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5 questions of a 30-day trial user


PoolBoy

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Question #1 - Starting a pool
I created a pool of 3 disks and nothing shows up in the newly created DrivePool.
I searched a bit and in a old thread 2015 thread I found I have to manually seed the pool by moving folders into PoolPartxxxx.
That works. Is it still the way things suppose to be done?

Question #2 - After the trial epires
I'm using a 30-day demo. What happens after that expires.
Can I still access my files and copy them back were they once were?

Question #3 - Balancing
When DrivePool starts balancing my disks, does that mean it copies files between my 3 drives as it sees fit?
If so that likely is great as long as I access my files using DrivePool but when directly go to my drives then the files will be scattered all over the 3 disks. 
An example to explain my question. Suppose the 'Vaction2010' folder contains all my video's and photo's from that vaction. I put that folder in the DrivePool. Where will the individual photo's be? Still all in the same folder. Or scattered over 3 drives as a result of balancing them?

 

Question #4 - File access
I guess a side effect of using DrivePool is that all software has to be 'relinked' to the files via the DrivePool disk and not the original disk?

 

Question #5 - Mixing different speed drives
My drives all have different speeds. Some things are on the faster disk because they are used more frequently. Other things don't require speed or are rarely accessed. Is pooling such drives wise? I ask because if I understand balancing, it could turn out my frequently used files end up on the slowest HDD

 

 

Sorry for all the questions. I'm just a bit scared I totally mess up my well organized disks...

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1 hour ago, PoolBoy said:

Question #1 - Starting a pool
I created a pool of 3 disks and nothing shows up in the newly created DrivePool.
I searched a bit and in a old thread 2015 thread I found I have to manually seed the pool by moving folders into PoolPartxxxx.
That works. Is it still the way things suppose to be done?

Yep.  After that's done you'll want to re-measure the pool in Drivepool's interface.  The other way to do it is to copy/move files into the drive letter that was created when you made the Pool.  It's more efficient that way, since files added to the Drivepool directly are auto-balanced between all pool drives.  Takes slightly longer due to copying between drives, but the end result is better.

 

1 hour ago, PoolBoy said:

Question #2 - After the trial epires
I'm using a 30-day demo. What happens after that expires.
Can I still access my files and copy them back were they once were?

From Drivepool Licensing:

Q. What happens to my files on the pool when the trial license expires?

Nothing at all. Your pool remains fully readable. The only restriction that goes into effect when the trial runs out is that you won't be able to create new folders on the pool.

At this point you can choose to purchase a Retail license or move your data out of the pool and uninstall the product.

 

1 hour ago, PoolBoy said:

Question #3 - Balancing
When DrivePool starts balancing my disks, does that mean it copies files between my 3 drives as it sees fit?
If so that likely is great as long as I access my files using DrivePool but when directly go to my drives then the files will be scattered all over the 3 disks. 
An example to explain my question. Suppose the 'Vaction2010' folder contains all my video's and photo's from that vaction. I put that folder in the DrivePool. Where will the individual photo's be? Still all in the same folder. Or scattered over 3 drives as a result of balancing them?

Yep - it will move them between the hidden Poolpart folders as it sees fit (obeying any duplication/folder assignments you set) until the pool is evenly balanced between all of it's drives.  The contents of the "Vacation2010" folder will have been scattered across all three, if it was moved into the virtual drive (new letter assignment) of the pool.  It does this to automatically balance the pool out.  That's by design, since everything in the pool will appear in the same folders as before - you just access the Pool through the new virtual drive by default.  I for example have 9 drives in my new pool, with files scattered everywhere (and some folders duplicated up to 4 times).  But it all looks normal through my single D: (Drivepool) drive.

 

1 hour ago, PoolBoy said:

Question #4 - File access
I guess a side effect of using DrivePool is that all software has to be 'relinked' to the files via the DrivePool disk and not the original disk?

I wouldn't normally install software to the pool directly, especially stuff like Plex Media Server where the metadata doesn't play well.  But the pool is great for storing data files.  If you do need to install software and want the pool to hold it, you can install directly to a drive's hidden Poolpart folder.  Be aware though - if you ever rebalance the pool, those files could be moved to other pool drives unless you specify they must stay on that drive (file placement rules).

 

1 hour ago, PoolBoy said:

Question #5 - Mixing different speed drives
My drives all have different speeds. Some things are on the faster disk because they are used more frequently. Other things don't require speed or are rarely accessed. Is pooling such drives wise? I ask because if I understand balancing, it could turn out my frequently used files end up on the slowest HDD

Sure, you can do that if you want to.  Drivepool has "File Placement Rules" (mentioned above) that you can enable and enforce.  It will place the files/folders that you specify on the drives you tell it to.  They will never be moved off to other drives, and the space they take up there will be considered when rebalancing the pool.

 

1 hour ago, PoolBoy said:

Sorry for all the questions. I'm just a bit scared I totally mess up my well organized disks...

Questions are what we like!  No need to worry about messing up orderly drives.  Everything they held before can be accessed through the Drivepool drive's letter in one easy place.  B)

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4 minutes ago, PoolBoy said:

I wasn't planning to install software in the pool. Just data files used by the software.
That said I don't understand why Plex doesn't liked to be installed in the PoolDisk if looks 100% like a single disk to Windows.

So I'm wondering what the limitations of the PoolDisc are. My guess is making a pool which includes a System disc is a big nono because Windows may get split up over several discs if it's not locked to one disc. That may cause Windows failing to boot if the DrivePool drivers don't load before Windows loads...

 

Jaga, that answers all my questions. 
For now... :-)

 

Plex uses hardlinks, which aren't supported on the pool.  Info on why from Christopher & Alex:

 

 

Christopher also gave an official answer on adding the System drive to a Pool.  It's a few years old, but I doubt it's changed much.

 

So while it looks at first like a good idea to just start adding all your system drives to a pool, it's really only good to add the purely data-oriented ones and go from there.  :) 

 

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All the files are still there, and all would still be available for moving back out of the Poolpart-xxxxx folders to a single folder structure (i.e. where you had them before).  Then you could launch the database and let it do it's thing (whether it needed to repair, or just keep on running).  It's hard to know how Drivepool might react, not knowing what database software it is and how it accesses files.  Could you create a temporary new DB, place it in the Pool, then toss random spare data at it to verify?

I don't do any backups against the pool itself - I have parity created directly against the pool drives in case one of them dies or it's files go bad (bit rot, etc).  It's slightly faster, and I know exactly which drive to restore data to in that case.

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I get the impression you think there is some sort of database involved. There is not. It's all just plain NTFS. If you had a multple files named. "Test.fil"  but stored in different folders then each file would be stored on one of the pool disks ( or more than one if duplication is on) in a folder with that same foldername.. Just like what you have currently with 001.jpg....002.jpg in 2016/2017/2018 folders.

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The folder structure on each drive in the pool is exactly the same.  Here's what your files might look like before putting them into a Pool of 3 disks:

  • Root
  • - Music
  • - - File A
  • - - File B
  • - - File C
  • - Movies
  • - - File D
  • - - File E
  • - - File F

Say you go and put both folders into a Pool of 3 disks.  Here's what each of the resulting hidden Poolpart-xxxxx folders might look like (assuming the files are similar size):

  • Poolpart_1
  • - Music
  • - - File A
  • - Movies
  • - - File D
  • Poolpart_2
  • - Music
  • - - File B
  • - Movies
  • - - File E
  • Poolpart_3
  • - Music
  • - - File C
  • - Movies
  • - - File F

Note that the folder structure for all three mirrors the original exactly.  And the files are in the same folders that they came from in that hierarchy - they're just on different drives now.  Drivepool "balanced them" for space between the different drives.  In the Drivepool volume, it all appears normal because Drivepool is showing you the conglomeration of all of the different drive folders and files, all in one view.  To Windows - it doesn't look any different than what you started with.

Drivepool is simply displaying for you what's there.  You tell it to re-measure the pool, and it re-indexes everything and shows you usage on each drive in the UI.  I have yet to encounter any "corruption" in all the months I've been using Drivepool (hundreds of thousands of files of all types).  And re-measuring the pool if it gets out of sync for any reason is super easy.  I'm not privy to the method by which it tracks folders/files on the drives.  But it's largely a non-issue.  

If you wanted to stop using Drivepool...  just copy the folders/files out of the hidden Poolpart-xxxxx folders BACK to their original locations.  All the folders will merge seamlessly to where they started from, and all the files will land in their original folders.

It's not nearly as complicated or dangerous as you think it is.  @Umfriend is absolutely correct about each drive STILL being just a normal NTFS drive with folders/files in it.  They're just a portion of the whole, which resides in the hidden Poolpart-xxxxx folder(s).  All the data is perfectly safe like it was on the original disk(s) it came from.  It's not going to be harmed by the use of Drivepool in any way.

Your data isn't as "at risk" as you're making it out to be.  And Drivepool is quite fast - with large files I still saturate each drive's ability to read or write.  In fact, with Drivepool duplication, you can get a read boost by reading from the same file on multiple drives at the same time.

I think you're turning the anthill into Mt. Everest.  ;)  Perhaps trying a small test pool of your own making on your three drives and putting duplicate data in there to test with would help ease your fears.

 

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8 minutes ago, PoolBoy said:

Yeah, I do. Don't I? :-)
Considering your setup, you are very serious with your data. That's why I think you can fully understand my concerns of wrecking my data.
I'm a lot older than a anthill and slightly younger than Mt. Everest  and I've seen to many alpha releases that got marked as stable/final to trust anything. :-)
Please don't feel offended by that StableBit!

 

I think I got my answers now. I'll do some tests with scrap data and check out how things are really stored while keeping all helpful info from both of you in mind.

Yep, definitely serious about my data.  4x duplication on any non-media in my pool (9 total data drives).  4 separate SnapRAID parity drives doing 2x parity (equal to RAID 6) that run nightly.  I have no fears about losing any data, unless the office burns down and somehow melts the array with it, heh.  Having used Drivepool as long as I have now, I'm completely confident in it.

Let us know how your tests go!  :) 

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1 hour ago, PoolBoy said:

BUT how does it know those files belong together?

I can only think of two ways to know:
a] A database. Fast but prone to corruption.
b] At startup scan the disks and from the folder names figure out the original structure. Safe but very time consuming.

Simple. Assume you have 13 Pooled HDDs. Each contains a hidden PoolPart.* folder. You direct Windows Explorer to P:\ (which I assume is the drive letter you assigned to the Pool). DP will read the PoolPart.* folders on the 13 HDDs and merge the results. Then you select the folder Movies. DP will read the PoolPart.*\Movies folder and merge the results. Etcetera ad infinitum. There is no reason I can think of to have the merged results stand-by for the entire folder structure. That would be slow. And even then, with large Pools if they remeasure/rebalance, then a complete list will be neccessary in order for DP to check dupliction consistency and construct a file movement strategy so it would have to read the entire structure (not the actual files) and that is done rather quickly as well (and transparent to the user, you won't even notice it is working on it).

This may sound slow but the 13 HDDs will be read simultaneously. There are many users here and I have yet to come across one that complains about DP being slow, whether read or write (except perhaps for the read striping not giving a benefit to some, such as me).

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3 minutes ago, Umfriend said:

This may sound slow but the 13 HDDs will be read simultaneously. There are many users here and I have yet to come across one that complains about DP being slow, whether read or write (except perhaps for the read striping not giving a benefit to some, such as me).

It's definitely -not- slow.  I'm a performance freak, and would throw a hissy fit if my performance degraded significantly.  :D  I even did some raw vs cached Pool testing (using Primocache) and the raw numbers were really close to what I'd see testing a single drive.

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1 minute ago, Jaga said:

It's definitely -not- slow.  I'm a performance freak, and would throw a hissy fit if my performance degraded significantly.  :D  I even did some raw vs cached Pool testing (using Primocache) and the raw numbers were really close to what I'd see testing a single drive.

Yes, that is what I tried to say: No discernable performance impact.

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On 8/19/2018 at 5:18 AM, PoolBoy said:

Question #1 - Starting a pool
I created a pool of 3 disks and nothing shows up in the newly created DrivePool.
I searched a bit and in a old thread 2015 thread I found I have to manually seed the pool by moving folders into PoolPartxxxx.
 That works. Is it still the way things suppose to be done?

Yup.  Adding the drive to the pool doesn't move existing data into it automatically, so it won't break your config. 

On 8/19/2018 at 5:18 AM, PoolBoy said:

 Question #3 - Balancing
When DrivePool starts balancing my disks, does that mean it copies files between my 3 drives as it sees fit?
 If so that likely is great as long as I access my files using DrivePool but when directly go to my drives then the files will be scattered all over the 3 disks. 
 An example to explain my question. Suppose the 'Vaction2010' folder contains all my video's and photo's from that vaction. I put that folder in the DrivePool. Where will the individual photo's be? Still all in the same folder. Or scattered over 3 drives as a result of balancing them?

Yes and no.   In theory, yes.  But the default balancers shouldn't move the data around in most cases. 

You can read about the default balancers here: https://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool/2.X/Manual?Section=Balancing Plug-ins

And yes, the files can end up spread out, but the "File Placement Rules" feature can be used to help prevent that. 

On 8/19/2018 at 5:18 AM, PoolBoy said:

Question #4 - File access
I guess a side effect of using DrivePool is that all software has to be 'relinked' to the files via the DrivePool disk and not the original disk?

Nope.   There is no linking or the like.   File lists are generated dynamically from the disks.  Basically, when you open a folder, it's queried, then DrivePool queries that location on each disk and combines them and returns with that combined list.  

The upside is that this means no links to maintain, and none of the issues associated with that. 
The downside is that the software doesn't maintain a list of the pool's contents.  

On 8/19/2018 at 5:18 AM, PoolBoy said:

Question #5 - Mixing different speed drives
My drives all have different speeds. Some things are on the faster disk because they are used more frequently. Other things don't require speed or are rarely accessed. Is pooling such drives wise? I ask because if I understand balancing, it could turn out my frequently used files end up on the slowest HDD

If Duplication and the Read Striping feature is enabled, then yes, it should be able to handle this in an intelligent way (eg, by avoiding busy disks, or reading the contents of files from multiple disks at the same time) 

https://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool/2.X/Manual?Section=Performance Options#Read Striping

Otherwise, you should see very similar performance to just using the disk by itself, since the IO requests are basically just forwarded to the underlying disks. 

 

As for the frequently used files, sorry, no that isn't supported.  THe pool doesn't use the access, modified or created data, since that may not exist when the file is being created (in the kernel). 

 

On 8/19/2018 at 7:23 AM, PoolBoy said:

That said I don't understand why Plex doesn't liked to be installed in the PoolDisk if looks 100% like a single disk to Windows.

Plex does a very unusual thing and uses file system hard links to create it's database, rather than using it's SQLite database to manage the files. 

That's the issue, actually.  Hard links only work on the same volume (disk).  And because of how they're stored in the file system, it doesn't work on the pool, at all. (if you're familiar with "cross linking" in file systems, hard links are this, but intentional)

On 8/19/2018 at 7:23 AM, PoolBoy said:

 So I'm wondering what the limitations of the PoolDisc are. My guess is making a pool which includes a System disc is a big nono because Windows may get split up over several discs if it's not locked to one disc. That may cause Windows failing to boot if the DrivePool drivers don't load before Windows loads...

Adding the C:\ drive to the pool is fine.  In fact, I do that with my desktop system.

The issue is that you CANNOT run Windows off of the pool.   The reason for that, is that there are "kernel drivers" and "boot drivers", and these are VERY different .... and the Pool driver is a kernel driver, NOT a boot driver.  So ... you'd have no way to read the pool until after booting. 

So yes, this would definitely cause Windows to fail to boot. 

16 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

While it does look good, I feel a bit uneasy using it. If the database crashes all my files are gone. Yes, I do understand the files are still there; but considering it are many thousands of them with often (duplicate) non-descriptive names, all data is gone practically speaking.

StableBit DrivePool doesn't maintain a database, at all.   See my response to question #4. 

So, unless you experience drive failures, the files will still be there, and accessible. 

 

In fact, you could pull the drives, pop them into a new system, install StableBit DrivePool, and then IMMEDIATELY use the pool. 

 

14 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

When I open the virtual drive it shows a single folder with all 3 files in them. Exactly as it should be. Good.
BUT how does it know those files belong together?
 I can only think of two ways to know:
 a] A database. Fast but prone to corruption.
 b] At startup scan the disks and from the folder names figure out the original structure. Safe but very time consuming.

C) it queries the relative location under the PoolPart folder on each disk, for that folder and it's contents. 

Specically, all of the data in the pool is stored in hidden "PoolPart.xxxx" folders (where "xxxx" is a long hexadecimal string called a "GUID").  

The pooled data is stored in the same relative path in this folder. 

So if we have a file "X:\Photos\2012\001.jpg" that is stored on the pool, and is duplicated, then it resides at:

  • Y:\PoolPart.xxxx\Photos\2012\001.jpg
  • Z:\PoolPart.yyyyy\Photos\2012\001.jpg

Basically, if you know the location of the file in the pool, then it's in the same location on the pooled disks, but under the PoolPart folder. 

14 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

I'm a lot older than a anthill and slightly younger than Mt. Everest  and I've seen to many alpha releases that got marked as stable/final to trust anything. :-)
 Please don't feel offended by that StableBit!

How dare you! 

Just kidding! :D

No, we totally understand that!   I've see that too....  And ... in fact Windows Home Server (v1) was very much like that. It's Drive Extender tech had a NASTY corruption bug on release... that they were informed of well prior to release.  So ... yeah. 

I can't say that our products are flawless (no software is), but we do try.  And we try to fix issues pretty fast, when we can. 

That, and don't worry about asking 100 questions. That's fine, and that's what I'm hear for.  

14 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

I think I got my answers now. I'll do some tests with scrap data and check out how things are really stored while keeping all helpful info from both of you in mind.

If you have more questions, feel free to ask here, or at https://stablebit.com/contact (I tend to respond faster there)

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49 minutes ago, Jaga said:

I wouldn't normally install software to the pool directly, especially stuff like Plex Media Server where the metadata doesn't play well.  But the pool is great for storing data files.  If you do need to install software and want the pool to hold it, you can install directly to a drive's hidden Poolpart folder.  Be aware though - if you ever rebalance the pool, those files could be moved to other pool drives unless you specify they must stay on that drive (file placement rules).

I wasn't planning to install software in the pool. Just data files used by the software.
That said I don't understand why Plex doesn't liked to be installed in the PoolDisk if looks 100% like a single disk to Windows.

So I'm wondering what the limitations of the PoolDisc are. My guess is making a pool which includes a System disc is a big nono because Windows may get split up over several discs if it's not locked to one disc. That may cause Windows failing to boot if the DrivePool drivers don't load before Windows loads...

 

Jaga, that answers all my questions. 
For now... :-)

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Thanks for all the answers. I'll start to explore the software a little more in the next few days.

While it does look good, I feel a bit uneasy using it. If the database crashes all my files are gone. Yes, I do understand the files are still there; but considering it are many thousands of them with often (duplicate) non-descriptive names, all data is gone practically speaking.

The only way around that is a backup of the virtual DrivePool disk itself I guess.

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I know the files are there, but I don't know which file belonged in which folder.
Example: I keep al my vaction photo's.
Folder Vaction2010 holds pictures  001.jpg...200.jpg
Folder Vaction2011 holds pictures  001.jpg...200.jpg
....
Folder Vaction2018 holds pictures  001.jpg...200.jpg

So, how can I ever know in which folder 001.jpg belonged?

And that's the 'easy' part. I could in theory check all photo's and reorganize them.
But I also have video's which are converted to DVDs. A DVD folder contains a lot of files that's aren't user readable.

BTW: There is a typo in the page your signature links to. 72GB --> 72TB and 16GB -> 16TB

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I fully understand the files are still in plain NTFS and readable.
But that's not my question/concern.

Look at it this way. 001.jpg 002.jpg and 003.jpg are originally in one folder.
I move them to a pool which is a group of 3 disks.
Balancing puts one file on each disk. All NTFS, correct names, etc
When I look in the pools I see one file in each of them.

When I open the virtual drive it shows a single folder with all 3 files in them. Exactly as it should be. Good.
BUT how does it know those files belong together?
I can only think of two ways to know:
a] A database. Fast but prone to corruption.
b] At startup scan the disks and from the folder names figure out the original structure. Safe but very time consuming.

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I'm not saying @Umfriend is wrong. Not at all. In fact the documentation/advertising clearly states no database is involved.
I just wasn't sure that means no database at all or that the files themselves aren't in the database.

I feel much better knowing it retains the full directory structure. If the hypothetical database crashes then all I have to do is copy the folder structures into one place and all merges back to my unbalanced  structure. I can live with that.

 

Quote

I think you're turning the anthill into Mt. Everest.  :-)

Yeah, I do. Don't I? :-)
Considering your setup, you are very serious with your data. That's why I think you can fully understand my concerns of wrecking my data.
I'm a lot older than a anthill and slightly younger than Mt. Everest  and I've seen to many alpha releases that got marked as stable/final to trust anything. :-)
Please don't feel offended by that StableBit!

 

I think I got my answers now. I'll do some tests with scrap data and check out how things are really stored while keeping all helpful info from both of you in mind.

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Thanks for all the answers!
I'm sure I'll get a license for DrivePool. Currently I'm deciding I'll buy all 3 programs because that gives me a nice discount. But I have no use for cloud yet as it works right now, the Scanner might be ok for my uses.

The more I play with it, the more useful Drive pool is looking for my situation. For example I have a whole bunch of HDDs that have become to small; but being part of a DrivePool they regained their usefulness again.


Anyway I pooled 2 disks with not so important data and it works great. As expected of course :-)
Today I'll add a third disk with file duplication for one folder.


Again thanks for the to-the-point answers.

 

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12 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

...the Scanner might be ok for my uses.

I find Scanner almost essential now - I rely on it as a watchdog to keep my data safe, and to alert me to potential problems (heat, SMART errors, etc).  And I use it with the auto-evacuate balancer in Drivepool, so that IF it senses a drive might be dying it can move files off to other drives without needing me first.  Well worth the cost in my opinion, AND you can get additional copies of each product at a steep discount.  I run Scanner on both my server and primary workstation.

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14 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

I'm sure I'll get a license for DrivePool. Currently I'm deciding I'll buy all 3 programs because that gives me a nice discount. But I have no use for cloud yet as it works right now, the Scanner might be ok for my uses.

Well, it's a $10 difference between buying all three and just StableBit DrivePool and StableBit Scanner.   
Also, you can use the "local disk provider" to create encrypted containers for password storage or the like.  So ... that may be worth the $10 for you.  

14 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

 The more I play with it, the more useful Drive pool is looking for my situation. For example I have a whole bunch of HDDs that have become to small; but being part of a DrivePool they regained their usefulness again.

Definitely!  And that's one of the intended purposes. :)

14 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

Anyway I pooled 2 disks with not so important data and it works great. As expected of course :-)
 Today I'll add a third disk with file duplication for one folder.

Glad to hear it! 

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I found a few oddities...

a]
A certain folder is 1.25TB
On the underlaying source disk my file manager (Directory Opus) counts it as 1.25TB.
In the virtual PoolDisk my file manager counts it as  1.25TB.
But Windows properties counts it as  475GB

 

b]
When DrivePool balances data, it changes Folder dates. The sub-folders of those restamped folders have changed dates too.
I haven't found files with changed dates yet, but that's because I have too many to check.
The strange thing is that when I go all the way down into those folders no file dates have changed.
It's not that I daily check my file dates, but I find it useful that they stay unchanged when they didn't change.
My backup software does notice many changes in 'NTFS folder security settings'  and acts on it.
I just ran a manual backup and it backed up a bunch of files that where changed while I slept. My PC doesn't use those files because they aren't used by any software (since over a year)

Besides that this takes time it messes with my backups. I keep several generations of my files, but if PoolDisk tricks my backup software to think files are changed they will be backed up and I end up with several generations of a file being exactly the same. That defeats the purpose of generations... :-)

Is there a setting that forbids PoolDisk to mess with file stamps, attributes and NTFS security settings in any way?
If this is just a one time side effect of building the PoolDisk it's no big deal.
BTW while by backup software found hundreds of changed NTFS security settings very few actual files were backed up.

 

c]
I'm not sure I even should ask this question because I'm not sure...
DrivePool statistics show more GB of duplicated files than there are in the folder it is duplicating.
Duplication is still running (over 9 hours now) and perhaps it's going to clean scrap files after it's done.

And yeah, I was so stupid not to write down the exact size of that folder before migrating to DrivePool. So I can't make firm statements. I can't manually count them on the source disks because I don't know which files are the originals and which ones the duplicates.
Anyway, I know about what the folder size was, and while duplication is now at just 50% it's already a little higher what I think it should be. But it could be right. But if it's double when duplication is finished it certainly is wrong because I know it wasn't that big and it would be bigger that the source drive capacity.

 

QUESTION
Manage Pool -> File protection...
In 'Folder duplication' I can duplicated per folder.
'Pool file duplication..." is an all or nothing thing.

How do I duplicate files that are in the root of my PoolDisk?

 

 

Good sales pitch Christopher: I'm gonna buy 'em all!
I hope StableBit keeps actively adding functionality without making it bloatware and the family of programs will expand :-)

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18 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

But Windows properties counts it as  475GB

Size on Disk, or Size?   Also, this is through the pool, right? 

18 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

Is there a setting that forbids PoolDisk to mess with file stamps, attributes and NTFS security settings in any way?
 If this is just a one time side effect of building the PoolDisk it's no big deal.
 BTW while by backup software found hundreds of changed NTFS security settings very few actual files were backed up.

NO, it shouldn't.  In fact, IIRC, we do stuff to prevent that.  

However, I think that the act of creating the folder on another disk causes Windows to want to generate it's thumbs.db file.... which WILL change the date of the folder. 

18 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

I'm not sure I even should ask this question because I'm not sure...
 DrivePool statistics show more GB of duplicated files than there are in the folder it is duplicating.
 Duplication is still running (over 9 hours now) and perhaps it's going to clean scrap files after it's done.

Yup.  The statistics are the entire data.  So if you have 2TB of data that is x2 duplicated, it will show up as 4TB in the pool, as that's how much space is being taken up. 

18 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

How do I duplicate files that are in the root of my PoolDisk?

Pool File Duplication. 

Then you can set the folder duplication on the subfolders to be disabled. 

18 hours ago, PoolBoy said:

Good sales pitch Christopher: I'm gonna buy 'em all!
I hope StableBit keeps actively adding functionality without making it bloatware and the family of programs will expand :-)

:)

It's a sales pitch, and it's not.   I mean, I know that at the end of the day, that's the point, but I post the information, so ... well, you don't have to sit and do the math. You can just decide if that difference is worth it or not. :) 

And we plan on it.  :)

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