Drive pooling

[PenkethBoy 2068]

scanner is worth it keep an eye on your disks (as you have a lot already) and it integrates with dp to empty a drive that has issues (under your control)

 

cloud drive is fine but as the "free" unlimited cloud services all appear to have issues as well as the paid ones - not vital to have but can be useful for small amounts of data

[CharleyVarrick 283]

I"m trying out Stablebit Scanner, and noticed at the bottom of the window this mention:

 

"The on-disk S.M.A.R.T. check is not accessible on any of your disks. Drive temperature and mechanical operating parameters are not available and will not be monitored"

 

Is it saying this only because scanning has just got underway, and it will eventually display the info?

I've been using CrystalDiskInfo for a good while and it never complained about status availability.

 

Edited May 30, 2017 by jlr19

[CBers 7450]

@@jlr19

 

[CharleyVarrick 283]

@@CBers

did you just swap that video?

A minute after watching driver bender on WHS2016, the video is now about NAS

Edited May 30, 2017 by jlr19

[Happy2Play 9780]

I"m trying out Stablebit Scanner, and noticed at the bottom of the window this mention:

 

"The on-disk S.M.A.R.T. check is not accessible on any of your disks. Drive temperature and mechanical operating parameters are not available and will not be monitored"

 

Is it saying this only because scanning has just got underway, and it will eventually display the info?

I've been using CrystalDiskInfo for a good while and it never complained about status availability.

 

 

Some controllers require you to adjust the DirectIO option to unsafe to passthrough the SMART information.

[CharleyVarrick 283]

 

Some controllers require you to adjust the DirectIO option to unsafe to passthrough the SMART information.

Hi @@Happy2Play

Sorry, I have no idea what you mean by that

[Happy2Play 9780]

There are advanced options that have to be adjusted to get SMART info to passthrough.  I had to change the option to unsafe to see SMART data through my Highpoint card.

 

How to activate these options.

 

 

Click on the "Settings" button in the toolbar and select "Scanner Settings". Enable the "Show advanced settings and information" option, and hit "OK". You will only need to do this once, from now on, it will always display this option.
Click on "Settings", and select the new "Advanced Settings and information" option. Open the Configuration Properties tab. You will find a list of all the settings here, organized into section. You can also search for the setting you are looking for.
Once you've made any changes, you will need to restart the service, or restart the computer. To restart the service, run "services.msc" on the system find the "StableBit Scanner Service" and restart it.

And the setting is the "Unsafe" option under "DirectIo".

Also, make sure that the HighPoint management software is installed on the system as well... as apparently without this, the SMART data doesn't update properly (yay highly proprietary firmware)

[CharleyVarrick 283]

There are advanced options that have to be adjusted to get SMART info to passthrough.  I had to change the option to unsafe to see SMART data through my Highpoint card.

 

How to activate these options.

Thanks!

[CBers 7450]

@@CBers

did you just swap that video?

A minute after watching driver bender on WHS2016, the video is now about NAS

Yes sorry, the 2nd one seemed more appropriate.

 

They're both UnkyJoe videos, so you can search for them.

[mediacowboy 438]

Yes sorry, the 2nd one seemed more appropriate.

 

They're both UnkyJoe videos, so you can search for them.

What was the name of the first one

[CharleyVarrick 283]

Yes sorry, the 2nd one seemed more appropriate.

 

They're both UnkyJoe videos, so you can search for them.

Indeed I watched both and like the 2nd one better.

Before I give DB a 2nd chance (and I want to), I need to find instructions on how to work with drives that already have data on them.

 

 

When I setup DB pool, I went to Windows explorer and saw the 3 pool drives disappeared (gulp), but no worries, I saw instead the 16tb drive bender drive that graphically showed 75% usage, but when I clicked on it and got "this folder is empty" . . . GULP ! ! ! And it went from bad to worse after that. I think DB must have thrown 50 errors prompt at me in the next 5 minutes.

[CharleyVarrick 283]

What was the name of the first one

Drive bender on WHS2016 (or similar), same guy

[Happy2Play 9780]

Thanks!

 

There is a test tool to show what options are available depending on the mode used.

 

http://community.covecube.com/index.php?/topic/36-how-to-contribute-test-data/

[mediacowboy 438]

@@jlr19

 

Drive Bender has had software updates fairly regular. What?!?!

[mediacowboy 438]

Indeed I watched both and like the 2nd one better.

Before I give DB a 2nd chance (and I want to), I need to find instructions on how to work with drives that already have data on them.

 

 

When I setup DB pool, I went to Windows explorer and saw the 3 pool drives disappeared (gulp), but no worries, I saw instead the 16tb drive bender drive that graphically showed 75% usage, but when I clicked on it and got "this folder is empty" . . . GULP ! ! ! And it went from bad to worse after that. I think DB must have thrown 50 errors prompt at me in the next 5 minutes.

 

Here is a manual I found online which has eveything I believe you will need. 

 

On another note did you not get the pool setup wizard? Which is here.

Edited May 30, 2017 by mediacowboy

[Happy2Play 9780]

I am still on version integrated in whs2011.

 

Edited May 30, 2017 by Happy2Play

[CharleyVarrick 283]

Drive Bender has had software updates fairly regular. What?!?!

 

If you look back at post#95, I am pretty much admitting the problems I ran into were my own doing.

Like those silly Youtube FAIL videos where a guy want to do donuts in a Lamborghini and ends up in the ditch.

It not because its a bad car, its the driver that had no business in the driver seat. 

That"'s how I felt when it turned south on me BIG time

[CharleyVarrick 283]

I am still on version integrated in whs2011.

 

Nice, mine doesn't look anything like that. You got all your relevant info in there, and I like the fist in your face icon...

[mediacowboy 438]

If you look back at post#95, I am pretty much admitting the problems I ran into were my own doing.

Like those silly Youtube FAIL videos where a guy want to do donuts in a Lamborghini and ends up in the ditch.

It not because its a bad car, its the driver that had no business in the driver seat. 

That"'s how I felt when it turned south on me BIG time

I wan't saying that to you but the video.

 

He says at 11:56 into the video that their hasn't been an update to it in years. When in fact it actually was just updated to 2.6.0. Sorry for the confusion.

[CBers 7450]

What was the name of the first one

https://youtu.be/hlBHUAxaMbU

[CharleyVarrick 283]

Here is a manual I found online which has eveything I believe you will need. 

 

On another note did you not get the pool setup wizard? Which is here.

Yes, that manual is a PDF within program files.

And yes to the wizard,

my HUGE question mark is specifically working with drives that already have data before pooling, there's nothing about where on earth is my data once the pool's setup.

Edited May 30, 2017 by jlr19

[CBers 7450]

When I setup DB pool, I went to Windows explorer and saw the 3 pool drives disappeared (gulp), but no worries, I saw instead the 16tb drive bender drive that graphically showed 75% usage, but when I clicked on it and got "this folder is empty" . . . GULP ! ! ! And it went from bad to worse after that. I think DB must have thrown 50 errors prompt at me in the next 5 minutes.

I replied to your post on the DriveBender forums.

 

As @@mediacowboy said, did you not get the Pool Wizard on startup?

 

Not a problem, as you can do it all manually anyway.

 

Did you add a drive letter to those drives and see if they were in fact empty?

 

The only way they would be empty, is if they were formatted at the point of adding them to the pool.

[CBers 7450]

Yes, that manual is a PDF within program files.

And yes to the wizard,

my HUGE question mark is specifically working with drives that already have data before pooling, there's nothing about where on earth is my data once the pool's setup.

You should have been asked a question as to where you want them adding in. Either the root of the pool, or somewhere else.

 

Although, I think that may only be for 2nd and subsequent drive additions.

 

It's been a while since I created a DB pool from scratch.

[CharleyVarrick 283]

You should have been asked a question as to where you want them adding in. Either the root of the pool, or somewhere else.

 

Although, I think that may only be for 2nd and subsequent drive additions.

 

It's been a while since I created a DB pool from scratch.

The only time I saw my files was after killing (litterally) the program, then went to manage computer, disk mgmt, and reassign letters to drives, they reappeared, but with the funky folders that were duplicating for some reason (folders of drive "M" were copied to drive "O" & "P" and so on and so forth).

It took me 2 hours of damage control to put it back the way it was before.

 

Again, I need to find specific instructions on how to work with data with Drive Bender, as it seems to me 95% of instructions out there, they have 20TB of empty disks to work with. Actually, even Stablebit DrivePool is lacking on this subject. Here's all I found on the subject on their websites support's quick start:

 

"A new pool always starts off as an empty drive. If the drive that you've added to the pool had some files on it, then those files are still on that drive.

Adding a drive to the pool contributes that drive's free space towards the total size of the pool."

 

EDIT: IMO, something that's strongly in favour of DP over DB is once you created your pool, DP still displays the original drives (and folders and files) in Explorer. 

With DB, Its guaranteed panick attack when those drives are gone and then the pool shows its empty. That, and no instructions on "where are my files???"

Edited May 30, 2017 by jlr19

[CBers 7450]

The funky folder names are so that Drive Bender knows what pool they belong to.

 

Not sure what happened, but going through the the Pool Wizard should be all you need to do, as per UnkyJoe's video.

 

If you find your actual content on the drives and MOVE it to the root of the discs, then you can remove those funky folders. Once you've done that on all of the discs, then you can delete the drives in the pool and delete the pool.

 

Before you remove the funky folders, make sure you have all of your content in the correct location.

 

@@mediacowboy or @@revengineer may have created a pool from scratch more recently than me, so hopefully can add anything.