Reflect Half Space When Duplication Enabled

[bhoard]

I've just started using DrivePool and have set up a pool of 3 drives and enabled pool-level duplication.

Is it possible to have the pool drive only reflect half of the free space and half of the total space when looking at it from Windows?

I find the total space and total free space to be misleading since every file actually takes up double its size so I effectively only have half that amount to work with.

[Shane]

It might be possible, but it would get complicated fast if you made use of different levels of duplication in a pool (e.g. if you had a pool where you set duplication x3 for critical folders, x2 for most folders, and x1 (off) for trash folders).

[gtaus]

9 hours ago, bejhan said:

Is it possible to have the pool drive only reflect half of the free space and half of the total space when looking at it from Windows?

That might be a nice option to have IF you only had 2X pool-level duplication enabled and locked yourself into that one option. Windows Storage Spaces does that, but you have to set up the entire Storage Spaces pool with your duplication level at the start, and you cannot change or make any exceptions to it. I prefer DrivePool's advantage that allows you to duplicate folders at either the pool-level or down to the individual folder level. And, you can change your duplication settings in DrivePool at any time. AFAIK, You just can't do that in any hardware RAID system or Windows Storage Spaces.

Like many of us, you might find that you will probably have some folders that require maybe only 1X protection and other folders that need 3X protection. On my home media DrivePool server, for example, about 95% of my DrivePool files are movies that I have backed up offline, so I only need 1X online protection for those files. That allows me to store many more movies on DrivePool, and saves me money, which was my goal. I do have some working folders with 2X duplication, and some personal folders that I set to 3X. So the issue of showing me only the total free space in DrivePool works for me.

Also, since you are new to DrivePool, I would suggest that you might be changing your mind to your duplication needs as you use DrivePool in the future. I know I started out thinking 2X is what I wanted, but soon discovered that if I have a legitimate backup offline, then I only needed 1X on DrivePool. I have a small number of working folders set to 2X, but those files are not yet backed up offline. As everyone states, online duplication is a drive failure recovery solution, it is not a backup strategy. Having the ability to set different duplication levels in DrivePool is a real advantage over other pooling systems. In short time, you will develop a feel for how much space you have left in DrivePool, even with different levels of protection. 

[bhoard]

Thanks for the responses.

I've just migrated from a hardware RAID setup to a software solution so I really do appreciate the flexibility of DrivePool. I looked into Storage Spaces as well but really did not want to lock myself into anything again, considering the whole reason I switched to a software solution was to get away from that sort of rigidity.

As you say, this little drawback is a small price to pay for that flexibility and I can understand how this feature would be difficult to implement considering the various use cases that are made possible by this flexibility, just thought I'd ask if any such thing is possible. I'm sure I'll get used to mentally halving the numbers I see over time .

[gtaus]

On 2/8/2021 at 9:27 AM, bejhan said:

I'm sure I'll get used to mentally halving the numbers I see over time .

It will not take long to get a feel for how much data you can add to your DrivePool. I, too, started out with a hardware RAID background, then moved to Windows Storage Spaces, and now I am using DrivePool. I guess all systems have their Pros and Cons to consider, but DrivePool has the advantage of folder level duplication whereas the other systems only had pool level duplication.

After using DrivePool for a few months, I decided that I no longer had to duplicate my entire online pool because I do have a backup of all my media files sitting on HDDs in my closet. If I lost a drive with only 1X duplication folders, I could still recover from my backups. In the meantime, I can use more of my online pool for more media files. That works better for me. But it did take some time for me to become comfortable with running a pool with largely 1X duplication.

I have started using a cataloging program which allows me to see the difference before and after a HDD failure on DrivePool. That way, if I totally lost a drive, I could run an update on the cataloging program and see which files were deleted from the DrivePool. Than I could decide which files I would want to recover from my closet backups.