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Re-install Windows


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When I re-install Windows how is this working with Stablebit Drivepool drives? Can this be done safe?

 

 

Edit: I some more questions:

 

I have several drives I have to migrate from my unRAID server to my Windows 10 Server. I have a couple of drives with tv-shows which have the seasons on different drives. So there is the same tv-show on for expample 2 drives with season 1,2 on drive 1, and season 3,4 on drive 2. How handles Stablebit Drivepool this?

 

Does the stablebit products run as a service on Windows 10? So no login? 

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Hi, I've done this a few times now. and as I've been reading Drashna is a bit out of commision due to some health issues (Get better!) .... Anyhow. It is more or less magic!

If you can DEACTIVATE your license(s) for drivepool before blowing away windows. In my case there is a license activated for Drive Pool and one for the Scanner software. Deactivate.  Load up your new windows. Install DrivePool... Activate with the trial key, then activate your key.

 

Drive pool will just *see* and create your pool when you install the software.

 

If you cannot deactivate the license before proceding you'll need to get Drashna or someone to take care of the license issue. but the trial key will get you through a few days.

 

edit: regarding unraid, I'm no expert but AFIAK those drives are linux based so you won't be able to move them. you'll need to reformat those drives as ntfs to add to drive pool

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@ThePaladinTech, Well, I'm doing much better now.  Hopefully, I can stay far, far away from the hospital for a while..... 

 

 

And yes, it's basically "magic".  Specifically, after reinstalling the system, the software will look for pooled drives, and then automatically rebuild the pool with the available drives.  Duplication settings are maintained, but other settings are not. 

 

That said, if you're reinstalling, you should do this, specifically: 

  1. Deactivate the license
  2. Remove the data drives (this is to make sure that the reinstallation doesn't use these drives)
  3. reinstall the OS
  4. Reconnect the drives
  5. Reinstall and activate StableBit DrivePool 

That's it. Nothing else needs to be done, and it should handle the rest automatically ("auto-magically"), as outlined above. 

 

 

As for existing data, you'll need/want to move that data into the pool.  You can do that by "seeding" the data. 

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4142489

 

As for the folder contents, and layout, DrivePool should handle that "seemlessly".  If the files have been moved into the pool, then it will essentially combine the list of files.  

 

If there are identically named files on different disks, in the same path in the pool, this shows up as a single file, and is considered duplicated.  When you measure the pool, it will run a duplication pass. if these files are not set to be duplicated, it will remove one of the copies automatically.  If they are set to be duplicated, then nothing happens.  Though, any unduplicated data will be duplicated (copied to another disk) at this point. 

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Thank you for your time!

 

Yeah, unRAID uses XFS as filesystem, and I have to re-format those drives to NTFS. Then I have to copy everything over to the new formated drives. A question arise will Stablebit support the REFS filesystem in the future?

 

Re-installing Windows seems easy to do with these steps. I'm planning at the moment to install a trail of Server 2016 Essentials. Tried this evening but failed. I can't seem to make a correct bootable USB drive with a copy of Server 2016 Essentials. Tried Rufus, the Windows 7 USB tools and manually with diskpart. Windows 10 was not a problem. Weird! 

 

Edit: I must note that I find the Stablebit software products very interesting. I'm also checking the other software solutions (Cloud and Scanner). If I'm satified after my test I'm considering to buy the whole suite. For now I'm very satisfied. :) 

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Actually, the beta versions support ReFS already.  It's preliminary support, but it does work (I've been using it for more than six months, without any issues).  And we do want to increase the compatibility with ReFS. This is something that we've talked about internally, at some length. And hopefully, isn't too hard to implement.  (namely, switching from NTFS to ReFS on the pool device, and supporting stuff like integrity streams on the pool). 

 

 

As for reinstalling Windows, that's ... really odd.  That said, if Windows 10 works fine... there is a cheat. If that works, then use that. Replace the "install.wim" or "install.esd" with the one from Essentials.  That should work fine, and allow you to install.

 

The other method is to "manually install" the OS. Which is a lot more complicated. 

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Good to hear!

 

If you download a copy of Windows 10 it will use the "Media Creation Tool". Maybe this tool is doing something differently as Rufus. I have no time to test USB issues this evening, but maybe tommorow or this weekend. It's indeed odd. Thanks.

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I'm glad to hear it. :) 

 

And yeah, I've used this hack more than a few times. :)  

(You can actually add a bunch of images together, and I've done that personally)

 

And yeah, definitely works well with SMR drives.  If you do start running into write performance issues, you may want to check out the SSD Optimizer balancer plugin then. That should help. :)

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I found a diffence between the USB sticks. The one that's boots, and works correct has a fat32 partition. The onther has a NTFS partition, and doesn't work. Not sure why a NTFS partition doesn't work.., something to do with the bios?

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And yeah, definitely works well with SMR drives.  If you do start running into write performance issues, you may want to check out the SSD Optimizer balancer plugin then. That should help. :)

 

Interesting option! Thanks for the heads-up.

 

 

I use a Supermicro X10SAT for my server. It reads NTFS just fine. But it is haswell gen, and is (pseudo) UEFI. 

 

However, double checking, I do believe that my X8DTi will only boot from a FAT32 formatted drive.  

 

I'm using a Supermicro x11SSM-F what doens't like NTFS. I also have Intel serverboard, but I'm not sure if it likes NTFS or FAT32... Is there some bios setting so the Supermicro accept NTFS? Never searched for such a setting...

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Yeah, the SSD Optimizer is fantastic for that.  Writes to the "SSD" drives and then offloads to the "Archive" drives (named before Seagate released their SMR drives).  That said, you don't have to use SSDs for the "SSDs".  You can use normal "PMR" drives. 

 

As for the Supermicro, this really isn't an "option". the board supports it or not.  Though, UEFI vs "Legacy" mode may make a difference here.  I'm using UEFI mode, so that may be why it's accepting NTFS.  

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