the contents, to speed up access.
 
 
http://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool/2.X/Manual?Section=Performance%20Options

Build 2.1.0.503 with this feature is now live on stablebit.com: http://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Download

Oh, I definitely understand that. But from a management/customer service standpoint, it's less than ideal for us. Which is why I replied to it with what I did. I wanted to make sure that anyone seeing it knew that the issue had been addressed.
 
Also, if/when the issue gets sorted out, I will try to make sure the solution is posted here as well (if you don't beat me to it). Worst case, I try to remember every issue I encounter (be it mine or a customers) and use that to help troubleshoot issues in the future.

DrivePool will recognize the drive, regardless of it's location and letter. So relocating the drives shouldn't be an issue at all.
 
As for identifying the drives... well, I have a Norco 4220 as well, and yeah, it can be troublesome.
However, you can mount the disks to folders, which may help:
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4822624
Additionally, In StableBit Scanner, you can specify a "Case" and "Bay". This information is actually displayed in DrivePool as well, if both products are installed on the system.
I use this option to label each "rail" (or row) in the box as a case (eg, Rail 1, Rail 2, etc) and then label the bays as 1-4, for each. That makes identification super easy. And you can "group by case" in Scanner, for even easier visual separation.