Identical Pools

[LaFlamaBlanca]

I just got Drivepool and started using it. I’m using it on a computer for cctv needs. Im using a program called blue iris. I already pooled eight 18tb WD purple drives to save video for some cameras. That was easy. 

Here is my next issue/ question.

There are six cameras I have to save 24/7 365 days of video and audio. I have a few options for redundancy/backup.

I was originally going to record each camera to its own HD in my computer. Clone the camera in Blue Iris and again record each cameras to its own HD in an external enclosure. This would act almost like a RAID 1. Due to some program limits this will cause other issues I’d like to avoid.

 

So, now Im thinking of using Drivepool in one of two ways.

Option 1: Drivepool the six HDs in the computer and enclosure and have the cameras and cloned cameras record to their respective pool. What I don’t like about this, is if i lose a drive, I can’t easily copy the same HD and keep going, like the above option. One positive, if Drivepool detects a bad drive early it will notify and remove the data from that drive.

 

Option 2: Drivepool the six HDs inside the computer with the six HDs in the enclosure (12 total) and let Drivepool duplicate all files. This will give me some solid redundancy for a possible drive failure. My concern is Drivepools ability to do this effectively when the recording is 24/7 365. Seems like a lot of work and may cause issues. 

 

Im open to any suggestions. Im stoked I found Drivepool, now I just need to figure it all out for my situation. Thank you.

 

Computer Setup

i9-14900

64gb DDR5 Ram

Nvidia 4070 16gb Graphics Card

1TB Samsungs 990 Pro OS Drive NVME

4TB WD Black Drive NVME

14 x 18tb WD Purple

 

Thunderbolt 6 Bay Enclosure with 6 18tb WD Purple

Thunderbolt 2 Bay Enclosure RAID-1 2 18tb WD Red Pro

[Shane]

DrivePool's duplication in real-time mode shouldn't have a problem; the performance hit is quite small. Schedule-based duplication may or may not be problematic depending on camera outputs vs drive/connection performance (e.g. will there be issues with recording streams to a drive if previous recordings on the drive are also being read). Also schedule-based duplication will not duplicate any files that are being held open for writing at the time).

Other concerns that come to mind:

• Free space of drives versus free space of pool. The pool reports the combined free space to Windows/apps, but any given file is limited to the free space of the drive being written to - e.g. if your app needs to record 2TB of video to the pool as a single file and the drives in the pool have 3TB combined free but only 1TB free on any given drive then the app will unexpectedly run out of space; some apps don't handle this well. However if you can know the largest recording will be X size (e.g. maybe the app has a splitting option) then you can set the pool to fill each drive to less than capacity-X to avoid this problem.
   
• In the event of a drive in a pool failing completely/suddenly, DrivePool switches that pool to read-only to prevent potential file conflicts; this is not optimal if you're wanting the (other) cameras using that pool to continue recording. You may wish to consider multiple pools (e.g. one per X cameras)* and/or a pool consisting of (via software or hardware) multiple RAID1 mirrored pairs, RAID5 striped sets or similar, so that in the event of drive failure(s) an affected pool can remain writable while using Scanner or similar to notify you of the failure.

*This may also be desirable depending on the bandwidth required by the cameras plus any expected maintenance / user operations versus the speed of the drives.

[LaFlamaBlanca]

After some reading and input, Im gonna change up. 

 

Im going to pool the 14 inside drives into two 7-HDD pools. Each pool will be separate but identical using the CCTV software. I will limit the data to only take up six drives worth of space to allow room if a drive fails in the future. This gives me backup and failsafe.

 

Thank you for the input!