How do I remove a pool inside a pool?

[RumbleDrum]

No clue how this happened (thinking user error 😁) but I now have two pools on my server. My main pool "Y" is now inside a new pool "E". This happened after I pulled a smaller capacity drive from "Y" and replaced it with a larger capacity drive...I don't recall doing anything other than removing the old drive from the pool, changing the drive letter of the replacement drive to match the old drive, and then adding the new drive to the existing pool. Lo and behold, I now have Pool "E" and Pool "Y". The contents of Pool "Y" (the original) shows three drives (P, Q and R) which is expected. The contents of Pool "E" shows only Pool "Y" - no individual drives. 

Is there a way to simply delete Pool "E", or perhaps move Pool "Y" out from under Pool "E" and then delete Pool "E"?

This is all very early in the setup of my new server so I have no issues starting over from scratch if that is the easiest / best way forward. If starting from scratch is the thing to do, how do I get rid of both existing pools?

 Thanks much!

Edited June 24 by RumbleDrum
Adding pics for clarity

[VapechiK]

hhmmm yes, seems a hierarchal pool was inadvertently/unintentionally created.  i have no idea of your skill level so if you're not comfortable with any of the below... you should go to https://stablebit.com/Contact and open a ticket.  in any event removing drives/pools from DrivePool in the DrivePool GUI should NEVER delete your files/data on the underlying physical drives, as any 'pooled drive' is just a virtual placeholder anyway. 

if you haven't already, enable 'show hidden files and folders.'  then (not knowing what your balancing/duplication settings are), under 'Manage Pool ^  > Balancing...'  ensure 'Do not balance automatically' IS checked, and 'Allow balancing plug-ins to force etc. etc...' IS NOT checked for BOTH pools. SAVE.  we don't want DP to try to run a balance pass while resolving this. maybe take a SS of the settings on DrivePool (Y:) before changing them.

so DrivePool (E:) is showing all data to be 'Other' and DrivePool (Y:) appears to be duplicated (x2).  i say this based on the shade of blue; the 2nd SS is cut off before it shows a green 'x2' thingy (if it's even there), and drives Q & R are showing unconventional total space available numbers.  the important thing here is that DP (E:) is showing all data as 'Other.'

under the DrivePool (E:) GUI it's just as simple as clicking the -Remove link for DP (Y:) and then Remove on the confirmation box.  the 3 checkable options can be ignored because DrivePool (E:) has no actual 'pooled' data in the pool and those are mostly evacuation options for StableBit Scanner anyway.  once that's done DrivePool (E:) should just poof disappear as Y: was the only 'disk' in it, and the GUI should automatically switch back to DrivePool (Y:).

at this point, i would STOP the StableBit DrivePool service using Run > services.msc (the DP GUI will disappear), then check the underlying drives in DrivePool (Y:) (drives P, Q, & R in File Explorer) for maybe an additional PoolPart.XXXXXXXX folder that is EMPTY and delete it (careful don't delete the full hidden PoolPart folders that contain data on the Y: pool).  then restart the DP service and go to 'Manage Pool^ > Balancing...' and reset any changed settings back the way you had/like them. SAVE.  if a remeasure doesn't start immediately do Manage Pool^ > Re-measure > Re-measure.

i run a pool of 6 spinners with no duplication.  this is OK for me because i am OCD about having backups.  i have many USB enclosures and have played around some with duplication and hierarchal pools with spare/old hdds and ssds in the past and your issue seems an easy quick fix.  i can't remember whether DP will automatically delete old PoolPart folders from removed hierarchal pools or just make them 'unhidden.'  perhaps @Shane or @Christopher (Drashna) will add more.

Cheers  

Edited June 25 by VapechiK
removed erroneous information. i forgot DP 'nests' PoolPart folders when a hierarchal pool is created. DOH! :)

[Shane]

12 hours ago, RumbleDrum said:

My main pool "Y" is now inside a new pool "E".

Other way around, actually. I can understand the confusion but when the DrivePool interface says "this pool is part of pool (name)" it means that "this pool" is supplying free space to the named pool. So instead of "inside" one should say "under" or "supporting", as pool Y is "part of" pool E in the sense that pool Y is "supplying free space to" pool E.

12 hours ago, RumbleDrum said:

I don't recall doing anything other than removing the old drive from the pool, changing the drive letter of the replacement drive to match the old drive, and then adding the new drive to the existing pool. Lo and behold, I now have Pool "E" and Pool "Y". The contents of Pool "Y" (the original) shows three drives (P, Q and R) which is expected. The contents of Pool "E" shows only Pool "Y" - no individual drives. 

Yeah, that's really weird. Only thing I can think of is that some pool structure metadata that should've been flushed with the removal of the old drive... wasn't... and then nesting somehow happened. Or the new drive already had a poolpart on it? Normally with the screenshots you've provided I'd just say "in drivepool E: (the one with all grey used space) click Remove on Y: (the single "drive" in the pooled section) and then the new pool should be gone" - the same as what VapechiK suggested in their fourth paragraph. If you're truly not worried about starting from scratch, I'd try that and see what happens.

Otherwise - if you were worried about starting from scratch - I'd first check what "dpcmd list-poolparts y:" and "dpcmd list-poolparts e:" would return (run as administrator in a command prompt), followed by what "dir X:\poolpart.* /s /b /ad" command run on each of the drives (replacing X with P, Q and then R) would return (ditto); if it returned a normal "pool in a pool" structure then proceed as above otherwise it'd be time to either manually reconstruct the original pool or open a support ticket.

[RumbleDrum]

@Shane and @VapechiK - Thank you both for the fantastic, detailed information! As it seemed like the easiest thing to start with, I followed VapechiK's instructions from paragraph 4 of their reply to simply remove the link for DP (Y:) under DP (E:) and it worked instantly, and without issue! 

Again, I thanks for taking the time to provide solutions, it really is appreciated!

Thanks much!