Maximum Space

[zanosg]

Please go easy on me. I dont have much expirience but I do get by. Im an average user. I have tested StableBit in VirtualBox and from what I see I simply cant create what I want. Anyway, I have two physical disks. 4TB and 8TB. I would like to create a DrivePool and make it 12TB. Down the road when I purchase another 8TB I would like to be able to add the 3rd (8TB) disk to DrivePool, then remove 4TB disk without loosing any files. So the data that is written on 4TB would be moved to the new 8TB and then the 4TB disk will be removed from the DrivePool. Windows Storage Spaces do this beautifully and the only reason I am trying to switch is because I have 8TB and 4TB already in Storage Spaces but I built a new computer and when I moved the drives to the new computer the drives don't show up in Disk Management. Bios sees them, windows sees them in Device Manager but that's where it ends. I don't want to loose all the data by formatting them to create a new Storage Space. I understand the people will try to tell me that running drives in this set up is not a good idea due to back up but I do have a back up on a different computer. Thanks.

[Umfriend]

With DrivePool, that is very easy. You have the 1x4TB+1x8TB Pool. Then you add the other 8TB HDD. Then you select the 4TB Pool and press Remove. DP will move the files out of the 4TB HDD and presto. It will take a while as it is actually copying TBs of data. There may be an issue with a few open files but that will work itself out.

[zanosg]

15 minutes ago, Umfriend said:

With DrivePool, that is very easy. You have the 1x4TB+1x8TB Pool. Then you add the other 8TB HDD. Then you select the 4TB Pool and press Remove. DP will move the files out of the 4TB HDD and presto. It will take a while as it is actually copying TBs of data. There may be an issue with a few open files but that will work itself out.

Im sorry but that isn't how DP works according to my tests. In VirtualBox I'm running Win7 and I have installed StableBit. Then i created 6 1GB drives to test with. I created pool of 1GBx4 and that should equal to 4GB DP, but it is not. It says that it is when i check the properties of that Pool but in reality its not because I cant write 3GB file to it. It says that it needs more space. It looks like the space was slashed in half. I do not want that. I want all the space available. Thanks.

[Spider99]

You have duplication on?

If so your 4gb pool can effectively store 2x2gb

So turn off duplication and it will allow you to copy the 3gb file to the 4gb pool.

[Umfriend]

1 hour ago, zanosg said:

Im sorry but that isn't how DP works according to my tests. In VirtualBox I'm running Win7 and I have installed StableBit. Then i created 6 1GB drives to test with. I created pool of 1GBx4 and that should equal to 4GB DP, but it is not. It says that it is when i check the properties of that Pool but in reality its not because I cant write 3GB file to it. It says that it needs more space. It looks like the space was slashed in half. I do not want that. I want all the space available. Thanks.

Yes, that is because you have partitioned the drives and added 1GB volumes to the Pool. DP does not split individual files over HDDs/Partitions/Volumes. So if you have a Pool that conssists of 1GB volumes, then the largest filesize you could ever write to that Pool is 1GB as that one 1 GB file needs to end up at _one_ volume. In theory, you could have a million 1GB volumes added to a Pool and your storage capacity would be huge but only for files that do not exceed 1GB per file in size.

@Spider99: I think you misread his post. A Pool that consists of 1GB volumes can never hold individual files larger than 1GB.

[Spider99]

i was going by ... i created 6 1GB drives ... and ... looks like the space was slashed in half....

which indicates to me that he does have disks with duplication x2 on 

either way - i would ditch the vb setup and do it native

[Umfriend]

But duplication is irrelevant here either way as a space limitation could be solved by adding more 1GB volumes. But still a 3GB file can't  ever be written to a Pool that only has volumes < 3GB.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

On 8/18/2018 at 10:42 AM, zanosg said:

Then i created 6 1GB drives to test with. I created pool of 1GBx4 and that should equal to 4GB DP, but it is not. It says that it is when i check the properties of that Pool but in reality its not because I cant write 3GB file to it. It says that it needs more space. It looks like the space was slashed in half. I do not want that. I want all the space available. Thanks.

For the pool size, that depends on a couple of things. 

Does Windows show each disk as 1GB, or 900~ MB?  My guess is the later.  And in that case, you'd end up with ~3.7GB.   And if that's what you're seeing, then that's 100% normal. 

Also, if you're checking Disk Management, then tha's misleading because of how the driver works. 

As for needing more space...... 

On 8/18/2018 at 9:20 AM, zanosg said:

[...] I built a new computer and when I moved the drives to the new computer the drives don't show up in Disk Management. Bios sees them, windows sees them in Device Manager but that's where it ends. I don't want to loose all the data by formatting them to create a new Storage Space. I understand the people will try to tell me that running drives in this set up is not a good idea due to back up but I do have a back up on a different computer.

This won't be an issue with StableBit DrivePool. 

Specifically, when adding a disk to the pool, if it's not formatted already, it will format it as an NTFS disk.  (otherwise, you can add existing "basic" NTFS disks to the pool).

Then when you write to the pool, it writes the actual files to the underling disks.  So you create "foo.txt" on the pool, you'll see this file in the hidden "PoolPart" folder on one of the disks (more than one, if you have duplication enabled).  

This means that if your system dies, and you need to set up a new system, StableBit DrivePool will have no issues doing so.  In fact, as soon as it sees the disks and the pooled data on them, it will automatically recreate the pool with the available disks.  No manual import or anything needed. 

 

The con is that this means that any file you add to the pool must be able to fit on on of the disks in the pool.  

In your case, the 1GB drives in the pool means that the 3GB file won't have enough free space, since no single disk can support that large of a file.  

Storage Spaces doesn't have this issue, since it is a "block based solution", meaning that it breaks your data into blocks and stores those. The con is that ... well, the issue you've run into. 

[zanosg]

Hi. Thank you for trying to help me out. I can verify that this was the issue with the file size. Umfriend was correct.

Christopher, I was able to move Storage Spaces around from a computer to computer fine few times. I do  not know why it did not work this time but I have gone and installed PoolHD that was free. StableBit kind of scared me with the price once I selected 2 copies. Also I do not like the idea of "foo.txt" being put in those folders because my back up software will erase anything in the Pool that doesnt match with the source that im backing up from. Thanks again.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, depending on how your backup software, if you point it at the pool, it won't "see" the PoolPart disk.  It will address the file on the pool, and the kernel driver will redirect the IO to the correct file, so that it still appears on the pool.  So, your backup software shouldn't even be aware of any difference, even if the file was balanced to a different drive. 

If you're familiar with web servers, the pool acts like a reverse proxy, actually. 

Also, if you're using PoolHD, it works very similarly to how StableBit DrivePool works (the folder layout is slightly different, and it uses a user mode driver rather than a kernel driver). 

 

[Jaga]

1 hour ago, zanosg said:

StableBit kind of scared me with the price once I selected 2 copies.

Once you've purchased a copy of a Stablebit product, any additional copies of that software are discounted.  Go here and scroll down to the bottom where it reads "Existing Customers".  You can put in your current activation ID, and it will give you a discount on additional copies (I'm currently seeing $15/per).