Help understand DrivePool

[abba77]

Hi,

I have 8 hard drives. I was using FlexRaid with 6 drives as DRUs and 2 as PPUs. All DRUs have data on it, mostly half full, and was using FlexRaid pooling.

 

I have moved away from FlexRaid and will go with Stablebit Scanner and DrivePool with SnapRaid. Before running SnapRaid, I want to setup the DrivePool.

 

In FlexRaid pooling, one drive letter would appear showing all files from the 6 drives and the drives letter unmounted using NTFS folders. It was easier to just map 1 drive letter in XBMC or for network shares. I created my base folder before pooling so that I could have new files go into those folders and on to specific drives, which seems to work for the most part.

 

How does this work with DrivePool? I created the pool, but the pool is empty, which I read would happen. The drives also remain individually so that I can read and manage the existing data. I also disable balancing to keep the files where they are for the most part. If you have data, is the pool on a go forward basis only and mostly for duplication functions?

 

How can I make it work like I had with FlexRaid? Do I move the files from the individual drives to the pool, eventually emptying my individual drives? Do i then forget about balancing or not and DrivePool will decide everything? Can i unmount drive letters from the individual drives after the pool is created or should it be done before.

 

If I need to completely rethink pooling to a new way, how do people use it here?

[abba77]

ok just found about seeding drives. now looking into mounted drives and snapraid also.

may leave the drive letters there anyway.

 

I assume I should never add/remove/move files around in the individual drives PoolPart.xxx folders with the service running and if not resetting the pool settings?

[abba77]

a crazy question. what happens if i leave the pooling service off?

 

What if I just want the files in the all PoolPart.xxx folders in each drive appear as 1 drive, and dont want to use the balancing and duplication features? that way i can manage files in the pool, or in the individual drives without worrying about anything going wrong? not sure if this was possible just within windows 7 itself.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, I'm glad that you found the seeding guide.  

 

And yes, you shouldn't move files around while the service is running. Though, this isn't a requirement (it's to prevent issues from occuring due to balancing/duplication). 

However, ANY time you move files around in the Poolpart folders (add, delete, modify, move, etc), you should alway remeasure the pool or reset it's settings. 

 

As for the service, since it does a number of other things (not just duplication and balancing), we highly recommend that you leave it running.

However, you can disable balancing in the Pool Options section, so that it doesn't move files around. And you can turn off duplication (it should be off by default).

 

 

 

Additionally, we have multiple threads that talk about how to set up StableBit DrivePool to use with SnapRAID and FlexRAID:

http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/52-faq-parity-and-duplication-and-drivepool/