PoolBoy

How about NordLocker? https://nordvpn.com/blog/nordlocker-file-encryption/ Sometimes very nice discounts like 99ct/month for 1TB.

I have Office 365 for 5 users, which means 5x 1TB Can Clouddrive (or Diskpool) combine them so they look as one big 5TB disk to me as the user?

I want to make a single HDD with files accessible from internet. Just for personal use. So no need for an enterprise grade solution. I want to acces the files on my Windows laptop and Android phone. I don't care if I need to install an app for that on those devices. I would greatly prefer it als works from a browser, just in case I need to access my stuff from a computer that's not mine. I also like the ability to transfer a whole directory. I greatly prefer a Windows solution. I'm just not compatible with Linux it seems :-) For example last night I tried OpenMediaVault. I takes over my HDD so Windows can no longer see it. That's not what I want. Linux is supposed to be very light weight. Not so if it runs in a virtual machine. And I don't want to dedicate a whole machine to it. The stuff I want to share is about 400GB of mostly small files. Any tips, please?

Simple Basic NTFS Healthy Primary partition. 5TB free space

The 6TB drive is now showing the correct amount full. No idea what was going on. I made so many changes last week I can't even speculated. I still have a problem with the external USB-3 disk. It shows up in Windows. It's part of a pool. The disk works without the slightest problem. Right now I'm trying to create another pool, the USB disk isn't shown in the list with available disks. What is causing that? Another disk that's part of a pool does show up, so disks can be used is multiple pools.

I finally got it working the way I like it. @PoolDemon Files copied at the same times ending up on the same disk certainly is a bonus. But I must admit I never considered that when I started this thread. That must be the case unless DP is really smart and looks at the filenames when placing the files.

Creation is already done. If I have to redo it I'll use my trick again. I just remove the 'faulty' disk from the pool. When the other disks are full I add that disk again. That does what the plugin does. I hope the plugin, in cooperation with the balancer actively tries to keep the 'faulty' disk empty. Meaning if from another disk 100GB is deleted, 100GB is move to that disk from the 'faulty' disk.

Revelation time for me! I didn't even know there was plugin repository... Yeah the plugin you suggested sounds exactly what I need. "StableBit DrivePool will place new files in a way that will fill one disk at a time" Yeah, I have scanner. Without it I wouldn't even have mentioned drive problems because it never gave me any problems. But now I know I want to play safe. Why I even use all that junk...? :-) Over the years I've gathered a lot of disks. Mostly replaced by SSD's and bigger and faster HDD's. I could just trash them, but with DrivePool I can give them a second life. The data isn't inreplaceble. I can just redownload. But that will take time and trouble. So by using my old disks I add security without spending $, and I also add some speed. If a disk fails I still can add another disk to the pool so DrivePool can duplicate the files that were on the crashed disk. Those other disks I do not want to use permanently because I have a certain disk usage strategy based on disk speed. Something like: SSD for system, programs and frequently used data. Big speedy HDD for secondary storage. The pool we are discussing is tertiary storage. BTW what's really important to me, no matter on which disk it is, it backupped hourly and daily and is stored on 3 different disks not being part of any pool.

So your suggestion is: Build a pool with 3 small disks. Build a pool with 1 big disk. Put both pools is new pool. (MasterPool) Then fill that pool. Then the MasterPool consists of just 2 disks and duplication always is done using both pools. That's good, because what I want. Right? Right now I have 2 none duplicating pools. The pools aren't related in any way. Getting to longwinded to explain in detail, but I did built the pool consisting of the small disks in such a way one disk is 70% empty (as I want). I don't know how that can be done if I give DP full control because it wil most likely spread the files evenly over all small disks. But safety before all! If my method carries any risk I'll just wipe the pool with small disks. Build a MasterPool consisting of a 2 pools. Then let DP just fill and duplicate. That gonna take a whole day.... It won't place the files as I like them to be placed but data is secured. Then later I may figure out file placement rules that force one disk to be as empty as possible. BTW all my 3TB source files are on the big 8TB disk that will be part of the pool. So following your advise. Set up everything but leave it empty. Stop service. Move files. Start service. Configure duplication. Wait..... I found a rule that sets how put full disks may become preferably. If I could set that on per disk basis my problems would be instantly solved. I would set one disk to 1% and the others to 100%. That would force balancing as I want it. But the option doesn't work per disk but is global :-(

Thanks for the advise Umfriend! I now have the following: Everything on a single disk + A copy on pool which consists of 3 disks. Now I want to join them in a new Pool that supports duplication. I do know a how to create a pool but am a bit afraid for what DrivePool does if I put the disks in one pool. It will most likely notice all files are duplicated but at that point I haven't had the chance of configuring duplication. Will DrivePool automatically start wiping one copy?

Will add screenprints when I'm back home. But I doubt they reveal anything. My file manager (directory Opus) does show hidden files/folders. It also shows folder size, that doesn't add up either. Very weird. Hopefully it's just because PoolDisk is doing something with it somehow.

#1 I have USB-3 disk attached. Windows 10 sees the disk and can use the disk. DrivePool does not see the disk, so I can't use it in my new pool. It does show up and is used in another pool. Why is that? #2 I have a internal disk that shows up in 'This PC'. I can use that disk without zero problems. It has a drive letter. It shows up in DrivePool but is flagged as "This is an unallocated disk" It has no drive letter. Weird, so I went to Administrative Tools ... Disk Management. Both disks mentioned above show up in that window. Both with correct size and drive letter. EDIT #1 The fixed disk is 6TB. Windows shows it as 5.45TB. That's good. Windows also shows the disk is nearly full (243GB free) If I simply count all files on that disk with 'properties' all files add up 3.75TB I know there always is some overhead (partly used sectors) but that much? 1.7TB /31% overhead? EDIT #2 I just noticed that I used a pooled disk as one of the disks to build a new pool. That's not what I want so I'll remove it from the pool when the DrivePool is done with buiding the new pool. Could that cause all/some of the problems mentioned above?

Disk-A = Big speedy disk I want to contain all of my files. Disk-B = Small speedy disk. Should be used as DrivePool sees fit. Disk-C = Small speedy disk. Should be used as DrivePool sees fit. Disk-D = Slow disk. Likely also the most unreliable disk. Should only be used when other disks are full. So my rules are: 1 copy of all my files on Disk-A 1 copy of my files spread over the other 3 disks. Keep Disk-D as empty as possible at all times. Not sure if it qualifies as balancing but when space gets freed up on Disk-B and/or Disk-C, DrivePool should move files from Disk-D

While it claims the background service isn' t working, something seems to work. The drive letter that contains the pooled disk does still exist. It shows filenames and it shows the correct size of all pooled drives capacities added up. But the capacity isn't correct because a drive crashed and in no longer part of the pool. I also removed files from the remaining pool disks. (manually) So, it looks like what it shows is just a memory of what it knew before the crash.

I rebooted several times. Repair got stuck so I uninstalled and reinstalled. Didn't solve the problem. Win 10 x64

Is it needed/beneficial to defrag SSDs? Is defrag part of wear levelling? Does defrag work but due to extremely low access/seek times, it does'n provide a noticeble speed increase (but uses up TBW)?

I have a pool of 6 disks. DrivePool can use 100% of 5 disks as it sees fit. For the 6th disk I want to set some limitations. Free space on that disk must be >1TB at all times So, if the space of that disk drops below 1TB, DrivePool has to move and spread the excess files as it seems fit over the other 5 disks in the pool. Only if the 5 disks are full DrivePool may use all space on the 6th disk as it seems fit. The drivepool is duplicated (x2) The 6th disk hold files that are backed up with regular software so need no duplication. The 6th disk is way too large for what I keep on it so I want too put the excess space to good use, in my space hungry pool. To avoid needless reshuffling it would be nice if the 6th disk is always treated as low priority to place files on. That way the 6th disk would act like an overflow buffer. If the 5 disks have sufficient space nothing is written to the 6th disk. Only when space gets low, the 6th disk is used. Another good option would be setting a soft limit of 1.5TB on the 6th disk. DrivePool tries to keep 1.5TB free but if it drops below that but still above 1TB it doesn't panic and starts reshuffling like crazy. While all files are duplicated, it may in theory be safest files are spread of as many disks as possible? Including the 6th disk. The speed of the pool isn't important. It's mostly cold storage. That's my question and thoughts on it. But it's not set in stone. I'm open to idea's that accomplish the same as long as my 1TB demand is met. The 1TB is very important for me.

How can I scan a single drive? The scan button starts scanning all my drives. The only test for one disk is the one that tests the throughput. Is that what the scanner button does?

Will native 4k drives have a higher performance than 512kb drives? Obviously if all other things like rpm, cache, etc are the same. Regular 51kb drives can be formatted with 4k blocks too. Any drawbacks to the 4k? And..... why should my next drive be native 4k....?

I got it fixed by removing the duplication and then re-enabling it again.

I've added some extra space to the pool. Remeasured. See picture for the result.

It's a small pool with different sized drves. 500GB, 1TB, 2TB. To my best knowledge there is (far)less that 1TB in the pool (unduplicated.) *** I've remeasured and balanced several times. Less than a GB in total is outside the pool. All drives show free space. I would think at least one of the drives would be 100% full before duplication isn't possible anymore.

Pool of 3 HDDs. Nothing outside the pool folders except the usual hidden folders created by Windows (System Violume information, Recyclebin Recyclebins are empty Remeasured. Rebalanced.. Still it reports: - 340GB as not usable for duplication. (varies a bit every recheck) - 76GB Other. - 164GB unduplicated. Windows reports 791GB free space on the entire pool. How can I reclaim the 'lost' space?

It was not Scanner that resets, but Windows boot time repair. Scanner was never even able to see the disk.

Just check progress and the automatic repair is completed. Windows booted. The drive shows in 'This PC" but isn't accessible. Computer management sees the drive too, but it takes 5 minutes to open Computer Management. Something obviously isn't ok. The disk is marked as Healthy (Primary partition) Scanner reports 9919 damage sectors. No SMART problems. Scanner is slow starting up and becomes unresponsive when asked some info about the disk. Running a recovery tool now for over 20 hours. 8 hours to go.... like 20 hours ago. But it seems to work, it keeps finding files. Can't say they are really recoverable, but so far so good.