Clearing disk with "Drive Usage Limiter" is stuck in an endless loop

[cryodream]

Couple of days ago Scanner notified about another drive with SMART warnings. Reallocated Sectors Count was 318. I did not have any duplication set on that pool at that time. The problematic disk contained all my F1 races, which would be a disaster to loose, so I decided to play it safe and remove the drive.

 

As per instructions here StableBit Manual, If I use the drive remove option, the pool goes into read-only mode until all the files are moved from the drive, which I did not want. So I decided to use the Drive Usage Limiter balancer to clear the drive ( I don't use it and have it disabled usually).

 

Step 1.

Before hand I decided to play safe and duplicate the F1 folder residing on that drive. So I set 2x duplication on that folder ant let it run. It took a very long time (~12 hours or so) to duplicate ~1.5TB of data. I mean compared to simply copying it someplace else.

 

Further more, duplication failed with warnings. Some files failed to duplicate with The request could not be performed because of an I/O error. The weird and annoying thing is, that scanner showed no damage. I simply copied the failed files from the pool to another disk. Ran reduplication again, and again warnings and failed files with the same I/O errors. Again I simply copied the failed files from the pool. Another annoying thing: Duplication Warnings window shows only so many files (like 9-10) that have failed, not all of them, why oh why? I had to rerun duplication and copy failed files (9-10 files at a time, only those shown in the error messages window) like 5-6 times. Why not show list off all failed files? Or better even give an option to save a list to text file? Or give us an easy way to access a log?

Notice, how DP failed duplicating (reading?) the files on the drive multiple times, and at the same time, I copied them of the pool using Directory Opus without no problems. No problems at all, like nothing happened. Question then, why the hell DP was failing on duplicating those files with I/O errors?

 

Anyway, when I first saw I/O errors I panicked the files were lost, but when I managed to copy them out and sort this shit out, I was happy and moved on.

 

Step 2.

I enabled the Drive Usage Limiter balancer and uncheked both checkboxes for duplicated and unduplicated files from the offending disk (only from this single disk, all others have both checked).

 

I waited for DP to move files out, nothing happened for a long time. I search the forums, and tweaked the global balancer settings: unchecked hours limit and set ratio too 100%. Then DP finally started the balancing.

 

So now it's been about ~20 hours or so, and it's still not finished. The drive had ~1.6TB on it. For the last 3 hours or so it is stuck in the crazy loop:

 

Lets call the drive to be cleared drive11. There are 31 drives in the pool atm. What Drivepool is doing for the last 3 hours or more, is actually moving the last ~100GB from drive11 to another drive (let's call it drive08) and back again.

 

Seriously, I noticed it and was like wtf? But now I'm letting it run and see what happens. Even more weird is, that from all the other 30 drives on the pool, that drive08 is the most full. It has the least amount of free space left. Too little, by my settings (check screens below), but when the balancing which moved files from drive11 to drive08 finishes, drive08 has only ~90GBs of free space left! There are many other drives in the pool with >500, >600 GBs of free space left.

 

So all Drivepool does now, is move the files from drive11 to drive08, finally emptying the drive11, which I want... Then it sits for a minute, and starts re-balancing again and them moves ~100GB of files back from drive08 to drive11, which has been set as to not accept any files, neither duplicated nor unduplicated. But dp it seems, says "f*** that", let's put some back, why not. And after a minute it starts again, and empties drive11 again, but where does it copy the files - of course, drive 08! Back and forth, again and again. What is happening?

 

What's with the crazy endless loop?

 

Why DP copies files to drive08, when settings specifically say, not to fill beyond 170GB of free space in the Prevent Drive Overfill balancer?

 

Why is this happening? And how do I stop it and fix it?

 

 

My system and settings:

Windows 8.1

DrivePool 2.2.0.651 Beta

If any more info needed, let me know.

 

I have NO forder or file placement rules set at all.

 

Balacer settings:

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[cryodream]

So I got bored waiting, and used the remove button, while the loop was in the "right position", ie: when the drive was emptied. And removed the drive from the pool.

 

Though the questions remain, what the hell was happening and why?

 

 

Edit:

I removed the offending drive and disabled Drive Usage Limiter balancer.

I do not like having too little free space on the drive, and after this stupid looping drive08 has only 96GB of free space left. Even though Prevent Drive Overfill balancer should not allow this.

So I launch re-measure to try and re-balance to move files of drive08. Re-measuring took almost 15 minutes for some reason, while before it always took probably less than a minute.

 

Why the re-measuring was taking so long now and how do I trigger the balancing to move some files off the drive08?