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Merge or combine multiple pools?


tlwizard

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I've been running Stable Bit on my HP X510 running WHS 2011. I just built a new server as I was running out of space.

 

After building the new server (and not realizing I could simply move the old hard drives to the new server and rebuild the pool), I created a new pool and started transferring data over my network. The new pool is drive Z. It was taking a really long time to transfer stuff, so did some research (too late) and saw that I could move the hard disks over. I have now moved the leftover disks over and they rebuilt the old pool F.

 

So on my new server I have two pools, Z and F, and am wondering if there is a way to merge the two pools. I don't currently have enough space to remove each of the F pool's disks from the pool and then reintegrate. So if there's not a way to merge, it looks like I'll have to reinstall F to the old server and start transferring the files again.

 

Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!

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There isn't a way to merge them ... yet. (Would you mind submitting a feature request ticket, because that is a really good idea: http://stablebit.com/Contact)

 

And there is a really simple way. Stop the StableBit DrivePool Service manually (run "Services" or "service.msc" on the server, find that service and stop it).

Once it's stopped, you know that "really easy way to migrate to DrivePool", do that in reverse, basically.  Move the contents of the hidden "PoolPart.xxx" folders to the root of the drives. DO that for all the drives that are in the pool you want to get rid of. Then start the service, and remove the drives from the pool. Then add them to the remaining pool. Then stop the service again, and copy the files into the newly created "PoolPart.xxxx" folders, and start the service again.

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Thanks for the response.

 

And just to clarify, if both pools have the Documents folder, when I follow the instructions above the separate Documents folders will combine and not overwrite or anything, correct?

 

Also, on the old pool F (made up of physical drive E and H), a Video_TS folder's contents is split amongst both drives. When the folders are moved out of the pool and into the new pool, the Video_TS folder contents will appear recombined on the pooled drive?

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Hi, I've just tried this, but when I tried removing the drives, it wouldn't saying there was a corrupt directory (or similar message)

 

Notes; even after removing the contents of the poolpart to the root while the service was stopped, once started, it thought that there were still files to duplicate*, (for which there is not enough space), rather than an empty pool with storage shown as 'other' as I expected)

*This is probably because both of the drives in the 2nd pool were originally in the 1st pool, and at least one of those was only storing duplicated files (so it is presumably trying to duplicate them again, since they are unduplicated in this new pool)

I got to the state of having a new pool when I merged partitions on the disk(s). They were small unused partitions (60Gb, 20Gb) which I wanted to merge to the main one rather than adding them to the pool). I was expecting Drivepool to just see larger partitions, and therefore more space for the pool, but in fact it created a new pool with those 2 drives/partitions.

 

Suggestions please?

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I'm not quite sure what you've done (possibly merging the partitions has confused DrivePool?) but if you want to start over, you could try:

  • stopping the service
  • manually renaming all of the poolpart folders (hidden or not hidden) to have an 'x' in front of them (e.g. 'd:\poolpart.blah' -> 'd:\xpoolpart.blah')
  • restarting the service (it should now show NO pools)
  • creating a new pool with the settings you want
  • stopping the service
  • moving the content you want from the old (renamed) poolparts into the new poolparts
  • restarting the service
  • select Manage Pool -> Re-measure... to tell DrivePool that it should re-examine the content of the pool
  • after that finishes, select Cog icon -> Troubleshooting -> Recheck duplication... to tell DrivePool that it should re-check all files to have the duplication you want them to have.
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Moving around files can be ... tricky.  If you didn't move *all* of the files out of all of the pool parts, the it may want to reduplicate them, because they're missing now and not properly duplicated. 

What shane recommends is pretty much what I'd recommend, though: 
https://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_F1655

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Thanks for that. I didn't delete the 'empty' poolpart directories above, so that might have confused things? But when I did delete the poolpart directories from the 2 drives, though the relevant pool disappeared, the drives are not available to add again to the original pool. I guess that the procedure above is the option to go with, but I'm a bit concerned that again the drives won't show up as available to add. At least I haven't lost any data :-)

So the question is, how do I get the drives to show up, so I can add them to the pool? They are normal basic NTFS partitions. I've done a fair bit of searching. I also restored the poolpart folders and contents, and the pool came back, but the drives still weren't visible to be added once I renamed the poolpart folders as per above.

Tx

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