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Server 2016 built in Pool VS SDP...


TeleFragger

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Ok so I own Stablebit Drive Pool (SDP) and love it.. does what it is suppose to. I have been holding of for almost a year to do a new machine and get things rolling and now that time is here.

Upon messing around I see there is the ability to add drive pools in the server os..

 

can you list out the benefit of SDP over the internal pool?

 

Like said I own it and going to install it but curious on what I am getting over the server os one. and may help others in the future!

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The internal pooling feature on Windows Server 2016 is actually Storage Spaces.  

 

Yes, you can use this instead, but Storage Spaces hasn't be significantly improved (some of the shortcomings, such as rebalancing data has been fixed, but the performance hasn't). 

 

And for those not familiar with Storage Spaces,  it's a block based solution, and will WIPE out all of the data on the drives. Additionally, the data is block based, so you can't just access the underlying disks. 

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Another thing to check is if you build an array of say 5 disks - check the free space at the end - for me storage spaces lost a whole disks worth of space extra than it should have

 

i.e. it had the space of a raid5 4 disks array rather than the space of a 5 disk raid5

 

when i looked this up its a know error and there is another long complicated vague process to go through to get your space correctly in powershell

 

This may be fixed in 2016 but this was with anniversary win 10 pro 64bit - so i would not be surprised if it is not

 

I also (as a test) built an array on a usb3 enclosure of 5 disks and it was fine initially then disappeared a few days later - windows just could not see it - no matter how many reboots/ disconnects /reconnects i tried

 

this was more than enough for me to run for the hills - there was nothing wrong with the enclosure as i have used it since and as it did before it runs fine and so were the disks

 

Good luck with your tests and you may get different results :)

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Well, to be blunt, if you're using Storage Spaces, the only configuration I'd recommend is a mirrored pool, with ReFS.  

 

The reason for this, is that this is the only configuration that supports the self healing features of ReFS. 

 

ReFS will detect corruption, but it can't do anything unless it's a mirrored pool.

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Even is Storage Spaces was a one click setup, I still wouldn't use it. It has the same dangers as any other solution that stripes data and doesn't keep individual disks readable in a normal pc. RAID with striping, ZFS etc all have the same dangers.

 

The big advantage of DrivePool is your data is always in good old NTFS. No rebuilds, no dependency on hw, and no need to repair an entire array if a disk goes bad. You can take out a disk any time.

 

SS/ZFS/RAID were all designed for enterprises, and are not meant for home use. Besides the data dangers, they have higher costs - in disks (needing to match disks, replace multiples), hw and running costs.

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Even is Storage Spaces was a one click setup, I still wouldn't use it. It has the same dangers as any other solution that stripes data and doesn't keep individual disks readable in a normal pc.

This is why I am using the DrivePool - you can always read the drive in other pc system (without rebuilding).

If possible - stay away from Storage Spaces.

 

RAID with striping, ZFS etc all have the same dangers.

Of course you can use more parity drives to increase the security (e.g. raidz3), but I prefer 2x or 3x duplication in DrivePool + Clouddrive (cheaper and less complicated in case of problems).
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This was only true in Server 2012, since 2012 R2 (for the last three years....)  it can fix corruption in parity pools too

 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831724(v=ws.11).aspx

 

Thanks for the correction! 

 

I had just looked up ReFS again, and .... most of the documentation still refers to the self healing feature being available only in mirrored arrays..... 

Yay for consistancy? 

 

 

That said, using parity and ReFS is going to have a pretty nasty write penalty, and may be incredibly slow, depending on your hardware.   Mirrored will get better performance.

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