Will this scenario work for DrivePool?

[Rob Manderson]

I have the following scenario.

I have one pool with x2 duplication turned on for all folders/files.  No balancing or file placement rules (stock standard out of the box install with no customisations).  Let's call this the Primary Pool.

I have another pool which contains a copy of all the files in the first pool but without duplication. Let's call this the Secondary Pool.  The file and folder structure exactly matches that of the Primary Pool - in fact it was copied using RoboCopy with the /MIR option.

What I'm thinking of doing is creating a new pool and adding the Primary and Secondary pools to it, then turning on x2 duplication between the two sub-pools (i.e., at the top pool level).  I'm sure this will work but what worries me is whether DrivePool itself will consider the pools to be equivalent and therefore not attempt to do any balancing between the two immediately following the pool creation. The secondary pool consists of SMR drives.

 

[Shane]

File duplication and balancing settings are handled on a per-pool basis. So if Pool P used drives D and E, set to x2 dupe, and Pool Q used drives F and G, set to x1 (no) dupe, and you created a Pool R that used pools P and Q, set to x2 dupe, any files placed in Pool R would be effectively x3 dupe (x2 + x1) while any files placed in Pool P would still be x2 and any files placed in Pool Q would still be x1 (no) dupe.

So there would not be any balancing "between" Pools P and Q immediately following Pool R's creation, because there wouldn't yet be any files in Pool R to balance between them.

(And if you did later put a file in Pool R, you would not see it in Pool P or Q unless you turned on viewing of hidden items and looked inside P or Q for R's hidden PoolPart.* folders.)

Hope this makes sense and answers your question.