Christopher (Drashna)

Well, glad to hear that you're loving the software!
 
Nope. Sorry. 
 
The short of it is: we don't allow that due to data sync/corruption issues with doing so.

Straight from Alex:
 

It looks like the pool didn't finish measuring properly. (the "measuring inconsistent/incomplete icon, in the bottom left section of the pie chart). 
 
Try remeasuring the pool (Pool Options -> Remeasure). 
 
If that doesn't help, then try installing the Public Beta build (if you're not using it already), as it has some code to better handle measuring issues and to better track them when errors happen. 
StableBit.DrivePool_2.2.0.651_x64_BETA
 
And after installing the beta, try remeasuring. 

Actually, could you open a ticket for this, at https://stablebit.com/Contact ?
 
Specifically, if you could grab the logs from the system?
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection
 
As well as a memory dump of the service?
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Service_Memory_Dump
 
 
After doing this, try resetting the settings:
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q2299585B

Do you mean stablebit.com/CloudDrive/Download? 

If so, no, nothing has changed and it should still be viewable.
 
 
If you mean with the dl.covecube.com site, then yeah, we did have an issue with the provider, where they temporarily lost the entire site.  This issue has been since resolved and should be working fine now. 
 
(worst case, both Alex and I have a full copy of the download library, and good redundancy for the rest of the websites)

I don't think anyone likes drives dying!  
But yeah, it's nice when our software can help make that easier!
 
And yes, you should be fine to do this.  I would recommend using eSATA (or SAS, if you have the money), as USB has issues with long term connectivity that could affect your data. 
 
And as long as the external enclosure passes the disks through to the OS, so that our software can see them, there is absolutely no issues with moving them around. 

lol.  No worries!  We've all been there!  
 
And the dashboard isn't always very intuitive, either. 
 
If you run into any other issues or have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Naturally. That's the way it goes sometimes.
 
And if you're seeing it switch like that, then yes, definitely enable the NoWmi option, as that is likely why you're seeing this. 
 
Just don't forget that you'll need to restart the service, or reboot the system to get it to apply the setting.

The drives should appear regardless if they're in a pool or not.
 
The only requirement is that they be mounted to a folder or drive letter. If they're not mounted to either, then no, it won't show up. 
 
I've confirmed on several systems. 

 
If it's not displaying the drives, open up Disk management, and make sure that the drive you're trying to use has a letter or folder mount. 
 
If it does, would you mind opening a ticket at https://stablebit.com/Contact

Did you flash the bios, change the system name, or reinstall/clone the drive?  If so, these could trigger the issue. 

This is part of the problem with the way that the SSD optimizer balancer works. 
 
Specifically, it creates "real  time placement limiters" to limit what disks new files can be placed on.  
 
 
 
I'm guessing that the SSD is below the threshold set for it (75% by default, so ~45-50GBs).  Increasing the limit on the SSD may help this (but lowering it may as well, but this would force the pool to place files on the other drives rather than on the SSD). 
 
 
Additionally, there are some configuration changes that may help make the software more aggressively move data off of the drive.
http://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool/2.X/Manual?Section=Balancing%20Settings
On the main balancing settings page, set it to "Balance immediately", and uncheck the "No more often than ever X hours" option, it set it to a low number like 1-2 hours. 
 
For the balancing ratio slider, set this to "100%", and check the "or if at least this much data needs to be moved" and set it to a very low number (like 5GBs). 
 
This should cause the balancing engine to rather aggressively move data out of the SSD drive and onto the archive drives, reducing the likelihood that this will happen.
 
 
Also, it may not be a bad idea to use a larger sized SSD, as the free space on the drive is what gets reported when adding new files. 

This is part of the problem with the way that the SSD optimizer balancer works. 
 
Specifically, it creates "real  time placement limiters" to limit what disks new files can be placed on.  
 
 
 
I'm guessing that the SSD is below the threshold set for it (75% by default, so ~45-50GBs).  Increasing the limit on the SSD may help this (but lowering it may as well, but this would force the pool to place files on the other drives rather than on the SSD). 
 
 
Additionally, there are some configuration changes that may help make the software more aggressively move data off of the drive.
http://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool/2.X/Manual?Section=Balancing%20Settings
On the main balancing settings page, set it to "Balance immediately", and uncheck the "No more often than ever X hours" option, it set it to a low number like 1-2 hours. 
 
For the balancing ratio slider, set this to "100%", and check the "or if at least this much data needs to be moved" and set it to a very low number (like 5GBs). 
 
This should cause the balancing engine to rather aggressively move data out of the SSD drive and onto the archive drives, reducing the likelihood that this will happen.
 
 
Also, it may not be a bad idea to use a larger sized SSD, as the free space on the drive is what gets reported when adding new files. 

Okay, and as long as it's just the 2 disks, then you should be fine with doing this.
 
Once you have more than two disks, this gets a lot more complicated.

THis is probably a simple fix, actually.
 
I'm guessing that you've already added the disks to the pool (hence the "Other" data). 
 
However, is the data on the disks in the root of the folder (eg, x:\movies\etc)? 
If so, then the files reside outside of the pool folder structure and are correctly counted as "Other" data. 
 
However, you can quickly and easily move the contents into the pool folder structure. And we have a guide on how to do so.
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4142489

Allways Sync is a very good option.
 
And to swap out the lower capacity drives, it depends. 
Normally, yes, StableBit DrivePool will need to move all of the data off of the drive before removing it.  However, there is a "Duplicate Data Later" option when removing disks. When you use this option, it only removes the unduplicated data from the drive. Once that's complete, it will remove the drive and start a duplication pass. At this point, if you disconnect the old drive and replace the new one and add it to the pool, likely most of the data will be duplicated to the new drive (as data is placed on the disk with the most available free space, by default). 
 
 
As for StableBit Scanner, it's a very good option. Not only can you purchase it at a discount if you own StableBit DrivePool, but there is some integration between the two products. 
 
Specifically, if you have both StableBit Scanner and StableBit DrivePool installed on the same system, DrivePool will grab information from Scanner. And if Scanner detects damage on the disk, DrivePool will automatically move data off of the disk to help prevent data loss due to corruption/damage.         And yeah, having a lot of data can be a huage pain to manage. Or having a bunch of data on multiple different hard drives is also a pain, as well. So we're glad to hear that you're liking our software!

Ah, okay.  And yes, that should be "reattach". 
 
 
And unfortunately, there isn't really a good way to do this, not built into StableBit DrivePool. 
 
 
However, IIRC, plex does allow you to use multiple directories for a single library. What you *could* do here (i'm not entirely sure this will work, but it very well may):  Created a secondary folder.  Specifically, rename the folder to "Movies-Preprocessed" or the like, add that to the library and let it index while nobody is using it.  Then recreate a "staging" folder, the destination Movies folder, and copy a few at a time to the staging folder.  Do a good number at a time, force plex to refresh, and then delete the originals. This way, you can have plex up, work on the files, and keep the family happy. 

Yup, exactly. 
 
Though, I'd recommend mounting the pooled disks to a folder (such as folder under "c:\DrivePool", so you can keep the root folder "clean").  And this way, you just have the C:\ drive and the pool drive. listed in This PC/My Computer/etc.  Part of the reason for this is if you need to move files around, it's handles it better in regards to use feedback if it's not to a folder path "on the same disk".

Not a problem. It's a bit more complicated, especially as it basically requires the use of the File Placement rules:
Install the SSD OPtimizer, enable it, and configure it. Set File Placement rules for the documents, pictures, etc, selecting every disk except for the SSD drive(s).  On the Settings (main) page for the balancing, uncheck the "File placement rules respect real-time file placement limits set by the balancing plug-ins".  This tells the software to respect the file placement rules, even when they violate the real time placement limits set by the SSD Optimizer. 
 
 
If you want the File Placement Rules to keep the files on the SSD drive, regardless:
Install the SSD OPtimizer, enable it, and configure it. Set File Placement rules for the folders/files in question etc, selecting the SSD drive(s) (and any others).  On the Settings (main) page for the balancing, uncheck the "Unless the drive is being emptied".  Normally, the SSD Optimizer balancer attempts to "empty" the SSD/cache drives, clearing them out. Normally, the balancers will respect the file placement rules *except* when the drives are being emptied. Meaning it will not respect the file placement rules properly.  Unchecking this means that the file placement rule will *always* be respected, even if a balancer (including the StableBit Scanner balancer) wants to empty out the drive.      These rules are not mutually exclusive, meaning that if you want to do both, just set the rules and settings accordingly, and you can get both options. 

Honestly, the best solution would probably be 2x PCIe SSD cards. 
 
If you do use a SSD, the write speeds will drop to the slower drive. Also, I would NOT recommend a BX100 for this. They are economy drives and suffer from much slower write speeds. You'd want an MX100 or MX200 for this. 
 
If you're using an Intel board and use the RST drivers, I believe that these still pass on TRIM commands to any RAIDed SSDs. But I'm not entirely sure of this.  If this is the case, then you could use a RAID0 array with the PCI-e card and get at least similar performance (depending on the number of SSDs in the array, 2-3 should be good, I think).  
 
 
As for RAM Disks, we really recommend against these for a number of reasons. But if it can be added to the pool or not? That depends on how the software presents the disks. If it doesn't go through the normal Windows API (eg, showing up in disk management and the like), then it won't be available to add to the pool.  Also, in this case, larger is better. 

First, I'm sorry to hear about the drive issues, as that is never a pleasant experience.
 
However, what you're describing may be normal in your situation.  The "RAW" drive means that Windows had issues reading from the partition information. Which is bad. I am glad to hear that rebooting the system fixed the issue (temporarily). 
 
But chances are here, if you're seeing the system become very sluggish, there ma ybe something wrong with the drive.  If you check the Event Viewer, look for "disk", "ntfs" or controller ("ahci", "iaStor" or the like) errors. If you're seeing a lot come from a single disk, check to see which disk that is in Disk Management. If it's the same disk that went RAW, you may want to consider removing it from the pool (using the "duplicate data later" and "force drive removal" options) and replacing it. 
 
 
 
As for the sluggish, as I said, that is definitely unusual.  StableBit DrivePool uses "Background I/O" priority for balancing and duplication, specifically to avoid causing performance issues like this. If you're still seeing that, then it likely indicates a hardware problem here.  And that definitely sounds like it's the case. 

If you're using the 2.2.0.651 or more recent beta, there was a change that is likely causing this.
 
You can manually disable this, if you want:
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Advanced_Settings
Set "BitLocker_PoolPartUnlockDetect" to "False", and reboot the system.
 
 
 
And yes, the StableBit DrivePool Service is absolutely critical. It performs the balancing and "after the fact" duplication passes. it's also what powers the UI and remote control functionality. 

To answer this, if you have 22TBs of actual data, then if you duplicate it using the normal "x2" duplication, then it will consume 44TBs of space. If you use the x3 duplication, 66TBs. And so on.
 
But that is only if you duplicate everything. Since you can configure duplication settings per folder, this can get very complicated, very fast.  The UI does display how much data is duplicated and unduplicated. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
You are very welcome. In case it doesn't show, I really do enjoy helping people.
 
As for FlexRAID, if you decide you don't want it, try contacting them for a refund. (i'm not sure how easy that will be, as I've never had to deal with them). But it's worth at least trying, if you don't want their product.
 
 
As for the SMART data, if you're using USB, you should be in a much better position. From what we've seen, USB bridge chipsets are usually a lot better about relaying SMART data. But that isn't always the case.
However, eSATA is when you start having issues with that. Silicon Image chipsets are atrocious about this. In fact, they only grab the data for the first drive, and either repeat it for all the drives or don't bother displaying it.  Some Marvell eSATA chipsets are bad about SMART data as well. 
 
As for the ProBoxes, those should work fine. Alex (the Developer) has a bunch of the 4 bay ones, so they're tested. However, the only caveat is that you may want to look into buying spare power supplies for them, as they fail frequently. 
 
 
 
 
You're very welcome!
 
And I can definitely understand about the duplication. It's expensive in the terms of disk space (and disk cost). 
Though, Newegg frequently has sales, (and good sales on NAS drives). So it may be worth checking that out. Even if you do go with FlexRAID/SnapRAID.

Yes, absolutely.
 
However, you may want to uncheck the "Unlesss drive is being emptied" option on the "Settings" tab for the balancers.
 
Also, you may want to disable all of the other balancers when using the SSD Optimizer, or it can cause issues.

Well, the "Computer_name.fios-router.local" shouldn't make a difference really.  This is more of a display issue (though you can disable the dns suffixes in the IPv4 config).
 
Aside from that, yeah, it may be issues with the hardware.
 
 
As for he software, yeah, the service runs in the background, even when not logged in. All the UI does is connect to the service (even for remote control, as it's routed though the service, basically). 

First, I am very sorry to hear about the hardware failure, as that is never a pleasant experience. 
 
 
As long as the old and new controller doesn't do anything funky to the disks, you should be able to just reconnect them, and StableBit DrivePool should recognize them.
 
However if StableBit DrivePool still lists them as missing, try resetting the settings:
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q2299585B

This is a somewhat common issue. Specifically, the performance counters on the system may have become corrupted.
 
Do this:
http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q2150495
 
And it should fix the issue.