Shane
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Posts posted by Shane
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I've now posted and pinned a brief FAQ in this forum on the Unduplicated vs Duplicated vs Other vs Unusable terms.
lyzanxia, per that FAQ, could you check whether you have folder duplication turned off for one or more of your folders (e.g. in version 2.x, via Pool Options -> File Protection -> Folder Duplication). If you click on the root entry and tap the asterisk key it will completely expand the tree.
If this isn't the problem, then it's possible that you have files in the pool with incompatible permissions.
Log files can be found in the "C:\ProgramData\StableBit DrivePool\Service\Logs\Service\" folder.
Here's an example where DP finds only 1 copy of a file where it's expecting 2 copies:
DrivePool.Service.exe Warning 0 [CoveFsPool] Incomplete file found: '\MSIa9e16.tmp' (ExpectedNumberOfCopies=2, Found=1) 2013-06-10 02:42:24Z 2037049447
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The "Other" and "Unusable" sizes displayed in the DrivePool GUI are often a source of confusion for new users. Please feel free to use this topic to ask questions about them if the following explanation doesn't help.
Unduplicated: the total size of the files in your pool that aren't duplicated (i.e. exists on only one disk in the pool). If you think this should be zero and it isn't, check whether you have folder duplication turned off for one or more of your folders (e.g. in version 2.x, via Pool Options -> File Protection -> Folder Duplication).
Duplicated: the total size of the files in your pool that are duplicated (i.e. kept on more than one disk in the pool; a 3GB file on two disks is counted as 6GB of duplicated space in the pool, since that's how much is "used up").
Other: the total size of the files that are on your pooled disks but not in your pool and all the standard filesystem metadata and overhead that takes up space on a formatted drive. For example, the hidden protected system folder "System Volume Information" created by Windows will report a size of zero even if you are using an Administrator account, despite possibly being many gigabytes in size (at least if you are using the built-in Explorer; other apps such as JAM's TreeSize may show the correct amount).
Unusable for duplication: the amount of space that can't be used to duplicate your files, because of a combination of the different sizes of your pooled drives, the different sizes of your files in the pool and the space consumed by the "Other" stuff. DrivePool minimises this as best it can, based on the settings and priorities of your Balancers.More in-depth explanations can also be found elsewhere in the forums and on the Covecube blog at http://blog.covecube.com/
Details about "Other" space, as well as the bar graphs for the drives, are discussed here: http://blog.covecube.com/2013/05/stablebit-drivepool-2-0-0-230-beta/
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Unduplicated vs Duplicated vs Other vs Unusable really needs its own sticky (post-it note goes on the monitor to do that later today).
Long story short, if you have turned on duplication for the entire pool, have never turned off duplication for any folder in the pool, and you've got enough space on the pooled drives for all your files to be duplicated, the "unduplicated" size should be zero (and if so, you won't even see the "unduplicated" field).
"Other" is all the stuff on a disk that isn't part of the pool. To quote from the Covecube blog:
And then there’s “Other”. “Other” always confuses people, but it literally is everything else.
So what else is there?
- Non-pooled files that exist on that disk. Remember that just because a disk is part of the pool doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to use that disk to store non-pooled files.
- NTFS Metadata. For every file on a NTFS volume, there is additional metadata associated with that data stream, like the file name, file attributes, modification times, etc… These typically take very little disk space, but can add up if you have lots of files.
- Directory entries. On NTFS, directory entries are actually stored as regular files with a “directory” attribute. But instead of a data stream, they contain a little database of index entries for each file (and subdirectory) that exists under them.
- Slack space. Just because you have a 100GB volume, doesn’t mean that you can use all 100 Gigabytes of that volume to store data. NTFS divides your volume into equally sized chunks called clusters, which are typically 4096 bytes in size. If your file doesn’t fit neatly into these clusters then there’s going to be some space at the end of the file that’s wasted. We call this “slack space”.
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The demo video does look slick. Seems to have very nice Explorer integration, claims XP support, otherwise nothing DrivePool doesn't already have that I can see? No mention of balancers, plugins, etc.
IMO, adding Explorer integration would be a good idea when DP 2 hits stable, e.g. with x1/x2/xN tags visible and context-menu-manipulable on the folders directly (though DP's current separate "duplication tree" GUI is great for seeing the overall structure - perhaps the context menu could provide a direct link to it). Is that on the cards, further down the track or still under wraps?
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Hi Tom, this is already in Scanner. Right-click any disk in Scanner and tick "Ping Disk". There's also a "Ping" column, which is "the average time to read 1 MB from the disk for the past 10 seconds. Pinging a disk is also an easy way to visually identify a particular disk. Just look at the disk access light for disk activity every 1 second." - from the Scanner changelog (https://stablebit.com/Scanner/ChangeLog?Platform=whs2 and https://stablebit.com/Scanner/ChangeLog?Platform=win) for v2.2.0.2723 onwards.
Remember to untick the option when you're done. Or tick more disks and see if you can strobe the LEDs.
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I like the flexibility of being able to have per-folder duplication if, when and where I want it.
Per-pool-only would require getting rid of the current DP limitation of one pool per volume, otherwise we're simply replacing "disk juggling" with "volume juggling".
Per-pool-only also means multiple UNC shares, which raises the specter of move-via-copy shenanigans (unless we mount the pools as virtual folders instead of virtual drives, which is inelegant, etc).
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I do like the new text for the pool options menu. Much more obvious.
A couple other things I noticed while showing DrivePool 2 and Scanner to someone whose computers I was fixing (she bought both!):
* DP 2's GUI doesn't yet have maximise/minimise/restore buttons, and can't be set to open maximised via shortcut properties.
* DP 2's GUI doesn't remember the state (open/closed) of the Performance section between sessions.
(obviously we're still in beta, so bugfixes come before polish; this is just FYI for when there's time)
First OFF TOPIC! New competition is coming to Town!
in Off-topic
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Thanks for the explanation, Alex. It's a shame that shell extensions are so inefficient; if I have to choose between "works well" and "looks slick" I'll pick the former every time.