eduncan911

Thank you Chris!

Under the Balancing options of a Pool, on the first Settings tab there is a section for Automatic Balancing. What happens if I select "Do not balance automatically"? When would the drives be balanced again? My main concern is Duplicated folders: when are the files duplicated if Automatic Balancing is disabled? I understand how the balancers work and how I can trigger this with other events. ^- TL;DR; I would like to limit the accessing of my disk as much as possible. I have: Changed Scanner to scan only twice a week (Mon and Thurs mornings).This is the ONLY regularly scheduled software that wakes up the drives. I have setup Plex Media Server to never scan (just monitors disk activity). I have nothing else installed, and nothing else constantly accessing the disks. But, I notice the drives are still spun up in the early morning - every morning. I found where i have DrivePool configured to for Automatic balancing every day at 5 AM. I am suspecting this is spinning up the drives at 5 AM? Thanks! -E PS, I love the ability to write my own balancer plugins in .NET. I just haven't needed to with the great balances already available (and maybe 1 or 2 I added a long time ago). Thank you!

I've very happily been running W2K12 and Stablebit Drivepool/Scanner for years. I do run 3 to 5 Hyper-V VMs at times for various activities. I'm upgrading, and I am also rebuilding those VMs (moving mostly to Linux). But, Stablebit is 100% Windows. So, I need to keep a Windows machine around. I'd like to use ESXi hypervisor on this new build; but, I have a few advanced concerns about running Stablebit Drivepool/scanner in a VM and passing the disks through. HBA is an LSA9211-8i flashed to IT mode, passing SMART. The SAS/SATA backplane is an LSI Expander, that scales up to the 24 drive bays I'll have. I have verified SMART passes all the way through the Expander, through the HBA, to the OS (with the right drivers that is). I must have HDD spin down functional from the Windows VM w/StableBit DrivePool/Scanner. Currently I just have it set in the Power Options and it works (with the hacked HBA driver). I plan on running up to 4 Nvidia/AMD GPUs off and on at times for various CUDA and number crunching (FAH, crypto/cracking, Tor, etc). Plan on passing through these to a Linux OS of choice. Some of the VMs IO operations are Disk I/O Intensive. They will have dedicated onboard PCH drives for those tasks, not connected to the HBA. Plex Media Server on the same VM as DrivePool (because of the files/library change detection)Note, PMS will need as many vCPUs as possible and will get the highest priority CPU access over all other VMs. Stablebit gets to come along with on the priority ride. One VM will be a dedicated NZBs VM (copies 10s of GBs per day over to the Windows VM w/DrivePool on it - most likely over a network IP (loopback I hope)). Does Drivepool/Scanner live happily in an ESXi Windows VM with passthrough disks? Do I pass the HBA device through to the Windows VM, in order to get all the HDDs and SMART to show up? DrivePool will be the only thing using the HBA device. Or, do I pass each individual drive through, along with disabling that option I saw in ESXi to get SMART to pass through?

You should have mentioned in my other thread! LOL "Deactivate the License first" DOH!

Thanks for the reply! 19 TB across 7 disks Custom "thresholds" and primary drives to use over other drives. 519 GB Unduplicated, 18.4 TB Duplicated (some folders set to 3x and 4x duplication) Custom duplication settings to ensure a physical file exists on different HDDs. All drives filled to ~95% (hence, the upgrade to a bigger chassis, more HDDs, etc). I'm mostly concerned with the 3x and 4x duplication of files. Does the Pool keep track of this in the metadata? So, it knows: 1) that I asked for this folder/file to be duplicated 4x. and 2) does it know where each file is (so no reduplication occurs). I'd imagine so. And a good bit more "tweaks." So, the default settings may not match this and start moving. THough, there isn't a lot of room to actually move anything! I'll just install the software, shutdown, attach the disks, boot up and setup the balancers as fast as I can to match what I had (or what I'll like going forward). After things settle down, I'll then introduce the new drives into the pool. Thanks!

Excellent! That's what I thought. Just 1 large pool. And you nailed the 2nd part, the settings... Currently I am only able to setup the "Balancing Settings" by clicking on the pool itself and adjusting. This leads me to believe the pool has to exist first. So... Q1: If settings can only be adjusted on existing pools, doesn't that mean I can't setup my balancers before hand? Q2: Is there a way to prevent balancing of a pool until I can get in and adjust the balancers?

Hello: I would like as many details as possible about moving the disks, already in use by StableBit Drivepool to a new server (new perm home for them). I recall, from a few years ago, reading that when moving the disks to a new server, just plug them in and DrivePool will see them just fine. * What "Pool" will it see? Does it create a new one automagically, or do I create one and add them to that new pool? * If adding them to a new pool, how does duplicated files work when adding 15 disks from a previous pool? I have duplicated, sometimes 4x, files I'd like to move over. I have about 15 drives, upgrading to a new system and 4 NEW additional drives to add to the pool. One reason I picked DrivePool was the direct-access (via hidden folders though) to the files, in the event of a pool/OS failure (or if I wanted to move to Linux or whatever). Thank you!

Hello! And thank you for this and DrivePool. I've seen using them (with keys!) for a little over two years flawlessly. Though, no HDDs have failed (some are 7+ years old), I expect Scanner to kick in on that day and alert the hell out of me! Question on SMART... And what is disabled when SMART is not available. I lost my SMART abilities on my HBA passthrough today. How will this affect Scanner and DrivePool? TL;TR Everything was great, scanning, SMART enabled for all 12 of my HDDs. They are connected two 2x IBM M1015 that I have cross-flashed to the LSI9211 firmware in "IT" mode. Today, I decided to get to the bottom of my drives never "spindown". Turns out there is a way to enable it in the INI files for the drivers. So, I did that and forced the install of a different set of HBA drivers for my LSI cards. Upon rebooting, Scanner tells me that: "The on-disk S.M.A.R.T. check is not accessible. Drive temp and mechanical operating parameters are not available and will not be monitored." Could you elaborate on this? The last part "and will not be monitored" is a bit concerning, meaning the drive won't be monitored at all? Will drive failures still be detected? Thanks! EDIT: Ok, I now realize that loosing SMART ability I can no longer access the "Disk Control" and other menu options on these drives. Humm, wondering how they will go to sleep now. Wonder if Windows will do it. Windows Server 2012 (about to format to Windows Server 2012 R2).

Hello: I have been luvin' my DrivePool + Scanner for years. Coming from an old WHS 2008 and multiple Linux-based distros, I finally found a nice stable home at StableBit! I am currently running them on a W2K12 box (that's Windows Server 2012, non-R2). It's time for an upgrade next year... I was wondering if you guys have downloaded the Windows Server 10 Preview and tested it's compatibility with Scanner + DrivePool. It's not a deal breaker as I can set up a new W2K12R2 box. But, would prefer to move to Windows Server 10 when it is released later in 2015. Thanks!

THE ABSOLUTE ANSWER I WAS LOOKING FOR! I've spent months off and on searching and searching for exactly that. Put that in the FAQs or Features, at the least! SOLD! (when I get the new server online in the coming month)

Yep, very similar. I run a dedicated VM for my production websites for disaster recovery (I backup the VM to Windows Azure, and can start it at any time if my home server/network/power goes down). Think portability as my reason. W2012E requires, no, demands Active Directory setup on its box and any machines you install the client software too instantly get joined to the active directory without your consent (think work computers you work at home with, already on a domain). It doesn't even let you run another DC (e.g. the HOST OS, thank you). Though, MS finally posted an MSDN article on how to edit the registry of the client machines to prevent the domain joining. Most likely will stay away from this. I only was thinking of W2012E for the media streaming to tinker with and maybe attempt to write my own transcoder, though there are several other options. I recently ran across Subsonic myself, but it seems to be only for music - not transcoding MKVs on the fly (though that is a bit misnomer - transcoding MKV) but you listed ffmpeg which I've written encoders for in the past. Odd. Are you streaming movies with that? Thanks for the feedback!

I am building a new home server that will serve several purposes: Windows Server 2012 Standard Host OS (hopefully) StableBit's DrivePool and Scanner over all HDDs and SSDs Hyper-V Virtual Machines on the RAID1 disks listed below.1 production server running a number of websites Possibly 1 "Windows Server 2012 Essentials" Media Server, if I can convince myself to join all of my systems "to the domain".It will share/access the host OS' DrivePool shares as its media. 1 linux/windows machine running my, uh, SickBeard + Sabnzbd daemons.NOTE: "nzb" translates to "seriously thrashes disks for huge file patches, unraring/recompressiong 10/20/30 GB at a time across 1000s of files, etc). The hardware is able to handle all of that, considering I do it now with slower drives, slower ram, less ram, and an Q9450. The new hardware is (I guess only the controllers matter with how I'll be using the Pools): Intel Core i7 930 overclocked to 3.73 Ghz (boost to 4.1 Ghz) even with hyper-threading.I've been rock stable with this board and CPU and overclock for 3 years as a developer machine. 12 GB 1600 Mhz ram Intel ICH10R with two separate RAID1 arrays2x RAID1 arrays 1x "scratch" drive for nzb thrashing 1x "backup" drive, for any and all backups (either Windows Server backup, or attached to the W2012E VM, etc). 2x IBM M1015 controllers flashed to LSI firmware (16 ports + ability for an expander in the future) Not too worried about the throughput of the RAID1 arrays with the VMs. They aren't that busy anyhow. Lastly, I do plan on about 20% of my DrivePool to be mirrored/folder redundant across about 5 or 6 disks by my estimates (sure, spread out to even more perhaps - see below). So, my questions to the community/developers: How well does DrivePool and Scanner work with a CPU that is going to be taxed off and on? Should I focus on creating multiple DrivePools? One for the bottomless blu-ray/movies shares, and one for all of my redundant folders? Should I create separate DrivePools for each extremely large folder duplication? Think TV shows across about 40 different series, nearly all in large HD format. The advantage to running my nzb utilities (which are very CPU and I/O intensive) in a VM is that I can throttle down the CPU usage and limit the threads it uses as virtual cores. Again, it will be all limited to the scratch drive on the ICH10R controller (for now).

Q: Does DrivePool spin up all of the drives, just to access the single file? Given: say I am only accessing a single file. Ignore the "other media in the same folder but could be on another disk" stuff, like folder images it displays in the media center, etc. Pretend there are none, and we are only talking 1 single file. Think a shortcut to a 24GB MKV file. I tried searching the old forums with a little secondary answer, but no direct answer. I have had my WHS v1 running with 9 disks in it's storage pool for a number of years. One of the key benefits of why I've waited so long to upgrade it is the ability to spin down all of the drives (though it spins them backup periodically to scan). Frankly, I am surprised the 5+ year old HDDs have lasted this long! I credit the idle spin down, especially when on vacation or busy for weeks at a time. I am converting an old X58 mobo with an Core i7 950 and 5x PCIe slots to use as my new media server. It will be a simple direct file-copy to the new one, but with 15 disks. I rarely access my media. Maybe a few hours of the day, or when the kid wants to listen to an audiobook or maybe to watch the latest TV recording. The rest of the time, I want the drives idle/turned off (except for the scheduled scans obviously). I was torn between DrivePool and Drive Bender. The main factor I am focusing on is the drive idling/spin down/spin-up. I have recently read that as of May 2013, Drive Bender has what I consider a serious issue for spin down/spin-up: it spins up all of the drives, one at a time, to access a single file (three separate posts in their forums on that exact issue with a large number of drives). I currently have 9 drives, and I will be expanding that to 15 drives in the new system. With a moderate 5 second delay (if that fast) per drive, people have complained about a 3+ minute wait time just to access the storage pool for a single file. Drive Bender is completely unacceptable to me, and now I am looking at DrivePool closely. But before I invest into this setup, I must know how DrivePool handles large disk arrays and drive spin-up/downs. Thanks in advance!