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Help needed with setting up balancer / file placement rules


falc410

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So I finally configured and installed my basic Server 2012 Essentials R2 and just activated Drive Pool and the Scanner. I have 3 Pre-Filled Disks and two empty ones. Created my pool and added all disks but now I am unsure what is the best approach to proceed.

I created a lot of Server Folders using the Dashboard and placed them all on the pool. Since I want to use snapraid for additional backup, I disabled auto balancing. My main folders are something like Pictures, Movies, TV Shows, Anime, Documents, Music and so on.

When accessing one of those folders I want to keep the active hard disks to a minimum. Also when copying a new TV Show to the pool I would like for all episodes to stay on the same HDD (if possible). Duplication is not enabled (I might enable it for super important documents only).

 

My idea was now to only use the file placement rules and only allow like one HDD for each Server Folder. For example Movies may only go to drive D: and nowhere else (except when D: is full). Is this a sound approach? I looked at the additional plugins but those don't seem too helpful in my case.

 

I also read on the wiki on how to move data into the hidden PoolPart Folder - is this generally save to do? Moving folders on the same HDD would probably save me a lot of time instead of copying the data from one disk to another.

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Yes, moving the files into the PoolPart folder is relatively safe. We recommend it for "Seeding" a pool, which is what you want to do.

And the File Placement Rules feature is definitely what you want here. It will limit which folders go where.

 

To "seed" the pool here:

  1. Create the "bare folder structure" that you need. Aka, create the folder structure that you want for duplication and to apply file placement rules for.
  2. Set up the File Placement rules for how you want them.
  3. Stop the "StableBit DrivePool Service", by using "services.msc" or running "net stop "DrivePoolService".
  4. Move the files into the hidden PoolPart folders.
  5. Repeat for each disk
  6. Start the "StableBit DrivePool Service" back up by using "services.msc" or "net start DrivePoolService".
  7. Change the duplication status for the folders you want

Once you've done that, everything should appear in the pool, and remain where you want.

 

 

And you're right, based on what you want, you could use the "Ordered File Placement" balancer (it's an optional download), but the File Placement rules sound like they'll do exactly what you want better.

However, if you're interested in the balancer anyways, you can find it here:

https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Plugins

 

 

And while we do recommend using the "PoolPart" folders for seeding the pool, we also recommend that you do not use these folders afterwards. To do so could cause issues with the pool contents. Especially duplicated data.

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Thanks, moving the files worked. After I re-started the service I selected re-measure and everything is looking good.

 

I disabled nearly all of the plugins and only used the file placement rules and tried to manually copy some files and it went to the correct HDD. Looking good so far.

 

I'm not sure if the permissions are correct now. Since when I create a server folder, the dashboard applies permissions on that folder. Now I moved everything (and the data was copied with a tool which ran under Administrator account too).

 

Anyway, Drivepool tells me that the Pool is unbalanced now and I should re-balance it. Is there any way to preview what it would do? I don't really want to re-balance it right now. Can I do it manually later too? If a disk gets too full can I stop the service again, move some stuff to another pooled drive and start it again?

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Well, as for permissions, just set them in the dashboard. This basically rewrites the permissions to be what the "Essentials code" wants it to be. 

 

As for the balancing, I believe if you disable it, it may do that. If all the balancers are disabled, it should be save to set it to "automatic".

And no, I don't believe there is a way to preview that. 

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