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Remove drive that contains only duplicated files


blueman2

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I have a 1.5TB drive that I have been using only for duplicated files. Drivepools shows only duplicated files are on it.  I plan to replace with a 6TB drive.  I selected remove, and duplicate later, but after 6 hours, it is still "in process"!  Shouldn't removal be almost instantaneous in this case?  It contains no unduplicated files, so what is taking so long?  Should I abort and just do a 'dirty' remove??  

 

I am on the latest Beta 2.2.0.651.  

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UPDATE:  Well, I just pulled the drive, replaced it with the new drive, rebooted.  I had to do a remove of the 'missing' drive afterwards, but it worked just great.  So anyone who has a drive that they have allowed only duplicated data on (or have removed non-duplicated data manually) can save themselves an entire day of wasted time by just ignoring the 'remove' command and pull the drive anyway, as if it were a failed drive.  Drivepool seems quite smart about how to handle this situation.  Just not very smart about knowing what it needs to do if you remove that drive using the remove command!  

 

Lesson learned.  

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Well, it does need to check all of the files on the drive to make sure there are duplicates, and there is other processing.

 

however, that does seem to be excessively long. 

 

That said, if this happens in the future, try using the latest beta build (there are a number of changes that may fix the issue)

http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/StableBit.DrivePool_2.2.0.740_x64_BETA.exe

(latest at the time of this post). 

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Well, it does need to check all of the files on the drive to make sure there are duplicates, and there is other processing.

 

however, that does seem to be excessively long. 

 

That said, if this happens in the future, try using the latest beta build (there are a number of changes that may fix the issue)

http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/StableBit.DrivePool_2.2.0.740_x64_BETA.exe

(latest at the time of this post). 

 

 

Sorry for letting my frustration come out!  Yes, you are right.  I did run a file monitor program to see what Drivepool was doing, and it was going one by one checking every file, accessing copies on the disk I was removing and another disk a copy was on.  I just did not think about the reason for this until you mention it.  I guess it just ensures, one last time, that there really are copies before allowing removal.  Good safety check.  

 

Happy after the switch though.  Everything back to running very smoothly.  I love how well thought out DrivePool is in terms of handling removal and addition of drives.  Nothing else comes close.  Thanks for the great product!!   

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About the frustration, it's not a problem.  I totally understand, and yeah, that would be frustrating. 

 

Actually, because of this sort of issue, we do have some plans for the future to improve the removal code. Specifically, to add a "prep for removal" option that moves the data around but doesn't remove the disk.   So it doesn't set the pool to a read only mode. 
For your situation, it may not really help, but it could make things easier. 

 

And yeah, verification of the file location is sort of a big deal.  We'd rather err on the side of caution here, because otherwise, it could result in data loss.  But if you have a LOT of files, this can take a while. And if the disk is going bad, that can also cause this to take a lot longer. 

 

 

That said, the newer versions include some additional command line options. Specifically, the "ignore-poolpart" option. This command line option immediately drops the disk from participating in the pool (and it shows up as missing in the UI).  And by this, I mean that it signals to the driver to STOP using  the drive at all.  

This is useful if you have a problem disk and need it removed from the pool right away, but still may need to access it.  This does NOT remove files from the disk, at all.  It just "ignores" the disk.  

You can use the "unignore" command to re-add the drive.

 

We don't recommend this normally, because it doesn't check the files nor moves t hem out of the disk. You'd need to do this by hand.  But in an emergency...

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