Controlling the placement of parity/duplication

[Oscar]

Hello,

 

I'm interested in buying DrivePool, but I've got a couple of requirements that I'm wondering if DrivePool can meet. I'm using 6 drives connected to the motherboard and have a SATA card that gives me another 4 drives. What I'm wanting to do is to have DrivePool pool the 10 drives, but I'm also wanting this pool to be duplicated, however for the 4 drives attached to the SATA card, I don't want to have a case where the duplicated files only reside on the SATA card, meaning if the SATA card fails, I've lost access to all that data.

 

Is this something DrivePool can do?

 

Thanks.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Unfortunately, not at the moment.

But:

http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/208-stablebit-drivepool-controlling-folder-placement/

 

 

 

However, if the controller card is just passing the disk through and not using RAID, then you should be able to just replace the card and regain access to the data.

[Oscar]

Oh, that's a bit disappointing. I'm aware I could just replace the card (as there is no RAID happening), but I would still lose access to that data until the card was replaced... Granted, you could extend this to saying well the motherboard may fail etc. but a motherboard failing is a bigger issue than a SATA card failing.

 

I've not played with DrivePool as yet because I've yet to get the server running, and I may not be fully understanding it but I'm not seeing how the link you provided would allow me to solve the issue at hand? Just to be clear, I'm wanting the entire pool to be duplicated but I'd like it so that if the SATA card fails, then the data that was associated with the drives attached to the card is available on another drive - probably connected to the motherboard.

 

Thanks.

[lee1978]

Hi the link for the file placement addin would allow you to specify which drives are used for duplication and which are not that said by doing so May put extra stress on the sata controller has it's going to accessed a lot since it's going to hold all your data while the drives connected to the motherboard will mainly be used for duplicated data I have 37tb of data stored on my pool I just let drivepool do it's stuff if the controller fails I'll lose access to it all until I replace it if your that worried about uptime buy a replacement sata card just in case a 4port sata controller are about £20 on eBay so it's not a huge expense for your piece of mind where mine is 36 port controller and cost's £400 so I'd rather keep my money in my pocket for now.

[Oscar]

Hi Lee,

 

Thank you, that makes perfect sense. Actually, all I'm planning on using for the sata controller now is a "Syba SATA III 4 Port PCI-e" card - cost about £32 from Amazon... A 36 port controller :blink:!!! Where do you source a beast like that, and what is this server (or more precisely motherboard) running such a thing!?! ... I'm positively blown away...

[lee1978]

Hi no problem just glad to help I got my card from xcase port multiplyer and a high point card from scan. Co.uk my setup is listed in the hardware section tho I have updated a few items it's basically the same I think in total useing a daisy change system I can connect upto 256 drives if I wish but I doubt I will ever need more than the 24 my storage array holds