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NAS Drives


jayrox

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I currently use DriveBender to pool my NAS Drives 8x4TB Seagate drives, but I would like to start using DrivePool with the Scanner, I have installed the trial version but can't see any option to add a network drive, been searching the internet for more information but could not find the answer, does DrivePool support networked drives? thanks for any help.

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Just a wild idea but - can you mount them to a windows folder?

 

edit - http://serverfault.com/questions/108193/mount-network-drive-as-physical-drive- read carefully some caviats

 

If so DP might then pick them up - although they are not NTFS drives (ext3) so you might run into some wierd errors

 

or put them in a windows box - you will get better performance locally

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I currently use DriveBender to pool my NAS Drives 8x4TB Seagate drives, but I would like to start using DrivePool with the Scanner, I have installed the trial version but can't see any option to add a network drive, been searching the internet for more information but could not find the answer, does DrivePool support networked drives? thanks for any help.

 

 

StableBit DrivePool only supports "physical disks" being added to the pool.  It does not support network shares or the like. 

 

However, you can add iSCSI volumes to the pool, and you could use StableBit DrivePool to create a drive on a network share. 

 

Otherwise, there is no way to add a network location to a pool. 

 

 

Uhm, I believe experiences with USB-connected HDDs are rather bad. Connections dropping sometimes mostly. Christopher will know and may say but my guess is you'd be better off with other solutions...

 

They not horrible, but they're not great. 

 

There are connectivity issues with USB, that is permissible by the USB spec. 

 

You are much better off using eSATA over USB (even USB3).

Nothing wrong with usb3 enclosures or docking stations - use them all the time with no issue at all

 

if you do get issues then you have other problems 99% of the time unrelated to the usb especially with dropped connections

Ever have a USB drive show up as raw?  If so, it's because it the partition table was being written to while the drive disconnected....

 

And not all USB enclosures are created equal.  Docks are even worse, though. Much higher chance of something bad happening. 

 

USB is great for short term usage, but I'd recommend against long term usage

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Ever have a USB drive show up as raw?  If so, it's because it the partition table was being written to while the drive disconnected....

 

And not all USB enclosures are created equal.  Docks are even worse, though. Much higher chance of something bad happening. 

 

USB is great for short term usage, but I'd recommend against long term usage

No never had anything like that happen - i usually pull them without "ejecting" but after i am sure the copy etc has finished  :blink:

 

No they are not if you buy cheap as chips of anything you get what you pay for - docks i only tend to use infrequently because mechanical drives tend to run hot after a while so just for cloning etc

 

Been doing backups onto usb2/3 and now 3.1 for years - only issue if have had was Storage Spaces refusing to find the enclosure one day but thats another whole can a of worms..... and not usb related

 

Interestingly over on the QNAP forums most people use USB for backup of their NAS's and apart from the odd occasion most are not reporting USB problems - possibly there are better Linux drivers than for windows - lol

 

Never really used esata as did not get any speed benefit over usb especially a few years back - might be better now but usb 3.1/thunderbolt3 etc are here so likely it will disappear slowly unless a new Sata4/5/6... comes into view

 

As ever YMMV to mine - may be i am just lucky  :P

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I've had a few drives do this to me over the years.  Almost always USB drives. :)

 

As for docks, I avoid them.  I have a few usb enclosures that do have fans though.  Tool-less installation, so the drives stay cool, I can easy swap them out, and not have to worry.  It's a much better solution (if a bit more pricy) than "toasters". 

 

As for QNAP, we've found that most issues tend to occur under load. it's not always the driver or chipset, but sometimes it's the USB controller on the enclosure that gets overloaded. 

 

 

As for speed benefit, USB3 and thunderbolt 3 both allow for more speed than the SATAIII standard, IIRC. Or very close.  And standard hard drives don't come close to hitting the 6gbps (~550MB/s) limit of the bus.  So externals can run at "native" speed (minus some due to protocol conversion, eg SATA -> USB). 

 

 

Though USB and thunderbolt are much more versatile than eSATA, so it's a lot more common to see them. eSATA is only for storage. 

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IIRC Thunderbolt III is 40gbps and Thunderbolt II is 20gbps - but only really a DAS option and for people who have MAC's - not that many devices in the non mac world with the capability and its expensive - i got it with my NUC but as yet have not needed to use it

 

Usb 3 is 5gbps and 3.1 is 10gbps

 

Sata Express is talked about and i have connectors for it on my m/b - i see its 8 and 16gbps which would move the bottle neck along a bit - but i think that spec has been out since 2009 - and its not main stream yet

 

Maybe Samsung will win with nvme drives everywhere :) - the new 960 Pro drives look interesting :) 3500 MB/s Read and 2100 MB/s write - makes my 950 Pro 2500 MB/s and 1500 MB/s - look slow - :)

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As for testing the USB drives?  StableBit Scanner. 

 

100% completely shameless answer here. :) 

 

But seriously, the "Ping test" queries the disks periodically (one might even say "pings" the disk periodically), to make sure it's still connected and reachable.   If it's not, the test does error out. 

 

http://stablebit.com/Support/Scanner/2.X/Manual?Section=Disk%20List

 

 

Also, running the Burst test to stress test the connection is a good way to check this. 

 

 

 

However, some systems may be fine, while others ... can't stay online. It depends heavily on the chipsets in use, both for the USB controller and the for the external drive. 

 

 

 

As for speeds, I hadn't really looked into Thunderbolt, because I don't have the ports on any of my systems. 

 

Also, it should be worth pointing out that SAS hits 12gbps for the current spec (SAS3, aka the SFF-8643 connector), and the ports are multi-lane.  But you're going to have to use SAS SSDs to really push the limits of the protocol. 

(also, SAS is full duplex where SATA is half duplex).

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The enclosure i have uses a JMicron controller and i have used it mainly with WD drives - green and blue - all worked fine no drop outs

 

i think a 20 - 24 hr backup run of large files has tested it more than once and no issues

 

so maybe lucky with good controller

 

but have never had an issue with usb - pen drives, external "toasters" or enclosures that i can remember 

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