Jump to content
  • 0

Windows 10 CU: Windows default app storage on Pool?


Benoire

Question

Hi

 

I can run pretty much all my software off the pool, but every time I try to change the default app installation location it errors out (0x801f000f) and does not change.

 

Is drivepool comptabile with the way MS has built apps installation?  I know I can bring a folder out from a drive in the pool directly but this doesn't help as I'm looking to spread the load across the drives.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

 

Edit: I had the MS Store added too but this appears to be working and downloading at the moment... Will test once Forza 7 demo has finished.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0

Yep, things like Xbox games for Windows 10 as well as modern apps.

 

Basically if I want to install Modern Apps and Xbox games from the store, I need to either expose a drive from the pool directly or install to a seperate drive not in the pool?  No way around this by the sounds of it which is a shame.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Hey gang, I searched around and wanted to see if I could find the best topic to reply to, rather than submitting a new thread. But I can do that if preferred.

TL;DR - there's a decent workaround:
Create a virtual disk (.vhdx / dynamically sized) on your Drive Pool via Windows Disk Management, format it as NTFS with a 4K cluster size, assign it a drive letter, then install your apps to it.

Longer version:

  1. From my understanding from this, the EFS implementation in Windows produces far too many unreasonable hurdles for filters and other filesystems to interoperate with Windows Store Apps (inclusive of Xbox Games Pass content). Among other things.
     
  2. The EFS... stack? also makes the assumption that the filesystem's cluster size is 4KB. So if you're using something other than that, it leads to update errors eventually, even if you seemingly had no issues downloading and installing store apps originally.
    From Googling the original error code, it appeared that it was somewhat common on cloud gaming service VMs, as they often deploy with disks formatted with >4KB cluster sizes, which is the root of this archaic issue. I had the same errors on a Storage Space formatted as NTFS with 16KB sectors (all before I moved to Drive Pool!). Sidenote - I don't know why that was the default allocation unit size, but by the time I discovered this, there was no way I was going to evacuate the filesystem to reformat it. My guesses are that it's due to volume size (20TB), or simply because Storage Space defaults are that way out of some memory or I/O management efficiency.
     
  3. [Edit: 2021-01-07]
    So, the workaround that seemed to work for everyone was to create a virtual disk. You might have issues mounting the disk without the "Hyper-V Module for Windows PowerShell" feature installed/enabled. This comes with Hyper-V if you choose to install that, but the specific module should be installable without, I imagine. Still, the biggest concern is that I'm not sure if this is available in Home edition users or not.
    So, in case it helps, here's a link to a bunch of ways to mount a virtual disk: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/61391-mount-unmount-vhd-vhdx-file-windows-10-a.html. You mainly want to try to find a process that can be done via command-line, so you can automate it in a startup task. You really want this disk mounting on startup.
     
  4. Creating your virtual disk and auto-mounting it:
    1. Open Disk Management in Windows.
    2. Select a Drive Pool, or another desired volume to store your virtual disk.
    3. Under the Action menu, click Create VHD.
    4. Follow the simple steps to create and size the disk.
    5. Locate the new disk in Disk Management (at the bottom, probably. It'll have a blue icon).
    6. Initialize the disk (likely GPT), then create a new Simple volume. NTFS, 4096-byte allocation unit size (4K clusters). Optionally give it a label, assign it a drive letter.
    7. [Edit: 2020-10-15] Create a scheduled task to auto-mount your .vhdx file on startup. I used the steps documented here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/138629-auto-mount-vhd-vhdx-file-startup-windows-10-a.html
      However if you're running Windows 10 Home edition, you may need to refer to the other link above in section 3, for more options.
    8. Finally, start using the disk. In the Xbox app, go to Settings -> General, then under Game Install options, specify your new virtual drive's letter under "Change where this app installs games by default."
    9. Go start downloading and installing games. In the Apps & Features settings page, you can also right-click and move preexisting Xbox/Store Apps if you need to.
Edited by kachunkachunk
Added further auto-mount notes
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
On 10/1/2020 at 9:17 AM, kachunkachunk said:

Hey gang, I searched around and wanted to see if I could find the best topic to reply to, rather than submitting a new thread. But I can do that if preferred.

TL;DR - there's a decent workaround:
Create a virtual disk (.vhdx / dynamically sized) on your Drive Pool via Windows Disk Management, format it as NTFS with a 4K cluster size, assign it a drive letter, then install your apps to it.

Longer version:

  1. From my understanding from this, the EFS implementation in Windows produces far too many unreasonable hurdles for filters and other filesystems to interoperate with Windows Store Apps (inclusive of Xbox Games Pass content). Among other things.
     
  2. The EFS... stack? also makes the assumption that the filesystem's cluster size is 4KB. So if you're using something other than that, it leads to update errors eventually, even if you seemingly had no issues downloading and installing store apps originally.
    From Googling the original error code, it appeared that it was somewhat common on cloud gaming service VMs, as they often deploy with disks formatted with >4KB cluster sizes, which is the root of this archaic issue. I had the same errors on a Storage Space formatted as NTFS with 16KB sectors (all before I moved to Drive Pool!). Sidenote - I don't know why that was the default allocation unit size, but by the time I discovered this, there was no way I was going to evacuate the filesystem to reformat it. My guesses are that it's due to volume size (20TB), or simply because Storage Space defaults are that way out of some memory or I/O management efficiency.
     
  3. So, the workaround that seemed to work for everyone was to create a virtual disk:
    1. Open Disk Management in Windows.
    2. Select a Drive Pool, or another desired volume to store your virtual disk.
    3. Under the Action menu, click Create VHD.
    4. Follow the simple steps to create and size the disk.
    5. Locate the new disk in Disk Management (at the bottom, probably. It'll have a blue icon).
    6. Initialize the disk (likely GPT), then create a new Simple volume. NTFS, 4096-byte allocation unit size (4K clusters). Optionally give it a label, assign it a drive letter.
    7. [Edit: 2020-10-15] Create a scheduled task to auto-mount your .vhdx file on startup. I used the steps documented here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/138629-auto-mount-vhd-vhdx-file-startup-windows-10-a.html
    8. Finally, start using the disk. In the Xbox app, go to Settings -> General, then under Game Install options, specify your new virtual drive's letter under "Change where this app installs games by default."
    9. Go start downloading and installing games. In the Apps & Features settings page, you can also right-click and move preexisting Xbox/Store Apps if you need to.

Thanks! I was almost ready to ditch the whole thing with my new build but this keeps the drive pool viable.
I did have to install hyper-v for Mount-VHD to work. (Unfortunatly Mount-DiskImage did not work)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Oh, I didn't realize you needed the Hyper-V role installed to mount vhd/vhdx files/disks, but I suppose it makes some sense if you squint hard enough. :P I just had it enabled before-hand for other reasons.

If you haven't already, be sure you perform a reboot test and ensure the disk auto-mounts on boot (after you set up that scheduled task, per step 7).

Related to the Hyper-V role - If it's enabled nowadays, Virtualization Based Security (VBS) can prevent other hypervisors from working properly in it (VT extensions don't get exposed to the other hypervisor). Mainly you just need to ensure you're on a current update level for the now "nested" hypervisor (like VMware Workstation 15.5 and later). Some Android emulators like Nox (technically on VirtualBox) might not run well without updating it as well, mainly because it's running without its desired passed-through VT extension.

Anyway, happy that helped you! It's been a while but so far everything is running strong. I haven't had any update hiccups since, and reboots are completely uneventful.

Edit: Okay, I think I narrowed it down to a specific feature: "Hyper-V Module for Windows PowerShell," nestled within the Hyper-V feature tree, so I've made an edit in my previous comment. You otherwise shouldn't need to enable the entire Hyper-V feature if you don't want to. There may be other commands to mount a .vhd/vhdx file without using that particular PowerShell commandlet as well.
This is a bigger issue/concern for Home edition users since Hyper-V is not available for them without upgrading.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
On 1/9/2021 at 9:07 PM, Christopher (Drashna) said:

You could also do this with StableBit CloudDrive, actually.  And while that may be a bit of self-promotion, it has the advantage of breaking the storage files into chunks, so that the drive doesn't have to fit on a single disk, as it will for a VHD(x) file. 

Do you suggest we use CloudDrive, have that store the image on Drivepool?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
On 1/9/2021 at 3:07 PM, Christopher (Drashna) said:

You could also do this with StableBit CloudDrive, actually.  And while that may be a bit of self-promotion, it has the advantage of breaking the storage files into chunks, so that the drive doesn't have to fit on a single disk, as it will for a VHD(x) file. 

Sorry for the necro, but how do you turn local Drivepooled drives into a virtual drive through Clouddrive?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Sorry from myself as well, haha -

I'm not against checking out Cloud Drive for this use case as well, especially if it simplifies things and still pools space and allows for some duplication/redundancy.

The vhd-mount stuff can be a bit fickle for inexplicable reasons, just rarely and randomly. I sometimes still see update issues as well, but it could be unrelated. Nevertheless, can you elaborate on how Store apps would behave in contrast, on Cloud Drive, Drashna?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

I'm not Drashna, but I assume the idea was to create a CloudDrive that doesn't use an actual cloud provider (Dropbox, AWS, etc..) but a "Local Disk" provider. That means, that instead of uploading the chunk files (a large collection of small block files which the cloud drive is made of from a technical point of view) into the actual cloud, they are simply stored in a regular folder on a local disk; or - if you want redundancy and pooled space - on a local pool.

If you mount the CloudDrive to a drive letter, it will look as a regular drive to the system, and so, according to the comments above, it should be possible to make this virtual drive the default storage for Windows Apps. While _technically_ the drive is actually stored (cut into small file chunks) on the local pool.

I'm actually using a "local disk" cloud drive for having a "detachable" encrypted storage that is still duplicated and compatible with file based incremental backup. Whereas I never faced any "hard" problems with this approach, it unfortunately is a lot slower / less reactive than the large TrueCrypt container that I used before. I also tried folder and metadata pinning, but while it made it faster in terms of "usable", it's still not comparable to a TrueCrypt container. So .. if you want to use it for performance critical Windows Apps, it might still not be the best choice.

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...