Possible?: Duplication for Off-Site Storage

[Dunedon]

What I'd like to be able to do is create a single pool for all my media using multiple drives (that will be extended over time by adding additional drives).  I would like to to be able to copy any file added to these drives to a hot-swap drive as well, that can be removed when full for offsite storage.

 

Will DrivePool handle this OOB? Right now I'm considering using the plug-in that allows me to fill one drive at a time, and then just copying the contents of that drive to the hot-swap when it fills ... but that seems less elegant than it should.

 

Any assistance would be appreciated.

 

 

[dbailey75]

What I'd like to be able to do is create a single pool for all my media using multiple drives (that will be extended over time by adding additional drives).  I would like to to be able to copy any file added to these drives to a hot-swap drive as well, that can be removed when full for offsite storage.

 

Will DrivePool handle this OOB? Right now I'm considering using the plug-in that allows me to fill one drive at a time, and then just copying the contents of that drive to the hot-swap when it fills ... but that seems less elegant than it should.

 

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Drivepool, does not have any built in back up features,  if you choose to backup the each physical drive or each share (which could have data stored on any drive with in the pool)  you would need a 3rd party backup or syncing application.   You can use the built in windows tool to backup individual drives until you hit the 2tb backup limit.  SyncToy is a free tool that can be used to sync you shares to external drives for off site storage, you could also use it on individual drives, but think it would be cumbersome as SyncToy needs to sync at the folder level.   Drive's that are part of the pool are not removable with data intact, once the drive is removed through the drive pool console, for the most part the data is also removed from that drive.

 

I've settle on syncback from my backup solution, namely because it offers several file validation features to ensure the data on the external (backup) drives is always the same bit for bit as the data on the server.

[MatBailie]

But what would the behaviour of DrivePool be if we tried this?  For example...

 

Initial Setup

> I have 3 drives (1.5TB, 1TB, 1TB)

> I create a pool with the 1.5TB drive and  1TB drive

> I move my Photos folder to that pool and set it to duplicate

> After duplication has finished I remove the 1TB drive from the server and take it to work

> I add the other 1TB to that pool

 

At this point I should have three copies of my family photos, one copy being at work for disaster recovery.

 

Use for off-site-backup:

> I add new photos to the pool, and they are copied to both drives

> I remove some photos, and/or move them around in sub-folders

> At the end of the month I pull the 1TB drive from the server and take it to work

> I bring back the old 1TB drive and plug it in to the server

 

What happens now?

> I suppose that all of the new files will copy to the 1TB drive

> But will the deletions and file moves be replicated as well?

> Or would files from the 1TB drive become part of the pool and replicate to the 1.5TB drive?

> Or would it simply not work at all?

 

I suppose I could make this work by monthly wiping the 1TB drive before I plug it in, then add it to DrivePool.  But I'd rather not

 

 

Cheers,

Mat.

[Dunedon]

I'm not expecting to have the hot-swap drive as part of the Pool ... and I agree that the SyncToy isn't going to work for what I'm contemplating.

 

I think I'll setup the system to fill one drive at a time to 95%, and then when it flips over to the new drive just copy that first one (copying the hidden folder that contains all the files in the pool) to the hot-swap for storage.

 

Since the drives won't have any R/W data (it's only media) I shouldn't have any update issues and drives that have been archived will always stay "current".

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Why wouldn't SyncToy work?

 

Also, you could create a second pool, and use that to backup the data. You'd be stuck updating the files "manually", or you could use SyncToy via Task Schedular to do it periodically. There are other solutions, such as Allways Sync that would work as well.

[Shane]

#1 - For future reference re MatBailie's query: if you physically remove a drive without removing it from the pool first, DrivePool will complain about the missing drive and switch to read-only recovery mode until you either plug the drive back in or tell DrivePool that it should drop the missing drive.

 

DrivePool, like RAID, is not designed as a backup solution. It is designed as a redundancy solution. As Drashna suggests, for backing up a pool of drives you would use a second pool of drives and a sync tool (my current personal favourite is FreeFileSync, but that's just personal preference and your mileage may vary).

 

But what would the behaviour of DrivePool be if we tried this?  For example...

 

Initial Setup

> I have 3 drives (1.5TB, 1TB, 1TB)

> I create a pool with the 1.5TB drive and  1TB drive

> I move my Photos folder to that pool and set it to duplicate

> After duplication has finished I remove the 1TB drive from the server and take it to work

> I add the other 1TB to that pool

 

At this point I should have three copies of my family photos, one copy being at work for disaster recovery.

 

#2 - Hi Dunedon, just a caution, there are certain conditions (involving the pool being near-full or being moved to a new OS) where disk content might NOT remain static.

 

Drashna: this gives me an idea for a DrivePool suggestion - is it possible, or could it be made possible, for a user to see when DrivePool last wrote (including as part of a balancing operation) to a particular drive in the pool?

 

I'm not expecting to have the hot-swap drive as part of the Pool ... and I agree that the SyncToy isn't going to work for what I'm contemplating.

 

I think I'll setup the system to fill one drive at a time to 95%, and then when it flips over to the new drive just copy that first one (copying the hidden folder that contains all the files in the pool) to the hot-swap for storage.

 

Since the drives won't have any R/W data (it's only media) I shouldn't have any update issues and drives that have been archived will always stay "current".

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Shane, you're absolutely right about DrivePool being a storage solution, and not a backup solution.  It's meant to protect against drive failure. Not against corruption, deletion or the like (while it may help against corruption when checking duplication, that's not a major focus, as that's a disk health issue)

Drashna: this gives me an idea for a DrivePool suggestion - is it possible, or could it be made possible, for a user to see when DrivePool last wrote (including as part of a balancing operation) to a particular drive in the pool?

This would be more of a question for Alex.

We do store a lot of logging information by default (C:\ProgramData\StableBit DrivePool\Service\Log\Service\), and if you enable tracing, it shows exactly what the system is doing, file by file. But those logs are a lot more complicated to read.

Though, we (well, Alex) could add a more verbose logging of what is going on during duplication and balancing. It definitely couldn't hurt, and may help with troubleshooting some issues.