Shane

DrivePool does not use encryption (that's CloudDrive). However, in the event that you have used Windows Bitlocker to encrypt the physical drives on which your pool is stored then you will need to ensure you have those key(s) saved (which Bitlocker would have prompted you to do during the initial encryption process).

DrivePool does not use encryption (that's CloudDrive). However, in the event that you have used Windows Bitlocker to encrypt the physical drives on which your pool is stored then you will need to ensure you have those key(s) saved (which Bitlocker would have prompted you to do during the initial encryption process).

hello
1.  make note of or take screenshots of your DrivePool settings if you have changed them from the default settings in any way.  if you take SSs step 2 is important.  DP saves your pool data in Alternate Data Streams on the drives themselves but doesn't save any customized balancer/file placement rules etc.  from Manage Pool ^ Balancing... under the pie chart in the GUI.  also take note of Manage Pool ^ Performance > settings as well.
2.  make sure all your user data (i.e. all docs, pics, DLs, etc.) from your C:\Users\[your user name]\ have been saved/backed up elsewhere.
3.  yes deactivate your license - cogwheel with downpointing arrow in upper right corner/Manage license/deactivate.  in fact you should do this for all licensed 3rd party software on your machine.  if you are reinstalling on the EXACT same hardware it *shouldn't* much matter but better safe than hassled later.
4.  power OFF machine, and unplug/detach ALL drives EXCEPT your win10 drive from the mobo and any USB ports.  IOWs ONLY the win10 boot drive where you want to clean install win11 is attached.
5.  install windoze 11 and update to latest version, all new windows update security patches, etc etc.
6.  DL and install the latest version of DP from https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Download and reactivate the license.
7.  power OFF your machine and reconnect your DrivePool drives and power ON.
8.  in the DP GUI Manage Pool ^ Balancing... ensure all is reconfigured and set up as it was before the reinstall.  SAVE.  Manage Pool ^ Performance > as well.  if it were me, i would reboot here.
9.  it is important to remeasure the pool before using it normally.  Manage Pool > Remeasure... Remeasure.
*NOTE*  if you never messed with the settings and all was left at default before, steps 1 and 8 can probably be omitted/ignored.  my own pool is fairly customized, so i included them as part of the procedure I would follow.
cheers

A final, I hope, follow-up to this. I have fixed the problems by simply going to the OS level and going to each drive and making "Everyone" the owner, with full rights, to each of the PoolPart... directories on the drives. That seems to have cleared everything up and the duplicating functioning is restored. 
I probably made this more trouble than it needed to be but I plead age and poor health that influenced my decisions to the more complicated side.  I lost a few files but at least i did not need to rebuild my entire pool.
I wish there was a tool available that will fix this kind of issue automagically but doing it manually is not too bad as long as the correct choice is made early on. Unfortunately some of my early decisions led me down the wrong path so it took me several times longer than it should have.
Again, I plead old brain syndrome.

Folks, thank all for the ideas. I am not neglecting them but I have some health issues that make it very hard for me to do much of anything for a while. I will try the more promising ones as my health permits but it will take some time. From operation and the lack of errors during writing/reading it seems that I am in no danger except duplication won't work. I can live with that for a while.
Keep the ideas coming and, maybe, I can get this mess fixed and report back which tools worked for me.
I am making one pass through my pool where I remove a drive from the pool, run full diagnosis and file system diagnosis on that drive then I re-add it back to the pool. When completed that will assure that there are no underlying drive problems and I can proceed from there.
Thanks to all who tried to help this old man.  

Google Drive support is being discontinued in StableBit CloudDrive.
Please make sure to back up all of your data on any existing Google Drive cloud drives to a different location as soon as possible. Google Drive cloud drives will not be accessible after May 15, 2024.  
FAQ
Q: What does this mean? Do I have to do anything with the data on my existing cloud drives that are using the Google Drive storage provider?
A: Yes, you do need to take action in order to continue to have access to your data stored on Google Drive. You need to make a copy of all of the data on your Google Drive cloud drives to another location by May 15, 2024.
Q: What happens after Google Drive support is discontinued in StableBit CloudDrive? What happens to any data that is still remaining on my drives?
A: Your Google Drive based cloud drives will become inaccessible after May 15, 2024. Therefore, any data on those drives will also be inaccessible. It will technically not be deleted, as it will still continue to be stored on Google Drive. But because StableBit CloudDrive will not have access to it, you will not be able to mount your drives using the app.
Q: Is there any way to continue using Google Drive with StableBit CloudDrive after the discontinue date?
A: You can, in theory, specify your own API keys in our ProviderSettings.json file and continue to use the provider beyond the discontinue date, but this is not recommended for a few reasons:
Google Drive is being discontinued because of reliability issues with the service. Continuing to use it puts your data at risk, and is therefore not recommended. We will not be actively updating the Google Drive storage provider in order to keep it compatible with any changes Google makes to their APIs in the future. Therefore, you may lose access to the drive because of some future breaking change that Google makes. Q: What happens if I don't backup my data in time? Is there any way to access it after the discontinue date?
A: Yes. Follow the instructions here: 
Alternatively, it's also possible to download your entire CloudPart folder from Google Drive. The CloudPart folder represents all of your cloud drive data. You can then run our conversion tool to convert this data to a format that you can mount locally using the Local Disk storage provider.
The conversion tool is located here: C:\Program Files\StableBit\CloudDrive\Tools\Convert\CloudDrive.Convert.exe
The steps to do this would be:
Log in to your Google Drive web interface ( https://drive.google.com/ ). Find the CloudPart... folder that you would like to recover under the root "StableBit CloudDrive" folder. Each CloudPart folder represents a cloud drive, identified by a unique number (UID). Download the entire CloudPart folder (from the Google Drive web interface, click the three dots to the right of the folder name and click Download). This download may consist of multiple files, so make sure to get them all. Decompress the downloaded file(s) to the same location (e.g. G:\CloudPart-1ddb5a50-cae2-456a-a017-b48c254088b3) Run our conversion tool from the command line like so:

CloudDrive.Convert.exe GoogleDriveToLocalDisk G:\CloudPart-1ddb5a50-cae2-456a-a017-b48c254088b3

After the conversion, the folder will be renamed to: G:\StableBit CloudDrive Data (1e6884be-b748-43db-a78c-a4a2c720ceef)
  After the conversion completes, open StableBit CloudDrive and connect the Local Disk provider to the parent folder where the converted CloudPart folder is stored. For example, If your cloud part is stored in G:\StableBit CloudDrive Data (1e6884be-b748-43db-a78c-a4a2c720ceef), connect your Local Disk provider to G:\ (you can also use the three dots (...) to connect to any sub-folder, if necessary). You will now see your Google Drive listed as a local cloud drive, and you can attach it just like any other cloud drive. If you need further assistance with this, feel free to get in touch with technical support, and we will do our best to help out: https://stablebit.com/Contact
 
Q: Why is Google Drive being discontinued?
A: Over the years we've seen a lot of data consistency issues with Google Drive (spontaneously duplicating chunks, disappearing chunks, chunks reverting to a previous historic state, and service outages), some of which were publicized: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-heres-what-caused-sundays-big-outage
For that last one, we actually had to put in an in-app warning cautioning people against the use of Google Drive because of these issues.
Recently, due to a change in policy, Google is forcing all third-party apps (that are using a permissive scope) to undergo another reverification process. For the reasons mentioned above, we have chosen not to pursue this reverification process and are thus discontinuing Google Drive support in StableBit CloudDrive.
We do apologize for the great inconvenience that this is causing everyone, and we will aim not to repeat this in the future with other providers. Had we originally known how problematic this provider would be, we would have never added it in the first place.
To this end, in the coming months, we will be refocusing StableBit CloudDrive to work with robust object-based storage providers such as Amazon S3 and the like, which more closely align with the original design goals for the app.
If you have any further questions not covered in this FAQ, please feel free to reach out to us and we will do our best to help out: https://stablebit.com/Contact
Thank you for your continued support, we do appreciate it.

If the drive's failing but stiil currently readable, then you could just tell DrivePool to Remove it and it will evacuate the data file by file to the rest of the drives in your pool (usually the one(s) with the most free space).
If you're wanting to manually move the content as you describe (e.g. because you're using SnapRaid or because you want it done ASAP and don't have duplication), then as long as you turn off any Balancing and Placement, and stop the StableBit DrivePool service you can safely move* content between the poolparts so long as the internal structure is kept the same (e.g. don't change "pathX\fileY" in "Drive1:\PoolPart1342343\pathX\fileY" to "Drive2:\PoolPart324343\pathX\fileY"). Once you're done you can then restart the service, Remove the drive you manually emptied, and then turn back on any Balancing and Placement.
*Note: for a failing disk with no duplication, instead of doing a "direct" move, I would copy the content to the destination and verify the copies before I deleted any content from the source. This minimises writes to the suspect disk while I'm getting data from it.
"Also, the drives are SnapRaided, would it be safer to copy everything off and hope everything is in tact data wise, or restore from the parity drive ?"
See the SnapRaid FAQ for the "100% safe way to proceed": https://www.snapraid.it/faq#move

Yes, if you click Remove on the dying drive then it will automatically move everything (in the pool) that's on that drive to the other drives (in the pool). You may or may not wish to choose the option of "Force damaged drive removal (unreadable files will be left on the disk)." This will help if the drive has damaged files that can't be read.
However, since you are using SnapRaid, you should instead be incorporating its instructions to safely transfer the files without messing up your parity (Disclaimer: I'm not great with SnapRaid, please double-check this):
(turn off DrivePool balancing/placement if you're using it - which you probably aren't using if you're using SnapRaid) (stop DrivePool service) copy files from good Drive2 to good Drive3 check with diff, if good (identified as copies) proceed with a sync and continue to next step delete files on good Drive2 run a sync copy files from failing Drive1 to good Drive2 check with diff, if good (identified as copies) proceed with a sync and continue to next step delete files on failing Drive1 run a sync might as well take the failing Drive1 out of the machine at this point - run a secure erase on it if you need/want to - but remember to follow the SnapRaid procedure for removing a data disk from the array (start DrivePool service) (remove the "missing" Drive1) (might need to do a Manage Pool -> Re-measure if DrivePool doesn't do it automatically) (turn on DrivePool balancing/placement if you're using it - which you probably aren't using if you're using SnapRaid) You can still use Remove on a drive containing unduplicated files; it will still move them to another drive. DrivePool duplication, if enabled, is like RAID1 in that it ensures that duplicated files exist on two or more drives (so that if one drive dies unexpectedly you haven't lost any of the duplicated files that were on it as they will also be on at least one other drive). 2x duplication does use 2x the space of course, and so on. You can turn it on for the entire pool or customise it for specific folders.

Alex has said that he plans on postind on the forums an announcement about this, and it may be best to wait for that. 
That said, between the fact that Google Drive has always had a 750GB per account per day upload limit (which is pretty low), some of the odd issues that pop up with it, and that they've recently limited to 1TB (or 5TB) of data and lock the account if it exceeds it (eg, stops uploads),  the writing has been on the wall for a while.  

You're 100% right, this is a massive change and for me puts the whole CloudDrive & DrivePool setup in question
This is how it looks like in 1.2.6.1710 beta, not really explaining anything:



 

Changelog from beta version 
 
https://covecube.download/CloudDriveWindows/beta/download/changes.txt

@Christopher (Drashna) Can you please elaborate on this - I'm guessing it's not a choice StableBit would prefer to make? I'd also suggest that it seems like the kind of change that should be officially announced in the forums sooner rather than later (also inb4 inevitable confusion of some users over "Google Drive" vs "Google Cloud Storage") and that some kind of warning message should be implemented in the CloudDrive product itself for those who have (or are adding) Google Drive as a provider. Edit: there is a warning message as of the 1.2.6.1706 beta. I need to read the notes more carefully. Thanks to msq for pointing this out and providing screenshots below.

HD Sentinel has something similar, but it's not free. It has multiple surface tests you can perform on a drive, in addition to the standard SMART tests. The equivalent you are asking about would be the write + read test, or reinitialize disk surface (more in-depth). You can configure the data pattern (zero byte, sector count, random data, etc).
It has overlap with Stablebit scanner in terms of smart monitoring, etc, but scanner has a much better layout to organize/sort and custom name drives. I've always used sentinel's surface tests to prepare new disks before putting data on them. I basically reinitialize them.
https://www.hdsentinel.com/help/en/61_surfacetest.html
You can configure a couple of other things on the tests.

Yes my apologies you are correct Shane. Sorry for the misquoting of the error.
I have done as you suggested and overrode the SSD optimizer. It has removed the error and is working as expected. I appreciate your help with this Shane.

I really like this feature.  Thanks for having it.   It was useful for me because ...
Spent a couple of days intermittently wondering why a pool wouldn't come back properly.  Remeasuring is just taking forever (days!) but hd-sentinel shows drives all healthy.  Accessing drives individually was fast-ish.  Couldn't tell whether any lag I experienced was because of it being bogged down by remeasure or if it's really slow.  I even have new hard drive enclosures in my cart ready for a purchase!
Finally, came across this thread and decided to eject a member (had my suspicions) and the pool is blazing (albeit missing the files of this drive of course)!  But, in my situation, a semi working pool is better than a non working pool.   Now I can work on this bad drive separately.  i.e. scandisk, recovering files, whatever.   
In hindsight, I suppose I could've physically ejected it, but this gives a nice flexible troubleshooting technique for these half broken mysterious sort of , but not really broken drives I guess.  

Unfortunately, I had tried this, but it did not work. I don't know what criteria it uses to determine that the balance is not 100%. Let's say that it looks at tenths of a percentage. The problem is that my files are so small, that it sees the balance as still being 100%.
I feel like a little explanation is in order here. My tool pool is rather large, I believe it is currently on the order of 36TB. I use that size because I do in fact have a lot of very large files. However, I do a lot of work with very small batch files and documents. Some of these can very small, on the order of a few KB, but nonetheless they are the result of a lot of intensive research and testing, so I want these files on the array, and I want them protected. Likewise, I generate a lot of documentation in Word. These documents start life as a group of individual small docs that will eventually be combined into a larger document. But even an 80-page document many only be a couple of MB. However, in the meantime, they are very small.
Let's make the assumption that the balancing sees an out of balance condition at 99.9% (this is just a guess on my part). That would mean that 0.1% would still be equivalent to 3.6GB that would have to change. At that point I could manually set the threshold to 1GB instead, but you can fit a whole lot of Word docs and batch files into 1GB.
I should note at this point that I have raised this issue with support, and they are kindly looking into the matter with development. But I sincerely appreciate your response.
 

You will want to deactivate your license on your old system to move the key to your new system when ready.  As you will initially install trial version.
If you forget then you have to submit a ticket requesting deactivate license.

I found a program called Linux File Systems for Windows by Paragon Software which automatically mounted all 15 drives for me and I can now start migrating the files.
 
Regards.

Hello, Christopher (Drashna).
 
 
Yes, in my scenario, the combination of immediate balancing and "not more often than every X hours" doesn't work very well. In my scenario, because there are instances where I frequently write several hundred gigabytes of files, it's necessary to start immediate balancing once the SSD's capacity reaches a certain level of occupancy.
Otherwise, it would either become impossible to write to Drivepool due to insufficient free space on the SSD, or it would require bypassing the SSD and writing directly to slower HDDs. Therefore, immediate balancing without using "not more often than every X hours" is essential in my environment.
Moreover, it would be great to have a feature to start balancing at a specific time every day, disregarding the threshold set in "Automatic balancing - Triggers." If, during my sleeping hours, Drivepool could automatically start balancing to maintain free space for SSD Optimizer, it would reduce the balancing time occurring during waking hours. This would minimize the performance degradation of Drivepool during waking hours, allowing for more efficient operation of Drivepool.

Hi DP_, I've submitted your feature request (I like it). If you have other feature requests you'd like to send to StableBit directly, you can use the Contact Form to do so.

Thanks 🙂 !

I just tested out a Yottamaster 5 bay FS5C3 with 2x Seagate Exos X18 18TB drives (pulled 2 drives out of the Syba enclosure to test out).

Write speeds achieved slightly above 500 MB/s which is excellent, as each individual drive I tend to get about 270 MB/s per CrystalDiskMark benchmarks.

I tested out read speeds by copying multiple files to this new drive pool and then reading off it with 2 separate windows read operations (basically, pull files off the drive pool in 2 distinct copies going on simultaneously.

534 MB/s maximum read speed achieved with 2 drives! Mostly oscillating between 510-534MB/s! SMART data can also be read from this enclosure.

I think the Yottamaster is a winner here 😄

I think I will slowly repurpose the SYBA for cheaper / slower drives I may acquire or for some of the parity drives for snap raid.

I will use the Yottamaster for my data drives for the speed boost.

Anyways I hope all this info helps someone else trying to figure out what DAS (disk attached storage) enclosure they might want to use with Windows 11 Pro / Stablebit DrivePool / snapRAID.

Now to figure out how to get WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) up and running and hopefully be able to use badblocks to thoroughly stress test the whole system 😅

 

hello
i do not use StableBit CloudDrive, but i think i see the problem here, after many years reading these forums before licensing and using SB products.
existing data on a cloud provider (files, folders, etc.) will not be seen by a SB CloudDrive once it is created.  something to do with how the drive is created and obfuscated at a block/chunk level.  all data on a new CloudDrive must be uploaded from the user to the newly created CloudDrive before it is seen in the CloudDrive, regardless of whether the data already exists and is accessible by logging on to Google Drive and using their browser/whatever UI.
when/if Shane or Christopher respond, i'm quite sure they will tell you the same thing, albeit providing much more useful technical info.  in the meantime, reading the manual and the FAQ may help.

https://stablebit.com/Support/CloudDrive/Manual 
https://stablebit.com/Support/CloudDrive/Faq 
 
IOW, this is just telling you what to expect while you are scratching your head wondering
cheers

Unfortunately no, DrivePool works at a file level and can't automatically import a set of drives that have been spanned (e.g. via Windows Disk Management or Storage Spaces), so you will have to transfer the data manually (and each drive will have to be converted back to a basic disk before it can be added to a pool).

USB so-called DAS/JBOD/etc units usually internally use a SATA Port multiplier setup, and is likely the source of your issues.

A SATA Port multiplier is a way of connecting multiple SATA Devices to one root port, and due to the way that the ATA Protocol works, when I/O is performed it essentially takes the entire bus that is created from that root port hostage until the requested data is returned.
it also is important to know that write caching will skew any write benchmarks results if the enclosure uses UASP or you have explicitly enabled it.

these devices perform even worse with a striping filesystem (like raidz, btrfs raid 5/6 or mdraid 5/6), and having highly fragmented data (which will cause a bunch of seek commands that again, will hold the bus hostage until they complete, which with spinning media does create a substantial I/O burden)


honestly, your options are either accept the loss of performance (it is tolerable but noticeable on a 4 drive unit, no idea how it is on your 8 drive unit), or invest in something like a SAS JBOD which will actually have sane real world performance. USB isn't meant for more than a disk or two, and between things like this and hidden overhead (like the 8/10b modulation, root port and chip bottlenecks, general inability to pass SMART and other data, USB disconnects, and other issues that aren't worth getting into) it may be worth just using a more capable solution

ok, just curious... first of all... (per the last paragraph of your first post), why are read striping and real time duplication enabled on your pool if duplication (as inferred) is not enabled?  seems to me your settings are complicating things.  kill them both (disable) for starters.
i too have a SYBA 8bay exactly like yours.  it is where my DrivePool lives.
i also have an Oyen Mobius Pro 5C where my backups live.  writing/reading speed from this enclosure can vary greatly (70MBps from the Oyen to the SYBA... 160MBps from the SYBA to the Oyen).  and they're both attached to the same USB3 adapter card.  *shrugs* go figure.
if you are actually seeing the speeds you mentioned, consider yourself lucky.  18+ TB and 7200 rpm speed = R/W speed i wish i had.  all of my drives max out at 8TB 128MB cache, so i have to be happy with what i have.
cheers