Shane

I use FreeFileSync to nightly mirror the content of my file server (an 8-bay tower PC) to my backup server (another 8-bay tower PC) via a read-only network share on the former, using FreeFileSync's Versioning feature to keep old versions and deleted files for a couple of weeks. If I was getting into serious amounts of video footage/editing I'd probably have hunted for a second-hand pair of the server rack chassis Christopher described rather than my two tower PCs; some research would definitely be required.

Are you running third-party antivirus (e.g. norton/avast/whatever), and does it make any difference if you uninstall it (not just set it to whatever it claims is "off", but actually uninstalled)? Have you run a memtest? (yeah I know very unlikely to be the problem, but hey) In addition to Scanner's burst testing, do you have any HDD benchmarking software? If you uninstall drivepool, is there any difference? When you disconnect enough disks that it starts working properly, does it matter which disks are disconnected?

Hmm. With a really large number of files, the MFT might have become fragmented - if it gets truly bad enough, you can get effects like taking ages to list directories, access files and so on. Do you have a defragmenter than works on the MFT? UltraDefrag is free and can do so (highlight the physical - not virtual - disks to defrag, click Action menu then Optimize MFT).

Just checking: if you reinstalled the OS, did you remember to re-activate the DrivePool license after you reinstalled DrivePool? Maybe check that it's activated anyway (DrivePool GUI, cog icon, Manage License, should have your key displayed). If it's indeed a permissions issue, then this (linked) is what I use when the usual MS-supplied tools don't work. If that doesn't work... something is well and truly hosed.

Drives being used as part of a pool can still be used for storing non-pool content; the part of the drive that's used by the pool is simply a hidden folder. So that should not be causing the problem. (E.g. if you have a D: drive that's part of a Z: pool, you can totally create D:\MoreStuff and D:\OtherStuff folders and put content in them, they're just not part of the pool because they're not in the hidden D:\PoolPart.StringOfLettersAndNumbers folder.) But how are you pointing D:\OneDrive\Photos to Z:\Photos? Because a quick search suggests that OneDrive doesn't support (or doesn't properly support) symbolic links, and I think I recall DrivePool does not either. So you might be "crossing the streams" here. Option 1: if you don't mind just tossing drive space at it, you could set up an automatic sync (one way or both ways) of Z:\Photos to D:\OneDrive\Photos by some means or another (e.g. Task Scheduler, robocopy, FreeFileSync, etc)? Option 2: as #1, but mount your OneDrive storage as a network drive so that it's not taking up space on your hard drive(s).

If you've never edited the config file (which involves renaming the default template file and then editing it in something like notepad) then you don't need to back it up, because it won't exist. See https://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Advanced_Settings if you want more information on that. Basically, if the file "C:\Program Files\StableBit\DrivePool\DrivePool.Service.exe.config" does not exist on your PC, then you don't need to back it up. Otherwise, yes, you've got it right.

Saphir is correct; so long as you avoid formatting any of the disks that form your pool(s), they will automatically be detected when you reinstall DrivePool. If you have manually edited DrivePool's config file, you will need to backup that file and restore it afterwards to keep your edits.

Only current way I can think of to disable the automatic remeasuring would be to disable the DrivePool service itself (or set its start to manual), which would also disable background balancing, background duplication, GUI access, etc, but existing pools should still be readable and writable? Then just enable/start it when you get around to checking it. Otherwise perhaps submit a feature request, whether for a GUI option or at least a "please add a DrivePool_AutoMeasure (default:true) option in the config file to control whether DrivePool automatically remeasures a pool when one of its drives is temporarily offline or fails to connect on boot"?

Would it help if you increased the time DrivePool waits for the drives to connect on boot? https://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Advanced_Settings My explanation of the relevant settings: https://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/5868-delay-time-for-volumes-to-mounting-questions/&do=findComment&comment=34809

Ah, I see. Sorry, it's not possible with the current balancers. If it helps, Snapraid does allow having multiple parity disks.

A quick test with a pool of two drives shows that Christopher's suggestion has merit. For example if you create a File Placement Rule of pattern "\*\*\a*\*" -> drive K:\ then any new file whose path matches \a*\ at the 3rd folder level will be put on K:\ drive. You will need to balance the pool (manually or automatically) to move existing files as well. So you would use "\*\*\*\*" to match ALL files that are three or more folders deep; one "\*" for each folder level and a final "\*" for all content within it. E.g. it would match P:\level1\level2\level3\somefile and it would match P:\level1\level2\level3\somefolder and it would also match any files, folders and subfolders within P:\level1\level2\level3\somefolder.

I haven't had that issue; balancing/duplication should not affect file timestamps. Do you have Allwaysync set up to backup the pool drive or to backup the drives that make up the pool? The setup I have: Main file server runs DrivePool, drives pooled as P:\ with a read-only password-protected hidden network share for use by the backup file server laptops and desktops access the pool via normal writable password-protected network shares Backup file server runs DrivePool; drives pooled as K:\ and the main file server's pool mapped as P:\ via the above read-only share backup file server has NO network shares of its own FreeFileSync with versioning makes nightly backups of P:\ to K:\ current/new files kept in K:\backup\new\ previous versions and deleted files kept in K:\backup\old\timestamp\ changelogs kept in K:\backup\log\

@gtaus I was replying to Saphir, and meant "confusing DrivePool" in relation to a combination where SSD Optimizer and File Placement have conflicting rules as to where a new file should go when only one drive is marked as a SSD and duplication is enabled; as you note, you aren't using File Placement.

Hmm. Reviewing your earlier posts, if you're using duplication but have only one drive set as a "SSD" cache then that could be confusing DrivePool. If not... can you post a screenshot of your Balancers tab showing the priority and settings of your SSD Optimizer, and of your File Placement tab showing the Rules sub-tab?

File Placement will override the SSD Optimizer unless "File placement rules respect real-time file placement limits set by the balancing plug-ins" is checked in the Balancing menu's Settings tab. E.g. if you have File Placement saying "all new files go on drives X, Y and Z" and SSD Optimizer saying "all new files go on drives A and B" then all new files will go on X, Y and Z unless the above setting is checked.

When you say "the system was choking", do you mean DrivePool or Windows?

Okay, I've messaged Stablebit about this, hopefully you should get a response soon (nb: I consider "soon" to be within 2-3 days, excluding weekends, based on previous history; your mileage may vary). Please let me know either way.

When you say you emailed support, do you mean literal email or did you use the Contact form? When you typed in the activation key, did you include the curly brackets { } ?

@WestSidaz I think you need to tick "File placement rules respect real-time file placement limits set by the balancing plug-ins" and (maybe) untick "Balancing plug-ins respect file placement rules"? @RobbieH Rules set in the File Placement tab may override the SSD Optimizer if "Balancing plug-ins respect file placement rules" is ticked or "File placement rules respect real-time file placement limits set by the balancing plug-ins" is unticked. Also, if Automatic Balancing is not enabled, the SSD Optimizer will never be triggered to flush the drive(s) marked as SSD. Does that help? Regarding developer support for DrivePool, I believe the forums are intended more to provide a place where the community can assist each other; in cases where that doesn't help you and you need direct developer support for an issue you should be following up by using the contact form. I've always found the latter gets a prompt response when I've run into a problem the forums couldn't fix. EDIT: @gtaus is correct that this thread is an old one that has been marked solved (back in 2016!) and that really all the later questions should have been asked in their own new threads. What's done is done, though.

That is odd. Still, if there's no files in D:\ when you look at it in explorer then you should be able to safely Remove the E:\ "disk" from the D:\ pool and thus delete the D:\ pool without affecting the E:\ pool.

I'm out of ideas. Probably need to open that support ticket, sorry. Let us know how it goes?

1. Do you encounter the problem when you copy from a local disk on the pool computer to the pool via the pool's network share (e.g. "\\poolcomputer\poolshare\") instead of via the pool's drive letter (e.g. "P:\")? 2. Is there any difference between copying over the network from another computer to the pool via a mapped network drive (e.g. "P:\") versus the UNC share (e.g. "\\poolcomputer\poolshare\")? 3. On the source/target computers, has there been a network driver update (or any other update) around or shortly before the time this started happening? (check the Windows Update history)

No typo; it makes the offer anyway. I assume it's just a default "there's a duplication problem, here's a thing I can try" response, and if you tell it to go ahead it doesn't succeed since in this case there is no older file. If the content is different, then yes. Correct, DrivePool makes no decisions based on file content. You could request that the developer add that feature (deleting the different file) as an option?

SnapRAID is popular with some users of DrivePool for this reason since the two can be used together. As gtaus mentions, MultiPar is another option. Testing 3x duplication recheck (on 2.3.0.1244 BETA): date modified is different file content is identical -> DrivePool does nothing file content or size is different -> DrivePool alerts the user and offer to delete the older version date modified is identical file size is different -> DrivePool will alert the user and offer to delete the older version file size is identical file content is identical -> DrivePool does nothing file content is different -> DrivePool does nothing. So if the damage includes a change to date or size, then it will alert you that there's a discrepancy and offer to delete the older version (which may not be what you want in this case); if the damage is only to the content (e.g. a "k" is replaced with a "q"), then it won't detect it.

Not that I'm aware of. A workaround might be to keep a record on the pool of the files that are on each backup drive? 1. backup the files 2. if all goes well, then do something like "dir backupdrive:\ /s /b > pooldrive:\backuplog\backupdriveserial.%date%%time%.log" 3. remove backup drive