getting started with a new install (empty pools)

[Markbnj]

OK:  a  few questions, as referrred and suggested by the folks at the EMBY.media  site, who recommended drive-pool.

 

I now have a empty pool with about 12 TB of space, which spans 3 different drives.

Now.

I want to make sure my new pool drive (J:) will have my current info

So I think  I need to do is:

take my original emby directories

 

take My essential data (on different drives)
----
tv
tv\crime
tv\sitcoms
tv\drama
tv\watched
tv\movies
 and then copy them back to the j drive, and THEN tell emby to re-scan J drive, after all the misc. directories are put back onto J drive.

and once this is done, how do I manage to bring my one-drive into a new installation , and do I also want that on the same drive, or do I want to create a different pool for that??

And to add yet another (minor) complication:  I also run the Calibre ebook library on this server, complete with a link to the Freda ebook reader (that queries the calibre library before it downloads.)

So:

I believe that:

• I need drive-pool to get my emby/tv stuff.  (it's already on one of the drives, in the J-pool, so it;s still working:
  • BEFORE changing my emby site:
  • a) move the directories to new j:drive.
  • b) remove my hard links (instead of the  drive letter) I installed for one drive.
  • c) once the directories are on the j-drive, I can then re-format/restore my emby to the new drives.
  •  
• I need to create (or more accurately MOVE) my one-drive data to either the J, or a new drive-pool.

I'd appreciate any suggestions, on how to do this all, safely, (and or ) easily...

 

Also:   please comment on the differences between Spinrite 6.1 (which can do the large volume disks at boot) vs. the Stablebit Scanner SW.

I understand that spinrite's current DOS cannot let it see USB drives UNLESS they are there before SR starts, (and am still anxiously awaiting S7.0) which removes this.

Am I correct in understanding that since Stablebit Scanner is implementing this all as a SW driver, it essentially is doing this maintenance in the background? and during dead times?

If its easier please feel free to split these into two questions.

Thanks.

PS:  If you didn't know, Steve Gibson also has had a 'security now' podcast for over 12 years, and you can get weekly  transcripts Here by visiting GRC.com

Mark B

[Markbnj]

Updated question.

Silly me (this will be a fast answer, I hope)

On my TV drive, I had a hard junction point to another disk (previous backup method)

so I had X:\tv  which had a hard junction point to another drive as x:\tv\newdrive

I forgot about this, and during my attempt to populate my drive-pool.

• I noticed this (and made the STUPID misteak!) of deleting the junction point in the middle of my Robocopy run

to move all from my TV drive to my J:drive-pool drive.

• My question (simple I hope)  Since X:\tv\newdrive no longer exists on X:  WHAT HAPPENS to the files that WERE moved to J:\TV??

are they now deleted?  

and the same question in a different form..

• Do I need to

1. delete everything off my J:drive-pool drive and then...
2. re-run this robocopy from scratch to get it correct?

 

So far I can contribute the following:

If you're trying to create a new installation of Drive-pool, DO NOT include the source drive in your pool (initially).  It seems that it will be easier this way.

thanks for reading...

 

 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

If you have mutliple drives with data on them, the simplest option would be to add them to the pool, and seed the pool. 

https://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4142489

This will effectively combine the folders into a single structure  Eg, the "tv" example you have, all of those would appear on the pool in the /tv/ folder, with all of the convents from each drive. 

But given your folder structure, you want/need to just rescan your library. 

 

As for the issues, it depends on how exactly you had things configured, and what options you used with robocoby.

However, I would recommend using something like WizTree to see where all the files are on your disks.  No affiliation here, but I do use it personally, as it makes finding where all your data is at very simple. 

 

If the files are still on the disks, then moving them into the "poolpart" folder structure is the quickest and simplest option. Just make sure you remeasure the pool after doing so.

[Markbnj]

Quote

If you have mutliple drives with data on them, the simplest option would be to add them to the pool, and seed the pool. 

https://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4142489

Ah, Drashna:

I wish that had been in a 'getting started' with drive-pool FAQ.  It would have made my install much much faster and easier (and after 40 years of windows administration & user training) it would have been a piece of cake.

I will see if I can write up a 'moving your Emby/Plex server into a Drive-pool installation FAQ, and send it to you for your review. 

PS: already bought my license.  any suggestions about the other 2 parts that may also save me time? (cloud & scanner?)  Also same question about my calibre E-book library and server.

I figured I'd wait till my media server was set before doing those two, but I do already use Micro$oft onedrive, so it seems like a good fit (I hope).

Mark

11 hours ago, Christopher (Drashna) said:

If you have mutliple drives with data on them, the simplest option would be to add them to the pool, and seed the pool. 

https://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4142489

This will effectively combine the folders into a single structure  Eg, the "tv" example you have, all of those would appear on the pool in the /tv/ folder, with all of the convents from each drive. 

But given your folder structure, you want/need to just rescan your library. 

 

As for the issues, it depends on how exactly you had things configured, and what options you used with robocoby.

However, I would recommend using something like WizTree to see where all the files are on your disks.  No affiliation here, but I do use it personally, as it makes finding where all your data is at very simple. 

 

If the files are still on the disks, then moving them into the "poolpart" folder structure is the quickest and simplest option. Just make sure you remeasure the pool after doing so.

 

[Markbnj]

OK:  SO my robocopy file program has completed.

I think I need some help, as I should have done the stuff in your previous suggestion .

 

my drivepool (J:) now shows most of my files 

(and here is the J: drive)

J:\>dir *. /b
all-watched
batch
bkups
books
cheryl-shows
fm-mitch-lap-2-bkups-etc
logs
Movies
new
robocopy
streaming
tmp
tmp2
TV
video-pgms

SO  that looks good, so far

However:

Question 1)   Had I understood (more) and will provide in the proposed FAQ, I would have NOT made my source drive (G:\) part of the drive pool.

Question 2)  I had lots of copies of my media (G) drive because I once had a failure.

SO:

As example, J: is my primary media drive.  

but i had backups on the P drive, q drive, etc

 

What I'm trying to do is figure out, where (in the 6 large HD's on my PC, I copied stuff from my G drive as backups BEFORE I installed Drive-Pool.

THIS is the FIRST thing I am putting in the "FAQ"

before attempting to move an existing system containing live data into a drive pool, ensure that:

a) you put your new drive-pool INITIALLY on a clean, empty drive (can be formatted), but no extra stuff on it.

b) you follow the instructions given in your advanced instructions (here)

Now, I essentially did that, and now (see photo) shows I have a G and a J drive pool (I think)

using the g drive, and the j: drive,  I did this, and am unsure what the 2  drive-pools mean (1 drive pool, or 2??

 

thanks again for your assistance!

[Markbnj]

Sorry, I didn't see a way of editing my previous question.

I included an additional screen shot, showing the J: drive pool, (which does have the poolpart.x directorties with everything in it)

(so that is obviously ok)

as well as the G:drive pool which only shows the original files. with no pool-part directory.

(which means it's not really part of the drive-pool info...

:

Further steps?

I (again) would guess I want to 

a) verify all files on J:\pool-part...  vs my g:\ (original files)

b) remove the files from G:

c) add the newly cleared g: drive to the pool-part.

LAST question (I think)

is there a way to merge two separate pool-drives?

• IE, as I said, I have backups on 2 or 3 different hard disks,  if I create drive-pools on them (or empty drives), will I be able to merge them at some point into my J:\drive-pool (new main drive)?

Sorry this has been so difficult, I love the software, and in another month or so after getting more experience, will work on the cloud, and the other sw!

 

[Markbnj]

[Shane]

From the screenshots it looks like you've created two pools, but with the second pool using the first pool as one of its disks (i.e. you've added the first pool as a "disk" to the second pool). This is called nested or hierarchical pooling:

• J is your first pool; its disks consist of physical disks P, K and H.
   
• G is your second pool; its disks consist of pool J and any other disks that you added to it (not visible in the screenshots).

The poolpart.* folders are where a pool's content is stored on each of the disks that form the pool (normally these folders are not visible to the user because they have the Hidden attribute).

• J's poolpart folders should be on P, K and H. So where you see X:\PoolPart.exampleJ (where X is P, K and/or H, and exampleJ is the unique identifier string that DrivePool uses to identify that pool on that disk) that is the folder where the content of pool J is stored on P, K and H. If you manually inserted a file or folder into the root of one of those poolpart folders, it would show up in the root of J and so on.
   
• G's poolpart folders should be on J and any other disks that you added to it. So where you see J:\PoolPart.exampleG that is where G is stored on J. If you manually inserted a file or folder into the root of one of those poolpart folders, it would show up in the root of G and so on.
   
• Since one of G's poolpart folders is on J, that poolpart folder will also be a subfolder on P, K and/or H. So you should see a X:\PoolPart.exampleJ\PoolPart.exampleG that is that folder where it actually physically resides in the physical disks P, K and/or H. If you manually inserted a file or folder into one of those poolpartexampleJ.\poolpart.exampleG folders, it would show up in G.

Does that help make sense of your layout?

So basically if in pool J you had a file "J:\mypicture.gif" and you moved it to "J:\PoolPart.exampleG\mypicture.gif" it would show up in pool G as "G:\mypicture.gif". Note that manually moving content into a poolpart folder risks confusing DrivePool, because you're skipping DrivePool's safety checks such as "is there already content by that name in the same place on one of the other poolparts that form that pool" and "does this have the correct duplication level assigned to it". So be careful if you do this.

P.S. Manually moving a poolpart folder itself (rather than just moving content into or out of it) will definitely confuse DrivePool. Do not do that.