Need Help! Replace a drive in the pool?

[Blackjack]

Hi, i have a drivepool without dublication, its just a pool with different drives without redundancy. I want to replace a small HDD with a new one but i want to keep all my data.

What should i do to replace the hdd? I dont find the option "Remove HDD from pool and copy all content from this hdd to the pool".

Need help.

[VapechiK]

 

hi.  the quick and easy way is as follows...

in windows/file explorer, enable 'show hidden files and folders.'

open DP gui go to 'Manage Pool^'  'Balancing...' 'Settings' tab and tick 'do not balance automatically' and UNTICK 'allow balancing plug-ins to force blah blah.'  SAVE

ensure the drive you want to remove is mounted either as a drive letter or in a folder somewhere so it can be accessed in explorer.  power down your computer, add the new drive, power back up and format/mount it however you want in 'Disk Management.'  go to DrivePool gui and add the new drive to the pool.  while still in the DP gui click 'Remove' on the drive you wish to remove.  leave all the removal options UNCHECKED and remove it.

run 'services.msc' and stop the DrivePool service.  the DP gui will disappear.  then in explorer, in the old/small hdd, navigate to inside the hidden 'poolpart.xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx' folder and highlight/select all the folders and files within.  right click > select 'Copy.'  then navigate to the new hdd and 'Paste' your data on the root level.  when it finishes copying and you are satisfied that a 'bit for bit' copy of all the data has occurred,  drag/drop the newly copied data into the hidden poolpart folder on the new drive.  restart DrivePool service/gui.  Manage Pool^ > Re-measure > Re-measure.  when re-measuring has completed and you have a solid green 'Pool Organization' bar, go back to the above second step and reset your balancing settings to however they were.  SAVE.  reboot.  viola... done.  

you may find this link useful to understand the seeding process.

https://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4142489 

TL;DR

1.  show hidden
2.  disable automatic balancing, SAVE
3.  add/remove drives to/from pool
4.  STOP DrivePool service
5.  copy data from old drive to new drive and move it to the poolpart folder on new drive
6.  restart DrivePool service
7.  re-measure pool
8.  reset whatever balancing settings, SAVE
9.  reboot
10. enjoy DrivePool goodness

if you have any custom balancing plug-in settings enabled (i.e. Disk Space Equalizer) DrivePool will probably begin balancing in the background after you reboot.  this is normal, just let it do its thing.  the above process is really only practical with unduplicated pools, and i have used it many times swapping out 4TB drives for 8TB.  i also run my pool with no duplication and have no balancers enabled so all my data stays exactly where i put it on the underlying drives.  hope this helps...

cheers
 

[Shane]

If you're simply wanting to keep the data that's already in your pool, just Add the new drive first then Remove the old drive second; DrivePool will automatically move the data to whatever drive(s) has the most free space (so most likely your new drive) as part of the process. If it turns out there isn't enough room on the remaining drive(s) it'll just stop at that point, you won't lose anything.

VapechiK's method above is for if you want to move files from outside your pool to inside your pool as absolutely quickly as possible when the drive(s) those files are on are going to be added to the pool, and can also be used (with some changes) if you want to move data from an old pool drive to a new pool drive for the same reason (the Remove function is slower since it has to keep all of the pool's features going while moving the data in the background).

TLDR: if you're not in a rush, Add the new drive first then Remove the old drive second, DrivePool will take care of moving your pooled data and you can keep using your pool for other things while it does it.

[Blackjack]

Thanks VapechiK for your detailed answer and thanks Shane  Oh really interessting that the software handle this, this is not explained in the removal process but thanks i understand now.