Adding already duplicated drives to new pool

[fazza]

Hi all,

 

I'm currently in the process of moving my storage management over to drivepool. I've read up pretty exhaustively and have been trying the software for a little while now. It's going on my old media pc with 8 drives of varying sizes.

 

The pc currently contains assorted media that I have manually duplicated over the years onto different spindles. Basically, 90% of the content is already duplicated. Managing all this manually is an absolute nightmare hence my turning to drivepool. 

 

The question I have is this, if I whack all these existing drives into a new pool is there a way to make drivepool spot that there are existing duplicates and rebalance as appropriate? Or do I need to back all the files up onto another machine, wipe my old drives, create a new blank pool on the media pc and then copy them back to let drivepool handle the duplicating/balancing on it's own?

Edit: I'm not fussed on which drives the data resides - I'm happy for drivepool to manage that for me as long as everything is duplicated on a different spindle somewhere.

 

I'd rather not do the second because with 6+ TB data and a glacial LAN (don't ask) it'll take literally weeks to do the file copying, but from my understanding of how the pools work it's the only option. Any help gratefully received!

[Christopher (Drashna)]

If the files are in identical locations, when it makes a duplication pass, it will compare the files. If they're in different locations.... then .... yeah, that's not going to be fun. Sorry.

 

However, you can "seed" the pool. As in add the disks to the pool, and then move the contents into the Pools' folder structure:

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4142489

[fazza]

Thankyou Drashna. Looks like my reading wasn't as exhaustive as I thought!

 

Just to make sure I've understood you correctly:

By identical locations you mean the folder structure, yes? That's fine because my folder structures are identical for the dupes as well. Given that, if I add the drives to the pool and follow the directions for seeding my existing content then when drivepool runs a duplication pass it will recognise that there are two copies already and simply rebalance for optimal disk usage?

 

If so that's perfect and will save me a lot of headache.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

No worries. There is a lot of information to go through. And some of the "inner workings" like this aren't well documented... for a reason. We don't want people going off messing with that stuff unless they know what they're doing or they've been instructed to.

 

 

And by identical locations, yes, I mean by the folder structure, and file name.

Specifically, if you have "G:\Folder1\Subfolder3\thisfile1.doc" and "F:\Folder1\Subfolder3\thisfile1.doc", if you move those folder into their corresponding "PoolPart.xxxx" folders, and then get DrivePool to run a duplication pass (which is why we recommend resetting the settings, or you can change the duplication status for the pool/folder), it will compare the files and let you know if there is a "mismatch".

 

Otherwise, if you had "G:\Folder1\Subfolder3\thisfile1.doc", "F:\Folder1\Subfolder2\thisfile1.doc" and "F:\Folder1\Subfolder3\thisfile2.doc" and move them into the Poolpart folders, you'd see:

P:\Folder1\

---Subfolder2

------thisfile1.doc

---Subfolder3

------thisfile1.doc

------thisfile2.doc

 

 

Regards

[fazza]

That's great, thanks for the clarification.

 

One further question (not sure if this should go in it's own topic):

I've copied ~500gb of data to a separate NAS which is also running drivepool (4x4tb drives, one big pool). I've got duplication turned on for all except the recycle bin folder and the system volume information folder (manually turned off for those). Having copied ~500gb the drivepool window now shows 613gb duplicated files, 205b unduplicated, and 415gb other (screenshot attached). Again, from what I've read and has been explained elsewhere, I would expect other data, but I can't work out why my other data is so huge, and I would like to figure out what is going on.

 

Other info: The drives were blank and formatted before adding to the pool, so no pre-existing data. There is nothing on the individual drives making up the pool apart from the hidden poolpart folder.

 

Can you provide any insight? Can I give any other information that would help?

 

Thanks

[Christopher (Drashna)]

This thread talks about the different usage:

http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/37-faq-unduplicated-vs-duplicated-vs-other-vs-unusable/

 

 

For your case, I would recommend remeasuring the pool. It may not be calculating it right. Sometimes (very rarely) it miscalculates.

And that sounds like what has happened ere, as the 600GB plus the 400GB of other, is roughly 1TB (or 2x~500GB).

[fazza]

Thanks. The remeasure did not change anything but after a reboot it is now reporting usage correctly.

 

I'm really pleased with the software - does exactly what it says on the tin with absolutely no drama and is usable for a relative novice like myself. And the support gives me a lot of confidence moving forward.

 

Apologies for the stupid questions, and thankyou very much for the help

[Christopher (Drashna)]

First, the only stupid question, is the one not asked.

(well, there are exceptions, but you know what I mean)

 

 

The remeasure sometimes doesn't. That's why the guide for seeding the pool instructs you to reset DrivePool's settings. That ensures that it recalculates from scratch.