Drive removal taking forever WHS2011 need advise

[gwtony]

I have searched for this and found it to be a problem, but I am not able to find some help for what is going on with my situation. 

I have 4 drives (2, 2TB, 2, 4TB), on WHS 2011 using drivepool ver 1.3.6.7585, all the drives are using around 70% capacity (average) 

The only thing wrong with the drive is a head parking count, but scanner or home server smart is not projecting any failure.

 

I tagged one of the 2TB drives for removal and it is not showing any progress at all after 20 hours. if I go into "drives" it shows that is has a remaining capacity of 700GB, in "removing" status and this has been like that the entire time. I have found that I can tell the pool not to use the drive in advanced settings, but now I have to stop the removal process to do that. 

 

I need some help here... What should I do? Should I stop the process and then tell the pool not to use the drive? (I don't know how to stop the removal process)

I just don't think it's actually working because it's not showing any progress and the drives are not getting any warmer indicating they are working hard.

 

Please help, thank you

 

 

[gwtony]

Final update: after using "File Placement Limiter" (Above we were calling it something different) there was a progress bar and arrows showing the activity, which was nice, and that took a while, but not too crazy long considering the amount of data. After the data was moved off the drive as requested from file placement limiter plug in, I selected the drive for removal and that took maybe 5 minutes, Once the drive was not being used, the pool displayed the available space after which I shut down the server, removed the 2tb drive and installed a new 4tb drive in it's place, after reboot, I chose to use the RAW drive without assigning a drive letter so the pool would just use the entire drive. Done deal, more space, nothing missing! Thanks for the help!

[gwtony]

after work I logged into the server and seen the drive was not removed... something must have gone wrong, but i'm not sure what?

I guess I will try another way to remove the drive, it shows there are some un duplicated files on the drive, so I don't want to just unplug it. 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Restarting the system would have stopped the removal process.  

 

If you want to upload the logs form the system, I can take a look and see why.

 

 

 

 

As for the Load Cycle Count SMART value, if that's the only thing wrong with the drive, then it should be fine. If you're seeing performance issues or other SMART errors, then yes, replace the drive. Otherwise, it should be fine.

 

 

 

And yes, using the "Disk Space Limiter" balancer is a good way to clear out the drives without having to remove them from the pool (yet). 

[gwtony]

Thank you for the reply. The server was not reset, BUT I did change settings in "drive space limiter" during the removal process, so I imagine that is what stopped the removal process. I am actually removing the 2tb drive and installing a larger 4tb drive for some more space. I have been taking some aerial videos with a drone and doing some other videos that are taking up the space. It's not for business, all personal use for fun and enjoyment, there are also some videos from my racing drone on there. It looks like things are under control at the moment using the Disk Space Limiter option prior to removal.

I have a new problem developing on the server computer now... I think the motherboard or something on it is going bad, during boot it goes to the black screen, shows a couple hard drives, then just goes black... I ma not able to get to the bios or anything, I keep restarting and eventually it boots normally and WHS OS does not log any failures. If and when I build a new server, there will be many more questions on how I can rebuild the pool with the old drives and not having to actually copy the data if possible. 

 

As you can see by the pictures, Drivepool is showing progress status so it appears to be working. 

[gwtony]

Another update:

now when I go into the pool tab I can actually SEE arrows showing progress and SEE that drivepool is doing something. The "disk space limiter: option is a very good way to remove a drive.

I just wanted to put this up to let you know that this forum has once again helped me through a process, and offered different options on performing a certain task. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sd2je1l8qgt1rxi/pool2.JPG?dl=0

Some time during this winter I may need to move all the drives into another computer and rebuild the pool that way, but that is another question for another topic. 

I am going to wait until this evening to document the final removal process before I mark this "solved" because I may encounter something else that would be helpful for others.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Sorry, yes, we changed the name in the 2.X version, due to the File Placement Rules.  To avoid confusing between the balancer and the feature.  I apologize for that catching that.

 

 

And glad to hear that everything went seamlessly after you figured everything out.