Jaga

First of all, I would like to say thank you all for taking the time to reply and or answer. I currently have an SSD which Windows Server 2016 Standard which has my shares as well as drive pool installed and I have gotten pretty far along in the setup and is pretty close to how I want it. Again, I realized I was missing the "sever essentials" backup system and I installed that. I believe the issues I was seeing is from the way the two flavors deal with file permissions. I initially had them set with Standard and when I added Essentials it added many permissions (per user and or group) to each file. Each mechanism allowing/disallowing rights based on that systems scheme. Which meant I had some doubled up and files that I shouldn't have access to - I did and vice versa for others. In short it seems like the most practical way is to perform a clean install and use which ever system to create and administer the shares - not both or a mix and match of both. I don't think this was a Drive Pool issue at all, simply put it was my lack of understanding of how the two systems apply user permissions.
 In my first install, I tried Windows Server Essentials and had backups running but did not like the strange folder structure, which is why I tried downloading and installing Standard and added the server role. I believe I could live with it, but the current look is so clean and that of course leaves me without the previously mentioned backup solution. I have checked out Veeam which looks VERY promising I appreciate the suggestion Jaga!
I hadn't realized MS had planned on removing the ability to add Essentials Role in the future Umfriend, is there anything in particular you are looking for in WSE 2019?
 
Thank you for the links Christopher, those are put together better than the tidbits I located in my searches. Currently I am trying to decide what I want to purchase, Windows Server 2016 Standard, WSE 2016...They are roughly the same price on Amazon and it seems like the Standard with provide greater flexibility for the future.  I am most certainly getting drivepool!
 
Thank you all again! Regards,
Tom

The only tidbit of wisdom that I can offer is what I've been told before about how Drivepool "talks" to the pool drives.  It merely passes commands to them like Windows would to any NTFS drive (although there are some "wonky" things NTFS does that Alex had to work around).  I wouldn't think this would interfere with regular copy/move/delete commands, even on system folders.  @Christopher (Drashna) is the real WHS/WSE/Drivepool guru however, so it'd be best to wait and hear what he has to say.
As for the rest of your criteria - even Windows 7 Pro + Drivepool can handle them, with the exception of WHS V1 style client backups.  The W7 Ultimate server I'm running on now (which I'm going to be upgrading to WSE 2016 soon) does all of them except the backup (currently using Macrium Reflect).  After I migrate to WSE, I *think* I'll be using Veeam for backups based on the research I've done so far.  If you haven't looked at it, it may be worth the time.
And while WSE might seem to be overkill in a lot of circumstances, I value it highly for the learning experience it provides.  Some of what it does is "next level" stuff, which you don't get to see in a standard desktop operating system.  That comes in handy for me since I'm in the IT field professionally, though it may not for a lot of people.  Because of that, I feel it's worth the extra effort.  I'm going to be installing it on top of a Hyper-V on bare metal...   just for the experience.  If you're into server based installations for any reason, it's good to keep up on the current popular platforms.

Windows Server 2016 Essentials is a very good choice, actually!  It's the direct successor to Windows Home Server, actually.  The caveat here is that it does want to be a domain controller (but that's 100% optional). 
Yeah, the Essentials Experience won't really let you delete the Users folder. There is some hard coded functionality here, which ... is annoying. 
Depending on how you move the folders, "yes".  Eg, it will keep the permissions from the old folder, and not use the ones from the new folder. It's quite annoying, and why some of my automation stuff uses a temp drive and then moves stuff to the pool. 
If you're using the Essentials stuff, you should be good.  
But you should check out this: https://tinkertry.com/ws2012e-connector
https://tinkertry.com/how-to-make-windows-server-2012-r2-essentials-client-connector-install-behave-just-like-windows-home-server
 

Even 60 C for a SSD isn't an issue - they don't have the same heat weaknesses that spinner drives do.  I wouldn't let it go over 70 however - Samsung as an example rates many of their SSDs between 0 and 70 as far as environmental conditions go.  As they are currently one of the leaders in the SSD field, they probably have some of the stronger lines - other manufacturers may not be as robust.

Do any of the providers support FTP?  Clouddrive has a FTP layer built in that should work in that case.
Can you mount any of those providers' spaces as a local drive (w/letter)?  If so, you could use the Local Disk feature to place an encrypted volume on them, and manage it with Clouddrive.
And - Christopher/Alex are continually evaluating new providers for Clouddrive.  Never know when they'll add support for more.  You can use the Contact link on that page to request additional ones.

Even 60 C for a SSD isn't an issue - they don't have the same heat weaknesses that spinner drives do.  I wouldn't let it go over 70 however - Samsung as an example rates many of their SSDs between 0 and 70 as far as environmental conditions go.  As they are currently one of the leaders in the SSD field, they probably have some of the stronger lines - other manufacturers may not be as robust.

Were all of the drives empty and added to the Pool before files were placed on it?  Perhaps some of the files were manually copied into the hidden Poolpart-xxxxx folders in the root of each?  Hard to tell without a screenshot and knowing how you populated the pool.   
What you can do to even things out, is install the Disk Space Equalizer plugin for Drivepool and force a manual re-balance.  You go into "Manage Pool", then Balancing, then enable it in the Balancers tab.  Hit Save after that, and Drivepool will kick off a manual re-balance.  When it's done balancing, toggle that plugin off again.  If you have any doubts about whether or not the pool display is correct, just force a re-measure before starting the manual re-balance.

With the "Disk Space Equalizer" plugin turned -off-, Drivepool will still auto-balance all new files added to the Pool, even if it has to go through the SSD Cache disks first.  They merely act as a temporary front-end pool that is emptied out over time.  The fact that the SSD cache filled up may be why you're seeing balancing/performance oddness, coupled with the fact you had real-time re-balancing going on.  Try not to let those SSDs fill up. 
I would recommend disabling the Disk Space Equalizer, and just leaving the SSD cache plugin on for daily use.  If you need to manually re-balance the pool do a re-measure first, then temporarily turn the Disk Space Equalizer back on (it should kick off a re-balance immediately when toggled on).  When the re-balance is complete, toggle the Disk Space Equalizer back off.

With the "Disk Space Equalizer" plugin turned -off-, Drivepool will still auto-balance all new files added to the Pool, even if it has to go through the SSD Cache disks first.  They merely act as a temporary front-end pool that is emptied out over time.  The fact that the SSD cache filled up may be why you're seeing balancing/performance oddness, coupled with the fact you had real-time re-balancing going on.  Try not to let those SSDs fill up. 
I would recommend disabling the Disk Space Equalizer, and just leaving the SSD cache plugin on for daily use.  If you need to manually re-balance the pool do a re-measure first, then temporarily turn the Disk Space Equalizer back on (it should kick off a re-balance immediately when toggled on).  When the re-balance is complete, toggle the Disk Space Equalizer back off.

Mostly, yes.
If it's a new file, yes, it's smart enough, and will work correctly.  
But modifying a file.... it doesn't use the SSD for that. 
Also, the duplication happens at a specific time each day. So the file isn't protected for up to 24 hours.  Even longer if the file is open, as we cannot duplicate open files.  (one of the reasons we recommend not turning off real time duplication)

If you mount the pooled drives to folder paths, ... you may only need to run it once, then.

With most of the topics here targeting tech support questions when something isn't working right, I wanted to post a positive experience I had with Drivepool for others to benefit from..
 
There was an issue on my server today where a USB drive went unresponsive and couldn't be dismounted.  I decided to bounce the server, and when it came back up Drivepool threw up error messages and the GUI for it wouldn't open.  I found the culprit - somehow the Drivepool service was unable to start, even though all it's dependencies were running.  The nice part is that even though the service wouldn't run, the Pool was still available.  "Okay" I thought, and did an install repair on Stablebit Drivepool through the Control Panel.  Well, that didn't seem to work either - the service just flat-out refused to start.
So at that point I assumed something in the software was corrupted, and decided to 1) Uninstall Drivepool  2) bounce the server again  3) Run a cleaning utility and 4) Re-install.  I did just that, and Drivepool installed to the same location without complaint.  After starting the Drivepool GUI I was greeted with the same Pool I had before, running under the same drive letter, with all of the same performance settings, folder duplication settings, etc that it always had.  To check things I ran a re-measure on the pool, which came up showing everything normal.  It's almost as if it didn't care if it's service was terminal and it was uninstalled/reinstalled.  Plex Media Server was watching after the reboot, and as soon as it saw the Pool available the scanner and transcoders kicked off like nothing had happened.
Total time to fix was about 30 minutes start to finish, and I didn't have to change/reset any settings for the Pool.  It's back up and running normally now after a very easy fix for what might seem to be an "uh oh!" moment.
That's my positive story for the day, and why I continue to recommend Stablebit products.

With most of the topics here targeting tech support questions when something isn't working right, I wanted to post a positive experience I had with Drivepool for others to benefit from..
 
There was an issue on my server today where a USB drive went unresponsive and couldn't be dismounted.  I decided to bounce the server, and when it came back up Drivepool threw up error messages and the GUI for it wouldn't open.  I found the culprit - somehow the Drivepool service was unable to start, even though all it's dependencies were running.  The nice part is that even though the service wouldn't run, the Pool was still available.  "Okay" I thought, and did an install repair on Stablebit Drivepool through the Control Panel.  Well, that didn't seem to work either - the service just flat-out refused to start.
So at that point I assumed something in the software was corrupted, and decided to 1) Uninstall Drivepool  2) bounce the server again  3) Run a cleaning utility and 4) Re-install.  I did just that, and Drivepool installed to the same location without complaint.  After starting the Drivepool GUI I was greeted with the same Pool I had before, running under the same drive letter, with all of the same performance settings, folder duplication settings, etc that it always had.  To check things I ran a re-measure on the pool, which came up showing everything normal.  It's almost as if it didn't care if it's service was terminal and it was uninstalled/reinstalled.  Plex Media Server was watching after the reboot, and as soon as it saw the Pool available the scanner and transcoders kicked off like nothing had happened.
Total time to fix was about 30 minutes start to finish, and I didn't have to change/reset any settings for the Pool.  It's back up and running normally now after a very easy fix for what might seem to be an "uh oh!" moment.
That's my positive story for the day, and why I continue to recommend Stablebit products.

Just upgraded two different machines running different Operating Systems (W7 Pro and W10) from 2.5.3.3191 to 2.5.4.3216.  Didn't have any issues - all settings and data retained perfectly.  I will note that I've gotten used to stopping the Scanner service prior to manual upgrades, but that's just me being cautionary.

I could not have put it better.

Umfriend's suggestion of mounting it in an external dock after Windows has started is a good one.  And empty USB docks are usually inexpensive - I keep a spare or two handy for work.  It helps isolate it from the rest of your PC, but still allows all the usual utilities to be run against the disk/controller.  And it can even rule out controller/port issues due to being separated.

Good to hear - I also answered in your other topic about ways you can get your Scanner settings back to what you had before.

Just wanted to give an update for those who have problems with xfinity new 1gb line - I basically had them come out  showed them how the line was going in and out with the pingplotter and they rewired everything and they changed out the modem once they did that everything has stabilized and  been working great - thank you for all your help guys! long live stablebit drive! lol 

Keep awake - get a copy of Stablebit Scanner and tell it not to throttle SMART queries so the drive stays awake.  Or use the USB drive's utilities to set it's sleep timer.  Drivepool just manages the pool and allows disks to spin down if that's how their firmware or Windows is set. 
As far as balancing goes - I turn off automatic balancing so files always stay where they were originally put.  Less wear and tear, less of a performance hassle if the server is being used.  New files are added to the disks with the most available space, bringing it back in line with continuing to be balanced.  If I ever see the balance on the disks being less optimal than I'd like, I kickoff a manual re-balance with the Disk Space Equalizer plugin and go to bed.  Really the only thing that kicks the pool out of balance for me is the Monthly Full & 3xx/week Differential backups I put on the drives.  And I don't care if it's slightly unbalanced because of them - it wipes the fulls every month, and it only keeps two copies of the differentials at any one time.  Plus - you can force those to specific disk(s) with file placement rules.
If you -want- to schedule periodic (nightly) rebalances, turn on "Balance every day at.." in the Balancing UI.
I think that Drivepool does a great job of balancing on it's own, and it's something that is easy for people to overthink.  Just disable automatics and manually do it when you want.
Edit:  I attached a screenshot of my pool drives - I haven't done a manual re-balance on it for over a month now, and probably won't for a long time.

I find Scanner almost essential now - I rely on it as a watchdog to keep my data safe, and to alert me to potential problems (heat, SMART errors, etc).  And I use it with the auto-evacuate balancer in Drivepool, so that IF it senses a drive might be dying it can move files off to other drives without needing me first.  Well worth the cost in my opinion, AND you can get additional copies of each product at a steep discount.  I run Scanner on both my server and primary workstation.

Yup.  Adding the drive to the pool doesn't move existing data into it automatically, so it won't break your config. 
Yes and no.   In theory, yes.  But the default balancers shouldn't move the data around in most cases. 
You can read about the default balancers here: https://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool/2.X/Manual?Section=Balancing Plug-ins
And yes, the files can end up spread out, but the "File Placement Rules" feature can be used to help prevent that. 
Nope.   There is no linking or the like.   File lists are generated dynamically from the disks.  Basically, when you open a folder, it's queried, then DrivePool queries that location on each disk and combines them and returns with that combined list.  
The upside is that this means no links to maintain, and none of the issues associated with that. 
The downside is that the software doesn't maintain a list of the pool's contents.  
If Duplication and the Read Striping feature is enabled, then yes, it should be able to handle this in an intelligent way (eg, by avoiding busy disks, or reading the contents of files from multiple disks at the same time) 
https://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool/2.X/Manual?Section=Performance Options#Read Striping
Otherwise, you should see very similar performance to just using the disk by itself, since the IO requests are basically just forwarded to the underlying disks. 
 
As for the frequently used files, sorry, no that isn't supported.  THe pool doesn't use the access, modified or created data, since that may not exist when the file is being created (in the kernel). 
 
Plex does a very unusual thing and uses file system hard links to create it's database, rather than using it's SQLite database to manage the files. 
That's the issue, actually.  Hard links only work on the same volume (disk).  And because of how they're stored in the file system, it doesn't work on the pool, at all. (if you're familiar with "cross linking" in file systems, hard links are this, but intentional)
Adding the C:\ drive to the pool is fine.  In fact, I do that with my desktop system.
The issue is that you CANNOT run Windows off of the pool.   The reason for that, is that there are "kernel drivers" and "boot drivers", and these are VERY different .... and the Pool driver is a kernel driver, NOT a boot driver.  So ... you'd have no way to read the pool until after booting. 
So yes, this would definitely cause Windows to fail to boot. 
StableBit DrivePool doesn't maintain a database, at all.   See my response to question #4. 
So, unless you experience drive failures, the files will still be there, and accessible. 
 
In fact, you could pull the drives, pop them into a new system, install StableBit DrivePool, and then IMMEDIATELY use the pool. 
 
C) it queries the relative location under the PoolPart folder on each disk, for that folder and it's contents. 
Specically, all of the data in the pool is stored in hidden "PoolPart.xxxx" folders (where "xxxx" is a long hexadecimal string called a "GUID").  
The pooled data is stored in the same relative path in this folder. 
So if we have a file "X:\Photos\2012\001.jpg" that is stored on the pool, and is duplicated, then it resides at:
Y:\PoolPart.xxxx\Photos\2012\001.jpg Z:\PoolPart.yyyyy\Photos\2012\001.jpg Basically, if you know the location of the file in the pool, then it's in the same location on the pooled disks, but under the PoolPart folder. 
How dare you! 
Just kidding! 
No, we totally understand that!   I've see that too....  And ... in fact Windows Home Server (v1) was very much like that. It's Drive Extender tech had a NASTY corruption bug on release... that they were informed of well prior to release.  So ... yeah. 
I can't say that our products are flawless (no software is), but we do try.  And we try to fix issues pretty fast, when we can. 
That, and don't worry about asking 100 questions. That's fine, and that's what I'm hear for.  
If you have more questions, feel free to ask here, or at https://stablebit.com/contact (I tend to respond faster there)

Nice - more tidbits of useful wisdom today!

As long as they have access to the account and files on it, and the drive isn't mounted already, then any system can access it. Even with different licenses. 
Yes: https://stablebit.com/Support/CloudDrive/Manual?Section=Setting your Drive as Read-Only
Not at this point, no. Sorry. 

Yeah, the colors can be blinding.... 
And I think I've had this conversation with Alex before.  The issue is that StableBit Scanner use a 3rd party UI suite, and I don't think they support a "dark" theme.  So it wouldn't be a small effort to add it. 
 
But yes, I'd like a "night mode" for all of our software, actually. 
https://stablebit.com/Admin/IssueAnalysis/27925

Yeah, I mentioned that in one of my edits - where it has Note: near the end.  It'd be very rare, though possible.   
Scanner has a free trial period - since you have the software RAID 0 in place, you could install and test.  You wouldn't need (and couldn't use) evacuation in that case since it was a 2x duplicated pool, though I find that feature of Scanner highly valuable, and in your case you could implement it with three 2-pair drives in each Duplication pool (12 total drives).  At the least, you could see if SMART data was being retrieved by Scanner successfully.
Very few (1 or 2?) SMART polling utilities were able to "see through" my LSI controller to the SMART info.  I think they really wanted people to be using the MegaRaid software they developed for it instead.