Configuring DrivePool

[bakedcorn]

Hello...

 

I initially configured the pool by simply adding empty drives and everything was kosher.  I managed to copy over some folders without incident.  I then came across snapraid.

 

So I started over, I simply deleted the drive volumes and this time recreated the pool via folder mount points.

 

Hardware:

2x3TB

2x4TB

 

Pool setup:

1x3TB

1x3TB

1x4TB

 

HDD1 is mounted to C:\DrivePoolArray\DRU1

HDD2 is mounted to C:\DrivePoolArray\DRU2

HDD3 is mounted to C:\DrivePoolArray\DRU3

 

Snapraid:

1x4TB is mounted physically using the root of the drive via drive letter P and aptly named PRU1.

 

I then proceeded to "robocopy" the media content from my backup drives to the pool.  Robocopy is used so that I can preserve the file/folder attributes.

 

I opened up the pool via drive V and noticed nothing is being displayed.  However If I unhide protected files/folder:

 

V:\HD

 

After reading some other posts I confirmed that the "HD" or the newly created media folder is present.

 

C:\DrivePoolArray\DRU1\PoolPart.7a5d0861-96f9-464a-8ca7-466e49655823\HD

 

Please note that if I use Windows Explorer to explore the "DrivePool V:" I can freely create and delete files and folders etc.

 

If I revert back to simply adding the physical drives to the pool without using foder mounts, everything is as it should be - I can use Robocopy to copy the various media folders without issue - no need to unhide anything.

 

I only decided to mount via the folder method as it seems to be the defacto when reading through the posts/forums.

 

As for snapraid, I have it configured as it should but I don't see how it can be causing this issue.

 

Please note that I have disabled all the balancing and reset all settings via the troubleshooter of Drivepool.

 

Any way of unhiding the HD folder so that I can stream via Plex to the various smart devices?

 

Or (which I'm sure) missed a critical step or two?

 

Thanks

 

Addendum...

 

Ok, I have defaulted the application and have recreated the drivepool every which way I could including formatting all the drives individually and creating new pools but I cannot figure out for the life of me as to why the media folder or any other folder would eventually be hidden.  Apologies as I'm a bit flustered after spending numerous hours on this!  

 

Addendum #2....

 

As taken from the stablebit website:

When you copy a new file to the pool, StableBit DrivePool automatically picks one or more drives from the ones that you've added to the pool to store that new file. The file will be stored in a hidden folder on those drives.

 

Apologies but my logic is failing me as I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that pooling drives should allow me to "advertise" the folders and not hide them i.e. how will Plex and my SmartTV work if the folders of interest are hidden?

 

Again, thank you.

[bakedcorn]

So I decided to logically approach this issue from a different perspective.    Why would the folder remain present and unhidden when creating from Windows Explorer but as soon as I initiated the copy command all the contents of that folder would go hidden?

 

I had some spare time during lunch the other day and decided to actually perform a google search on robocopy and hidden folders.  To my surprise there were a number of entries.  Apparently for whatever reason, robocopy tends to create the folder and then apply the hidden and system attribute.

 

So, with this information I ran robocopy utilizing the /A-:SH attribute and to my surprise, the folder created and its subfolders are no longer hidden.

 

Thank you Microsoft for this value-add feature.

 

As for Stablebit Drivepool, please accept my apologies for this mishap and a huge thank you to the forum members who took their time to review and provide valuable insight on my issue.

 

Thank you.

 

Please consider the incident solved and case closed

 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

As for SnapRAID: 

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

 

We don't officially support it, but you shouldn't have issues using it. 

 

 

Addendum 1:

 

Ok, I have defaulted the application and have recreated the drivepool every which way I could including formatting all the drives individually and creating new pools but I cannot figure out for the life of me as to why the media folder or any other folder would eventually be hidden.  Apologies as I'm a bit flustered after spending numerous hours on this!  

 

I'm not sure what you mean here, but probably related to below. 

 

 

Addendum #2....

 

As taken from the stablebit website:

When you copy a new file to the pool, StableBit DrivePool automatically picks one or more drives from the ones that you've added to the pool to store that new file. The file will be stored in a hidden folder on those drives.

 

Apologies but my logic is failing me as I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that pooling drives should allow me to "advertise" the folders and not hide them i.e. how will Plex and my SmartTV work if the folders of interest are hidden?

 

Again, thank you.

 

The hidden file referred to is the "PoolPart.xxxxx" folder.  These folders are where the actual pooled content is stored, and accessed. 

 

When a program accesses the pool, the pool driver redirects the access (internally, so it's seemless) to these files instead. This way, whatever app sees the files as normal.   

 

For instance, I have a massive media library.  As in close to 40TBs of data.  All the data is spread out between the drives. But the pool shows it as a single drive, which plex (well, Emby in my case) accesses like normal. 

[Spider99]

the way i did it was 

 

create the pool the same way you did (you dont have to even mount the drives if you dont want to or assign them a letter)

 

once pool configured for size/dup etc

 

create a share folder on the pool drive - i.e. treat the drivepool drive V: as if it were a real drive - to the system it is

 

so v:\test this is then visible across your network - robocopy should be able to see the share and if you have your permissions correct - copy across some data to the test directory

 

the data should appear in V:\test\HD..... in reality its in C:\DrivePoolArray\DRUX\poolpart\test\HD - hopefully being duplicated across your other drives

 

the difference i think is you have bypassed the drivepool drive by pointing robocopy directly to the physical drive

 

See how you go with that

[bakedcorn]

Thanks for the response...

 

I'm still having difficulty wrapping my head around DrivePool.  Currently I've copying my backup drive contents to the newly created pool in this drive V:

At this moment, the directory structure being copied is as follows:

 

robocopy W:\ V:\ /E /COPYALL /COPY:DAT

 

Now, if I peruse the drivepool, I can see those directories with the media in them.

 

However If i were to create a folder at the root of drive v i.e. HD and then run the following command:

 

robocopy W:\ V:\HD /E /COPYALL /COPY:DAT

 

The HD folder goes hidden.

 

Thus my goal is have something like this:

 

V:

-HD

------Individual folders

 

V:

-Television

-----Individual folders

 

V:

-Music

--------Individual folders

 

and so on.

 

Am I missing something here?

 

I came from Flexraid and StorageSpaces so maybe Drivepool is obviously doing something different.

 

Again appreciate the response(s).

[bakedcorn]

the way i did it was 

 

create the pool the same way you did (you dont have to even mount the drives if you dont want to or assign them a letter)

 

once pool configured for size/dup etc

 

create a share folder on the pool drive - i.e. treat the drivepool drive V: as if it were a real drive - to the system it is

 

so v:\test this is then visible across your network - robocopy should be able to see the share and if you have your permissions correct - copy across some data to the test directory

 

the data should appear in V:\test\HD..... in reality its in C:\DrivePoolArray\DRUX\poolpart\test\HD - hopefully being duplicated across your other drives

 

the difference i think is you have bypassed the drivepool drive by pointing robocopy directly to the physical drive

 

See how you go with that

Hmmm, interesting....

 

robocopy W:\ V:\HD /E /COPYALL /COPY:DAT

 

V is the actual drivepool that I created using the mounted drives.

 

The drivepool drive in this case is V, no or is it the physical drive - so confused - LOL!

 

I was expecting drivepool to behave like Flexraid and storagespaces (or vice-versa) whereby I can view those folders and subfolders without unhiding things.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Install the latest beta build then. 

 

There was an issue with the root drive and some odd behavior recently, and that should be fixed.

http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/StableBit.DrivePool_2.2.0.721_x64_BETA.exe

[bakedcorn]

Install the latest beta build then. 

 

There was an issue with the root drive and some odd behavior recently, and that should be fixed.

http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/StableBit.DrivePool_2.2.0.721_x64_BETA.exe

I appreciate the quick response.

 

I installed the BETA from the link you provided, however no joy!

 

The root folder copied to the root of the Drivepool still goes into a hidden state when copying contents to that root folder.

 

Please note that I have disabled all duplication so not sure if I'm messing up.

 

Thank you

[Spider99]

Ok

 

if i understand you

 

you have snap raid with drivepool on "top" and a separate parity drive 

 

once you have the beta loaded you should be able to do what you want

 

easy way to tell if its the pool drive is the size which should be about ~9TB

 

in explorer you should see you c: v: and possibly the parity drive (but i would guess not)

 

i did not see the v:\ issue as i always have a top level directory m:\Mulitmedia then sub directories below that \Movies  \Music etc - root drives can be a bit picky sometimes

 

Question - why parity over duplication or are you going to do duplication as well?

[bakedcorn]

Ok

 

if i understand you

 

you have snap raid with drivepool on "top" and a separate parity drive

 

once you have the beta loaded you should be able to do what you want

 

easy way to tell if its the pool drive is the size which should be about ~9TB

 

in explorer you should see you c: v: and possibly the parity drive (but i would guess not)

 

i did not see the v:\ issue as i always have a top level directory m:\Mulitmedia then sub directories below that \Movies \Music etc - root drives can be a bit picky sometimes

 

Question - why parity over duplication or are you going to do duplication as well?

Hi Spider99

 

Correct snapraid and drivepool for parity purposes.

 

Also correct on the drivepool size of 9TB.

 

For some reason I can copy all the individual folders to the root of drive V however if I were to create a parent or root folder in this case HD or Music and then copy into those folders, the entire folder goes hidden.

 

Example

V:\HD\Blazing Monkeys\Blazing Monkeys.mkv

 

The HD folder and those sub-folders get hidden from view.

 

V:\Blazing Monkeys\Blazing Monkeys.mkv

 

It's viewable as it's not hidden.

 

As for duplication I'm worried about storage usage as double the space would be required if all the data is to be duplicated.

 

This is why I have disabled duplication for now.

 

Hopefully this helps and thanks

 

[Spider99]

lol it did cross my mind but MS would not be that stupid!

[bakedcorn]

No never at all! Lol.

 

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, glad you were able to identify the issue, and fix it.  Though, yeah, that is very odd behavior..... 

 

 

And personal note made, for future reference.