Jump to content
  • 0

Thinking about changing my DrivePool setup - need some advice


MiL0

Question

Currently I have 2 x 4TB Red hard disks in one drivepool (with 2x duplication on for the entire drive) and another 2 x 4TB Red hard disks in an identical setup. I store video files on one drivepool and music/photo/documents on the other drivepool. I know it's not a great idea but I use the 2x duplication as a 'backup' solution - mainly because I'm not too fussed if I lose everything (particularly important documents are duplicated to my Google Drive).

 

I'm playing around with CloudDrive and thinking about changing my setup to the following:

 

4 x 4TB Red hard disks in one drivepool using 2x duplication

then add an 8TB CloudDrive (G Suite) to the same drivepool for online redundancy.

 

My questions are as follows:

 

1) Is there anything special I need to do before decommissioning my existing 2 drivepools?

2) Can I just remove them from the DrivePool software, then create a new one and add all 5 of the disks to a new drivepool?

3) Given that 4 of the hard disks already have existing PoolPart folders (from my 'old' drivepool), will DrivePool leave all of my data alone and simply copy everything from the hard disk over to my CloudDrive?

4) I'm used to having 2 disk drivepool's with 2x duplication which is easy for my brain to understand. If I move to a 4 disk drivepool, how will I control which data sits on which drive? Does DrivePool decide this for me? (in other words, if I have a 3TB video folder, will DrivePool spread this data over 4 disks?)

 

Thanks in advance and apologies if this is a particularly stupid set of questions :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 answer to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0

1&2) when you remove a drive from a pool, it attempts to move all the files on that drive to the remaining drives in the pool. If there are no other drives left in the pool, it leaves the files intact, closes the pool and sets the normally hidden PoolPart folder - that contains all your files - visible.

3) not 100% sure what you're asking here.

4) You can use the Balancers and Placement rules (e.g. "keep anything in the Videos folder on local drive 1, local drive 2 and GSuite"). Otherwise, DrivePool will decide for you according to the Balancer rules: the default setting is to put new files on the drive(s) with the most free space.

 

Note that if you want to have 4 local drives with x2 local duplication plus 1 cloud drive with everything duplicated to it too, you would need to set up as follows:

 

* Pool Options > File Protection... > Pool File Duplication... > 3x Duplication (since you want two local copies plus one cloud copy)

* Pool Options > Balancing... > Balancers > Drive Usage Limiter > Drive limit options > local drives only "Unduplicated" ticked and cloud drive only "Duplicated" ticked.

 

This will should result in DrivePool keeping two duplication instances locally and one duplication instance on the cloud drive; because the File Protection rule is more important than the Drive Usage Limiter rule, the cloud drive gets a copy but DrivePool will still put the remaining two copies on the local drives. I have tested this myself, but you should test it yourself too.

 

Also note that if you add another drive to the pool, you will have to update the Drive Usage Limiter rule to account for the new drive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Answer this question...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...