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hate relationship between avast! and drivepool?


amanteka

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Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center

Intel i7-4790k CPU @4.00GHz

32GB RAM

Radeon 3GB R9 280X GPU

Samsung 850 SSD for OS

Asus Z97-DELUXE mobo

 

here is my story:

this is a fresh install of windows 8.1 using a Samsung 850 SSD. after the windows installation, i installed avast! 2015, then drivepool. i made a restart and all worked flawlessly booting at 10 seconds. i added (4) 3TB WD Red to the pc case, then, created a pool using the 4 drives. after a restart, i noticed that it takes more time to boot completely, even 5 minutes. i tried another restart, and the same happened, so, i verified the drivepool ui and noticed that the starting service message is the only thing noticeable on the window. after the service started about 5 minutes later, then, all the other apps started up. here are another tests made to allow me to pinpoint that stablebit and avast hate each other:

 

avast! installed, drivepool installed, WD Red drives disconnected (booted in 10 seconds)

avast! installed, drivepool uninstalled, WD Red drives connected (booted in 10 seconds)

avast! uninstalled, drivepool installed, WD Red drives connected (booted in 10 seconds)

 

just a note, the problem arised when the WD Red drives are part of a pool, no pool no problem!

the drives are connected to the Z97 Express Chipset 6GBs SATA ports internally

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We have a very bad relationship with Avast. Among the AV vendors.... we've had a huge amount of issues with them.

The simplest solution would be to uninstall Avast and use anything else. Baring that...

 

Could you install the newest version of StableBit DrivePool and see if that helps?

http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/StableBit.DrivePool_2.2.0.583_x64_BETA.exe

 

All the files are signed, and should present less issue with Avast. 

If you're still having issues, then try excluding the entire "C:\Program Files\StableBit\DrivePool" folder, as well as all of the hidden "PoolPart.xxxx" folders on each drive in the pool.

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ok, i turned off avast!, installed drivepool from the link, excluded the drivepool folder from scanning and rebooted, all worked well. then, i added one of the WD Red 3TB hard drives and created a pool, went to avast! and excluded the complete drivepool drive letter from scanning. booted again without any problems. i'm copying right now (100) 5GB files to the pool, after copying the files, i'm going to boot again the pc and will tell you how it went. thanks!

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Well, I'm glad to hear that the exclusions have fixed the problem. 

 

As for why.... well Avast is ... a bit overzealous about flagging files. In fact, at least once a month, we get a report about Avast causing problems with one of our products (usually Scanner, ironically). Almost all the time, it flags various files as "Gen", or "Generic" in the name. This means that it matches a generic template, or that it's heuristics (predictive) scanner flagged it. 

 

In fact, this is why I started off with "uninstall avast". 

But all of these files are compiled in house, and since about build 570 we have been signing all of the files, to hopefully prevent exactly what you've seen. 

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sorry, removing avast! is not an option 'cause i'm in a 3 years license, and of course, removing drivepool is not an option either 'cause is the better software to manage & create drive pools. i tried storage spaces in windows 8.1 and there are no options to be even compared to drivepool. so, i'm forced to marry avast! with drivepool, maybe i'm creating a better relationship between them. i got another pc with windows 7 with avast! and an older version of drivepool, they worked correctly, but i can't update drivepool to a new version as i posted months ago here, maybe is the same culprit, will try later. i'll keep posted any new problems with this couple.

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I absolutely understand that. Which is why I made to mention the exclusions, as that usually fixes any issues.

 

Also, was the drivepool.notifications.exe file flagged from the version that I linked you? 

 

 

And specifically why excluding the folders fixed things here:

The real time virus scanner uses a file system filter. These filters can intercept any access to files on any drive on the system. 

However, because of how StableBit DrivePool works, that filter intercepts access to the pool. And access to the pool, basically "forwards" the access to the individual disks in the pool, which is intercepted by the filter... again. This can cause issues with some filters, if they're not able to properly handle this.

Excluding the PoolPart folders, it blocks the real time scanner (the filter) from intercepting requests to the pooled drives. 

 

Most likely what was happening, is that the delay caused by the interaction was causing the problem, and causing the drives to "drop out", or causing the delayed start time. 

 

 

As long as you add the exceptions for the new drives that you want to add to the pool, you should be fine.

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the alert came from the beta version you linked, the stable version never pop-up that message. i'm still using the beta one. i only excluded the drivepool folder in C and the entire pool letter, i can't make an exclusion for the PoolPart folders 'cause i'm not assigning a letter to the disks, any other way to locate the poolpart without assigning a letter to the disk?

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Well.... If avast let you, you could use the Volume ID for the drives (mountvol, to list them). 

 

Aside from that, you could mount them to a folder path, and exclude the entire "parent folder", and not have to worry about it.

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4822624

Eg, mount them to "C:\DrivePool\Disk#", and exclude "C:\DrivePool\" from Avast.

 

This prevents them from being assigned letters, and allows you to access the disks through windows (if needed) and easily exclude the drives.

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thanks for the suggestions! created a folder on C, created folders for each one of the drives inside that folder, mounted the drives to the folders and excluded the root folder from avast scan. all working perfectly! right now moving video files to the pool to use with WMC. will keep posted. thanks!

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well, i added the 3 remaining disks to the pool and still working perfectly. also, i created another pool with a 5th 3tb wd red drive, in plans to add another wd red drive during the week. even more, two sans digital usb3 cases, each with 7 drives, created from an older drivepool version in a windows 7 pc, were recognized without any problem. there was no change in the boot time when i restarted the pc with the two cases attached either. thanks for all your help! will keep posted.

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