Strange data reporting in Drivepool

[daveyboy37]

Ok, so as mentioned in another thread I'm currently replacing all my 2TB drives with 4TB ones. 

I connected Two new 4TB drives to the server and added them to the pool. I then told Drivepool to remove 3 of the 2TB drives. (It's pretty sweet that Drivepool lets you queue up this as I'm currently working nights, so all happening while I either work or sleep.)

 

So the first drive evacuated fine and the last one is doing its stuff now. However the second drive seemed to go ok and removed itself from the pool. Mousing over the now removed drive in (Server2012 R2 Essentials) Drivepool shows it as still having 1.18TB of used space. Worse still it's now giving me permission denied messages so I cannot actually check if the drive is empty.

 

Meanwhile in Windows Explorer the relevant mount point for the drive says there is only 184MB of data used. So probably empty after all.

 

So how do i get permissions for the drive to check this. I think I'm correct in thinking that Drivepool Utilities will not reset permissions unless the drive is part of the pool? 

If Windows Explorer is correct, is the false reporting in Drivepool a bug? 

Worse case scenario.... I know roughly how much data was on the three drives that I'm removing and can work on the basis that if there is roughly that amount of data on the new drives it went ok and its just a false alarm.

 

Thanks in advance.

Dave

 

Edit:

 

Cancel all that, bored at work I stopped the last drive migrating and rebooted the server. I have permissions back for the removed drives and they are indeed empty which Drivepool now correctly reports.   

 

But this then leads to something else...  

 

I have now decided that i really do not want two pools... What's the best method for getting rid of the second pool?

I'm guessing simply moving the server folders from Pool B to Pool A , via the dashboard ?   But Pool B is all my duplicated data. Will this complicate things? 

 

 

 

 .

[Christopher (Drashna)]

We really should add a "Merge Pools" option, I guess. 

 

 

As for quickly moving.... on the second pool... on each drive, move the files out of the hidden PoolPart folders. Then remove the drive from the pool (should be near instant, if the poolpart folder is empty). Do this for all the disks. Then add them to the pool. Then move the contents into the new (hidden) poolpart folder. Then remeasure the pool.

[daveyboy37]

We really should add a "Merge Pools" option, I guess. 

 

 

As for quickly moving.... on the second pool... on each drive, move the files out of the hidden PoolPart folders. Then remove the drive from the pool (should be near instant, if the poolpart folder is empty). Do this for all the disks. Then add them to the pool. Then move the contents into the new (hidden) poolpart folder. Then remeasure the pool.

Ok. Thanks. 

I will try that. I was just thinking that the server folders on the second pool only exist on that pool. So I guess if I create dummy folders outside of the serverpoolpart and then drag the data as you suggest (but leaving the server folders inside the serverpoolpart) , I can then simply move the now empty server folders via the dashboard to the first pool and then move the data back within those? ( I hope that makes sense.) 

[daveyboy37]

Further to the last post. All sorted and all data migrated.

However one of the old drives was definitely dying. It would not let me remove it from the pool from within Drivepool. The hard drive would lock up frequently.

Fortunately I was able to shut down the pool and manually copy the data to one of the new drives. But even then if I tried to move instead of copy, the source drive locked up. All is now well and the system is probably the most responsive its ever been.

The only niggling thing now is that I am getting a pool organisation warning (possibly due to the way I had to manually remove the bad drive)

 

 \System Volume Information\IndexerVolumeGuid

 and

 \System Volume Information\storageconfiguration.xml  

Both of the above say "file parts different". Drivepool offers to fix but then throws up a permission denied.(I get no other permission errors as far as I am aware.)

 

Drivepool then instructs me to delete them manually. But where are they? A search finds nothing.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

We are actively looking into the "System Volume Information" folder issue.  (It's used by VSS, exclusiviely).

 

TO clear it up, you need to take ownership of the folder and then delete it.

If that doesn't work on the pool folder, then... well do this on each drive in the pool that has the folder, in the PoolPart.xxxx folder.

[daveyboy37]

OK, Thanks Chris.

I will try and locate them...But at first glance I cannot see them within the mount points for each drive. Could they possibly be inside one or more of the server folders or would it be outside of those as a standalone file/folder? I'm pretty certain I have "show hidden files/folders" enabled, but don't really know where to look.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

You will probably need to "enable show system files" as these are "super hidden".  

 

And no, it will be in the root of the pool (or directly in each of the "PoolPart" folders)

[daveyboy37]

Ok thanks. Would that option still be in "folder options" from control panel?

Found it lol. Google is my friend

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Yes, it would be, But a seperate checkbox, IIRC.

[Jessie James]

I am having the same problem with the permissions denied error on the storageconfiguration.xml file(s), on my WHS 2011 server, and am unable to find that file.  As a result, DrivePool is unable to duplicate.

 

My configuration is as follows:

 

C: drive (program files, usual Windows stuff)

D: drive - one of two 4TB drives for the pool - VSS is enabled on this drive

F: drive - two of two 4TB drives for the pool

G: drive - the Pooled drive

 

I have searched all my drives and folders, and have enabled hidden and system files, and cannot find the file called storageconfiguration.xml anywhere.  Even searching with Windows has zero results.

 

Is there a suggested course of action?  I am considering removing one of the drives from my pool, then re-adding it.  Would that help?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

If you need to change duplication, there is always the "dpcmd" command line utility:

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Utilities#DrivePool_Command_Utility

 

 

As for finding the file, you need enable "Show Hidden Files" AND to show protected system files. Then the file should be in the "System Volume Information" folder in the root of the drives.

 

However, to delete the file, you will need to take ownership of the folder and it's contents.

[Jessie James]

If you need to change duplication, there is always the "dpcmd" command line utility:

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Utilities#DrivePool_Command_Utility

No, I don't need to do that, right now it is failing.

 

 

As for finding the file, you need enable "Show Hidden Files" AND to show protected system files. Then the file should be in the "System Volume Information" folder in the root of the drives.

As mentioned, I have done that but the file does not exist.

 

However, to delete the file, you will need to take ownership of the folder and it's contents.

Again, I can't find the file, it appears to not exist.

 

I'll try removing the disks from the pool and re-adding them.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

If that's the case, could you confirm WHICH drive that it's complaining about?

And could you open a ticket at "https://stablebit.com/Contact/"

[Jessie James]

I'm not sure which drive it is complaining about, sorry.

 

At this point I am not getting the error. I removed the F: drive from the pool, deleted all the contents, and then added it back to the pool.

 

However, now it appears to be stuck at Pool condition [bar graph] Duplicating 31.2%. I am not sure what to do now, so I will submit a ticket soon.

 

Thanks for your help.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

As for the "stuck" duplication, it may be copying large files, so it may take a while to do this.

Additionally, because the duplication and balancing runs at a background priority, it may take longer than a normal file copy.

 

If it doesn't progress at all, then enable the file system logging and let it run for a while. 

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection

Submit the logs when you open a ticket.

 

Additionally, the newer beta versions do have an option to boost the priority of the duplication or balancing process in the UI. Or you can use the advanced settings to set this permanemently:

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Advanced_Settings

Set "FileBalance_BackgroundIO" and "FileDuplication_BackgroundIO" to "false" and reboot.