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Windows Server 2012 R2 Share Quotas Unable to set


gregcaulder

Question

I recently moved our main network storage server to Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard with the Server Essentials role added.

 

I then went ahead and created a pool of 4 500GB 10k drives, and used the Dashborad manager to move the shares to the new drive pool.

 

I had noticed that my Quotas were not longer enabled for the shares. So i went into the File Server Resource manager and tried to reapply the quotes. But no dice.

 

The error that comes up says "The selected path is not on a NTFS volume. Only NTFS volumes are supported".

 

What gives with this? Am i not going to be able to use Quotas? This is a deal breaker for me, as users on our network get carried away with not cleaning anything up. And would soon full it up, and effect overall performance.

 

 

post-1271-0-43828900-1385585624_thumb.png

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Depending on how Quota's work on the file system level (and I suspect I have a good idea how now)... It's because of how the DrivePool volume works. It doesn't fully emulate all of the file system properties (such as reparse points, for example). 

 

Could you submit a ticket, that way it ends up on alex's to do list?

right now, he's busy trying to add Reparse Point support, which isn't simple. But it may make it every easy to add quota support, but don't .... quote me. I'm soo sorry for really bad, unintentional pun.



Also, by default, DrivePool should report as NTFS anymore (for compatibility reasons).

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Depending on how Quota's work on the file system level (and I suspect I have a good idea how now)... It's because of how the DrivePool volume works. It doesn't fully emulate all of the file system properties (such as reparse points, for example). 

 

Could you submit a ticket, that way it ends up on alex's to do list?

right now, he's busy trying to add Reparse Point support, which isn't simple. But it may make it every easy to add quota support, but don't .... quote me. I'm soo sorry for really bad, unintentional pun.

 

Also, by default, DrivePool should report as NTFS anymore (for compatibility reasons).

 

I tried the latest beta that has re-parse points (2.1.0.432). And Quotas still does not work.

Neither does VSS or file deduplication.

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Okay, good to know.  

 

VSS not working is not surprising. We'd have to implement that first. 

But as for deduplication, Alex will probably have to take a look at that to see how it works before we can implement it (if we can).

To be honest I would rather have the Quotas work over the deduplication.

It would be nice to have it, but to be honest, it isn't something that is absolutely urgent like the Quota's is for me, and the ability to get VSS enabled.

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Okay, noted. I will bring this up with Alex.

 

But it may be "back burnered" until Reparse point support is stable (it's not a small feat to get it working).  But I agree, it's definitely an important feature.

 

Good afternoon,

 

How is the beta progress on Reparse points going?

I haven't heard much, if any chatter about the progress of bug fixes or tweaks or new beta release for re-parse points.

I'm curious because I would like to be able to get quotas to work. And Volume shadow copy to work so i can use backup software that requires VSS.

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"Out". If you head to the download page, the 2.1.0.432 BETA build supports reparse points.

 

https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Download

Change log: https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/ChangeLog?Platform=win

 

 

And Alex has released a blog post about support for it as well:

http://blog.covecube.com/2013/11/stablebit-drivepool-2-1-0-432-beta-reparse-points/

 

 

But no quota support, yet.

And no VSS support. I talk to alex about this regularly, but it would be complicated at best. There is no documentation on how to implement it. At all. And even if we could, it may not be stable anyways.

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"Out". If you head to the download page, the 2.1.0.432 BETA build supports reparse points.

 

https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Download

Change log: https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/ChangeLog?Platform=win

 

 

And Alex has released a blog post about support for it as well:

http://blog.covecube.com/2013/11/stablebit-drivepool-2-1-0-432-beta-reparse-points/

 

 

But no quota support, yet.

And no VSS support. I talk to alex about this regularly, but it would be complicated at best. There is no documentation on how to implement it. At all. And even if we could, it may not be stable anyways.

 

I already knew about the reparse points beta release and have been running it for a while.

 

I was asking if this build will be heading out of beta to move onto other things on the to-do list (wink wink, quotas and VSC).

And as for the Volume Shadow copy, about no documentation. That just seems very unlikely, how would all of the other backup software vendors write their software for it with no documentation.

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I imagine the other backup software vendors do not use VSS. AFAIK, it is the server backup solution that relies on VSS and I assume Alex would have to understand how VSS works so that he can determine what he needs to do in the CoveFS filesystem/virtual drive setup so that VSS will run well on it. (Or, otherwise put, what would a Pool drive need to do for it to support VSS?) But I could be very wrong on this.

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I already knew about the reparse points beta release and have been running it for a while.

 

I was asking if this build will be heading out of beta to move onto other things on the to-do list (wink wink, quotas and VSC).

And as for the Volume Shadow copy, about no documentation. That just seems very unlikely, how would all of the other backup software vendors write their software for it with no documentation.

Yes and no. Alex is very busy "at home" right now (if he wishes to go into detail, he can, but I'm not in the habit of divulging personal information), and once he's settled everything down, he does plan on "hitting the code hard" and fixing most of the current issues, and yes, pushing out release builds. But I can't give an ETA on that, sorry.

 

As for VSS support, there is documentation on how to connect to the VSS service, and how to use it, and write filters for it and the like.

But there is ABSOLUTELY NO information on how to support it on the file system level. Which means figuring out how to write a driver to support it is extremely difficult, at best.

 

And just to make you feel better, I do keep on bugging Alex about VSS support, because it would be very nice to have.

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I imagine the other backup software vendors do not use VSS. AFAIK, it is the server backup solution that relies on VSS and I assume Alex would have to understand how VSS works so that he can determine what he needs to do in the CoveFS filesystem/virtual drive setup so that VSS will run well on it. (Or, otherwise put, what would a Pool drive need to do for it to support VSS?) But I could be very wrong on this.

Here are a couple off the top of my head that use VSS, Consumer versions and server versions that CAN use VSS, but Starred items (*) are not required to only use VSS.

 

Norton Ghost

Symantec Backup Exec*

Acronis Backup & Recovery*

 

The list can go on and on, but i really dont want to look up all of the windows compatible backup software list off Wiki, and see if they use windows VSS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_cloning_software

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_backup_software

 

Yes and no. Alex is very busy "at home" right now (if he wishes to go into detail, he can, but I'm not in the habit of divulging personal information), and once he's settled everything down, he does plan on "hitting the code hard" and fixing most of the current issues, and yes, pushing out release builds. But I can't give an ETA on that, sorry.

 

As for VSS support, there is documentation on how to connect to the VSS service, and how to use it, and write filters for it and the like.

But there is ABSOLUTELY NO information on how to support it on the file system level. Which means figuring out how to write a driver to support it is extremely difficult, at best.

 

And just to make you feel better, I do keep on bugging Alex about VSS support, because it would be very nice to have.

I just posted this in another form, but there is info about how to use it in the Windows Software Development kit that you can download from Tech-net.

 

He doesn't need to explain any details, i know and understand that he has a life and or a family, and sometimes shit just happens.

I would like to offer my help in any way if I can.

 

At my company i am the CTO, so I do quite a but with everything computer related.

 

Here is where i also posted it:

 

http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/503-srvr2012-r2-backup-fails-on-pool/?p=3142

 

 

 

"""I am sorry but i just dong believe this.

You can download the Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) to get info, and build for VSS. All of the info you need to know how to use it and implement if should be in the SDK.

Here are some useful links:

http://msdn.microsof...9(v=vs.85).aspx

http://code.google.com/p/libvshadow/

 

And since the drivepool disk itself is a virtual disk, im pretty sure that microsoft has made something that can effectively allow you to implement VSS.

http://msdn.microsof...4(v=vs.85).aspx

 

If i am wrong that the SDK is not what you need, then please tell me what you are actually missing."""

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Again,

These programs hook into the VSS framework, which is well documented.

The issues is that supporting VSS on a file system level...

The driver for DrivePool is a file system driver. It emulates a real file system. And the issue we face with VSS support is that supporting it on the file system level is not documented. At all.

 

I've talked with Alex extensively about this, because I do want VSS support for the pool as well.

But consider this: Microsoft DISABLED VSS for Drive Extender on V1 in Power Pack 1. Because it was not working reliably. This is coming from the company that created and maintains NTFS.

 

Also, Drive Bender is working on adding VSS support as well. They have a beta out, but the backups don't work reliably. And their answer for why is "we don't know". 

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It's on our to-do list:

https://stablebit.com/Admin/IssueAnalysis/1133

 

 

However, there is a lot on that. Alex has been busy away hammering out issue, and we hope to get to it soon.

Though we have a pretty good list of issues to fix and features (such as this) to add. We want to get to all of them, but there is only so many hours in the day.

But if you want to see a list of what we're working on:

http://wiki.covecube.com/Development_Status

 

 

But I'll bring it up to Alex, as Quota's are a pretty big part of NTFS.

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Hello,

 

It has been a while since the last post in this thread, what is the current status on quota support in Windows Server 2012 R2? 

 

I'm also interested in this feature and it still doesn't work in the latest version of Drivepool. 

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To add to this request, I'd also like to see this implemented as I expect it will also allow the "File system screening" option to work (it currently fails with the same error message).  We use it to block the creation of specific files and file types on our file shares, and it's a fairly critical feature for us.

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To add to this request, I'd also like to see this implemented as I expect it will also allow the "File system screening" option to work (it currently fails with the same error message).  We use it to block the creation of specific files and file types on our file shares, and it's a fairly critical feature for us.

I'm assuming this is part of the Quota feature?

If not, could you clarify where this is located (a screen capture, just in case)?

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