Server 2012 R2 - Should pooled drives be removed from having a drive letter?

[Benoire]

Hi,

 

I've been using a competing product for sometime, but I like the cleaness of DrivePool.  I appear to have come unstuck though with migrating across.  I've added a drive (with existing data) to a new pool and I was a) expecting this data to be in the pool and b ) for the individual drive to disappear from explorer.  At present, the drive still exists in explorer and the data is not visible in the new drivepool pool.  Is this expected behaviour?

 

Also, are there any advanced settings as my dashboard does not show anything at all.  I've attached a screengrab to show what options I have available.  Is there anyway to rename the pool as well?

 

At the moment, the other product is far more configurable but its dashboard integration is still quite poor; however I do like how it appears in the storage tab as another sub tab... Quite neat I think.

 

Anyway, thanks  in advance for a response.

 

Chris

Ah hah!  So it appears that in order for my new pooled drive to work I have to move the data from the existing drive number to the new pooled drive.

 

Another question; How does DrivePool deal with drive removal?  For example the other program allows the removal of a drive at any time (and will use the SMART indicators to potentially shift data from a drive before it packs in) so that you remove it from the system blank... I presume that when you click remove from the pool Drivepool will do this automatically?  does it tell you if you don't have any free space to do this operation?

[Benoire]

Sorry, another question... my drive is a 1TB drive and I currently have 561GB unduplicated.  This matches the actual folder sizes on the drive.  Next to it it then says 27.6GB 'Other' with a grey legend.  What is this 'other'?  There are no more hidden files than what can be seen already on the drive and its a little confusing.

 

The attached image hopefully shows what I mean.

[otispresley]

Hi and welcome to DrivePool!  There is another Stablebit product, called Scanner, that monitors disk health via SMART data and scans.  This software has some integration with DrivePool and can be configured to send you email notifications when you have issues with a disk.  If it is a serious issue, it will automatically remove the data from the disk if there is enough space on the pool to do so.
 
For Advanced Settings, refer to the Wiki linked on the main page of the forums.  You can also remove drive letters from Computer Management >> Disk Management with no ill effects.

 

There will always be some data in Other, but there are sometimes files that show up in there that shouldn't.  Restarting the DrivePool service, or the server itself, usually fixes this for me.  This normally occurs after I have removed a disk from the pool.

 

Removing a disk from the pool is very easy and straight-forward and can be performed at any time.  You just click the Remove link next to it and then select any of the two options displayed.  You can have it skip removal of unreadable files (good for a damaged disk), and you can have it duplicate later, which leaves any duplicated files on the disk for faster removal.

 

You will also want to check out the balancer Plug-Ins in DrivePool.  These allow you to control how data is distributed across the disks in your pool.  As @drashna has mentioned a few times in the forums, you can use things like File Placement Limiter to control which disks can have duplicated or unduplicated data stored on them.  This is useful when a disk might have encountered minor issues that result in SMART warnings and you want to move all unduplicated data from the disk.

 

I hope this helps!

[Benoire]

Hi Otis, and thanks.

 

I've installed Scanner and it is good, I like it :-)

 

So Drivepool doesn't automatically remove any drive letters that have been assigned to a drive when they're added to the pool?

 

I'll have a look at the plugins; the other programme does it natively so I was wondering whether Drivepool did something similar.

 

When it comes to the 'other' data, what is that though?  The full file folder/file size on the drive is the same as the unduplicated data (in this case), the 27GB of 'Other' data I cannot find and I don't know what that is!

[Christopher (Drashna)]

We try to stay as "hands off" of the system as possible. That way, you can manage everything how you want. And to make sure we don't break anything that you have setup already.

 

Since I'm being kind of lazy here, I'm not reading all the responses...

 

To change the Pooled drive's name, you can open it in Explorer and rename it there, like any other disk.

Also, most options are under the "Pool Options" menu, right under the pie chart for the pool.

There are additional advanced settings, but these are "very advanced" ones.

 

As for dashboard integration, yes we know. We may add much better integration in the future, but for now, it's basically the same as the remote control UI. So it's at least uniform.

 

As for the "Other", try "remeasuring" the pool, (Pool Options -> Re-measure). That will usually "fix" the issue. But this is any "space" used outside of the pool. Such as .... just outside of it, system/hidden files, or bad sectors, or even the left over space from partially used sections of the disk.

 

As for the Plugins, there are a bunch of balancers built in, but there are additional ones, and even an API to program your own (if you're so inclined)

 

 

And as for the drive letter, you can run "mountvol /N" from an elevated command prompt to stop new disks from being assigned a drive letter automatically, if you wish. And then you can manually assign a letter or even a folder path for the disks (I mount everything to "C:\DP\i##" personally)

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4822624

 

 

Also, if you want to move existing data into the pool, there is the long/hard way, and there is the easy/cheat way. The long way is to drag and drop it into the pooled disk. The quick and dirty way is to enable "Show Hidden Files" and drag everything into the "PoolPart.xxxx" folder.

 

I think that covers everything. If it doesn't, or you have more questions, don't hesitate to ask.

[Benoire]

Hey Drashna!

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

I found the normal settings for the pool, didn't realise it was per pool rather than overall...

 

I have to say compared to the other software which didn't work with streaming TS files from MP TVServer to client (the client couldn't find the timeshift files) Drivepool works perfectly, no problems streaming and recording at the same time to the same drive... I even like the way it tells me throughput :-)

 

With respect to how it plugs in to dashboard; it was more of a location thing than a functionality.  I like the cleaness of the app, the simple nature of add and go!  The other software is quite convoluted in comparison... This is, along with scanner, a definate purchase now!  IT would be good to have the ability to move the app to a different location in the dashboard, I quite like the idea of having anything to do with storage in the storage section; keeps it neater!  Perhaps making that a user choice would be good?

 

I also found the sneeky way after realising it was actually copying it in to the hidden folder... Moved 500Gb that way, saved me some time!

[Christopher (Drashna)]

You're welcome.

 

As for the throughput, for non duplicated data, you're reading and writing straight to/from the disks. there is next to no overhead. And for duplicated file, it caches portions of the files in memory to help boost the speed, IIRC.  So the performance should always be as good or better than the disks the data is residing on. 

 

 

As for the dashboard thing, if you're using WHS2011 there is that option. And doing that for 2.x may be something that may happen in the future.

 

And I'm glad that you really do like the UI for DrivePool. Clean and simple was definitely the goal in mind.

 

And yes, drag and drop works a lot faster. There are some advanced settings that may speed up the process, but drag and drop works the fastest.

[otispresley]

@drashna, I am not sure if you have had problems adding disks to the pool after doing "mountvol /N" or not, but I issued this command and then DrivePool does not add them correctly.  I ended up having to delete and then add the partition on the disk both times I tried it because it reported as a healthy partition but the properties showed 0 bytes used and 0 bytes free; the disk was also nowhere to be found under the DrivePool tab until after the repartition.  After that, they both added to the pool properly.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

otis,

 

if you're creating a new pool, then yes, it may have an adverse affect. 

 

The reason is, this disables the drives from "auto-mounting". As in being automatically assigned a new letter.

 

(And "mountvol /e" re-enables auto-mounting)

[otispresley]

Thanks for the response.  This was not a new pool.  I was just replacing drives in my existing pool...only have 1 pool.  I had already removed the defective disks from the pool before issuing the command.  Here are the steps to reproduce (I am running WS2012E in a VMware ESXi 5.5 VM with disks passed through to the VM via RDM, DrivePool 2.0.0.420, and Scanner 2.5.0.2968 BETA):

1. Type mountvol /N  in an elevated command prompt on the server
2. Add a disk to the chassis
3. Add it to the VM
4. Find it in the non-pooled disks section in the DrivePool UI and click Add
5. (At this point, the disk appears to add successfully but just disappears completely from the DrivePool UI with no error message or feedback)
6. Open Computer Management or Server Manager and go to the Disk Management utility
7. Locate the partition with no name and no drive letter and look at its properties and observe on the General tab that both the Used space and Free space report sizes of 0 (I do not have drive letters on any of the disks in my pool; All other disk properties have values for Used space and Free space in their properties)
8. After you delete the partition and then add it back, the disk appears in the DrivePool UI as a non-pooled disk, and you can click Add again and see it show up in the pool

It looks like I will have to open DIsk Management every time I add a drive no matter what, so I would rather just deal with the drive letters.  If this behavior is normal when you have automatic mounting disabled with DrivePool, then I hope this helps others to better decide which way is best for them.  I was hoping to be able to just click Add from the DrivePool UI.  This is why I miss the disk add option from 1.x for "Add as a hidden drive".  Maybe this should be a pool-wide option in the DrivePool settings in 2.x, along with the capability to change the volume label.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Otispresley,

 

That is very odd. I say odd, because DrivePool doesn't need a drive letter at all here. So it .... should work.

 

Another option here then would be to set up the system to set new disks as "offline" by default, and then use Disk Management (or diskpart) to manaully set the drive online and manually assign a letter or folder mount path for each disk

This is actually what I do. It's more complicated, but if you are VERY hands on with your system....