***The Official Windows Home Server 2011 Thread***

Rensin said:
I have recently setup a microserver with WHS2011 and was wondering if anyone has used StableBit for a storage pool?

I am wanting to use the pool on 2x2TB drives which are almost full with tv episodes and was wondering if i setup the pool would i loose the files on the drive? ... if i setup a test pool on the drives and didn't like and removed stablebit would i loose the files on the drives?
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The data remains on the drives. When you add the drive(s) to a pool no formatting takes place. Just make sure that the data is already part of a share folder first.

You can see the drives listed individually and they are annoted as pooled drives under a seperate drive letter when added to a pool.

Just remove the drives from the pool before uninstalling drivepool and you should be good to go.

Just be aware that you will not be able to use duplication at the moment if your drives are that full. It's just a fancy name for mirroring in the long term.

I've just started using it with a mixed bunch of drives and it looks good so far :)

PS

I meant to answer before when you posted this question in another thread but got waylaided by work etc... sorry for the delay

EDIT

I'll try to post a screenshot from my dashboard for you to show what I mean... but will be delayed for a while. Away from home and I do not Remote access set up at the mo :(
 
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platypus said:
Would you recommend StableBit then? A tempting option should I go with v2011.
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look at Drivebender as well... similiar concept

Just one is $19,99 (stablebit although I got it on a special) the other $40 ( drivebender ) both quite new concepts and are updated with patches etc on a regular basis.

They have 30 day trials .... so you can try it and form your own opinion really. Like i said I have had no problems so far and it appears to be working as intended. Of course, I do backup all my data to external sources :)

The only possible glitch I can see at the moment, using a variety of mixed sizes, is choosing the right time to remove the smallest dive and replacing with a larger one. I'm way off that ... so can't comment or give accurate feedback

Currently have 2 x 2TB, 1 x TB + 1 x 750GB drives as well as OS drive. (I'm poor :( )

EDIT

With the duplication feature you can choose which folders to duplicate and leave your scratch or temp storage folders out ie just duplicate your most vital/important stuff if your that way inclinded. Change your mind re instate etc... you just have to wait for a rebuild etc. Or you can choose instant duplication which slows performance or delay duplication until quiet times ie when your asleep.... Your choice really :)
 
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Essexraptor said:
The data remains on the drives. When you add the drive(s) to a pool no formatting takes place. Just make sure that the data is already part of a share folder first.

You can see the drives listed individually and they are annoted as pooled drives under a seperate drive letter when added to a pool.

Just remove the drives from the pool before uninstalling drivepool and you should be good to go.

Just be aware that you will not be able to use duplication at the moment if your drives are that full. It's just a fancy name for mirroring in the long term.

I've just started using it with a mixed bunch of drives and it looks good so far :)

PS

I meant to answer before when you posted this question in another thread but got waylaided by work etc... sorry for the delay

EDIT

I'll try to post a screenshot from my dashboard for you to show what I mean... but will be delayed for a while. Away from home and I do not Remote access set up at the mo :(
Click to expand...


no worries mate, i didn't see this thread first otherwise would have posted here first.

Have installed Stablebit and set up the drive pool with a total of 3.6TB and 1.4TB available, tried moving 1 of the tv folders into the pool but don't have enough space available :( ... think it will be easier to move some files around and set the pool up on empty drives.

thanks for the reply.
 
What are the dangers of using an SSD for the system disk with WHSv2011?

I know they did away with the landing stage a long time ago, so there should be a relatively low number of writes to the disk once setup; most of my data is static anyway, and copying to/from shares goes directly to the data pool (unless I'm mistaken?). The reason I ask is I use my server for XBMC and want the speed mainly for that (boot-up, library access etc). Or would it be safer to stick XBMC on an SSD that isn't included in the storage pool?
 
platypus said:
What are the dangers of using an SSD for the system disk with WHSv2011?

I know they did away with the landing stage a long time ago, so there should be a relatively low number of writes to the disk once setup; most of my data is static anyway, and copying to/from shares goes directly to the data pool (unless I'm mistaken?). The reason I ask is I use my server for XBMC and want the speed mainly for that (boot-up, library access etc). Or would it be safer to stick XBMC on an SSD that isn't included in the storage pool?
Click to expand...

No dangers.

You'll need a >160GB SSD IIRC for WHS2011 to run without frigging the installer to install on a smaller drive.

Once installed the System partition C:\ will be 80GB (I think) and the rest set aside for the shares.

Before you put any data on it you can go in Disk Management and resize/add/remove partitions to suit your needs. You can even delete the pre-created Shares and WHS2011 will run a wizard to re-create them when you add a data partition/drives.

It's all very safe, and works just as you'll be familiar with in Win 7. It's one of the few advantages of not having Drive Extender complicating things.

You'll need to check the default sizes above as I've customised mine, but I'm pretty certain that for a small SSD (128GB or less) you'll need to change the installer files to allow it to proceed.
 
ChileanLlama said:
No dangers.

You'll need a >160GB SSD IIRC for WHS2011 to run without frigging the installer to install on a smaller drive.

Once installed the System partition C:\ will be 80GB (I think) and the rest set aside for the shares.

Before you put any data on it you can go in Disk Management and resize/add/remove partitions to suit your needs. You can even delete the pre-created Shares and WHS2011 will run a wizard to re-create them when you add a data partition/drives.

It's all very safe, and works just as you'll be familiar with in Win 7. It's one of the few advantages of not having Drive Extender complicating things.

You'll need to check the default sizes above as I've customised mine, but I'm pretty certain that for a small SSD (128GB or less) you'll need to change the installer files to allow it to proceed.
Click to expand...

yeh i had to add a cfg.ini file to get mine to install on my 60GB SSD.
 
After running for some time with Windows spanning to join my drives together, I decided to give Drive Pool a trial. Spanning is good but if you loose one disk you loose it all (like with raid 0 - Striping). I had tried Drive Blender a while ago but found it kept loosing some files. This was when it was in the early stages so hopefully they have fixed it but Drive Pool is only $20 so much cheaper, links disks of varying sizes and enables folder / file selective duplication. So far it has been running ok in the trial.

Luckily I got a bit of insight in to how it works recently. When copying my data and adding disks to the pool I found out one of my drives was getting bad block errors. This was after the drive had been added to the pool with its data already on it. I had to migrate the data off it and then I could remove it from the pool and I had enough spare space in the pool to do this but it kept giving CRC fail when copying the data off and Drive Pool would not skip and continue but would just quit the migration operation.

With a bit of assistance and some digging around on the disks I found out roughly what Drive Pool is doing and how to work around the issue.

Drive pool allows you to add a preformatted drive with data or a bare unformatted drive. If the drive has a partition and data on it then Drive Pool moves the data in to a hidden directory on the drive and you can access it via the Pool drive. The drive will also have a drive letter as normal and can be used as a normal drive but the data in the pool will be hidden.

Drive E:
|
--Share folders

Moves to

Drive E:
|
--X192048239 hidden Drive Pool folder with random name)

Drive F: (Pool drive)
|
--Share folders

Looking at E:, the files have vanished, looking at F: the files are visible.

If you allow the viewing of hidden files and folders in the folders view options via Windows control panel you will see the hidden pool folder on E: and all the files stored inside. The hidden drive pool folder name seems to be fairly randomly generated but all drives added to the pool will have the same name fro the hidden folder (i.e. the folder name ties the drives to a specific pool). I am now wondering if you can create multiple pools with a bit of playing around in the background with folder names (create a pool, rename the hidden folder, create another pool as the first one will have vanished with the folder rename, move the first pools folder name back to its original name).

If you add an unformatted drive then Drive Pool formats it but does not assign a letter. All files moved to it have to be moved vial the Pool Drive letter. If you go in to Windows Disk Management and assign a drive letter you can see the same as the details above.

So Drive Pool has a couple of small niggles for me, biggest being not being able to continue to copy files from a drive if one fails a CRC check, but if you know how it works then you can work around the issues and recover manually. I am pretty happy with it and will probably be paying the asking price once the subscription expires. I have yet to try out the duplication option. The people on the Drive Pool forums are also pretty helpful and responded quickly in my case (not official staff but just people willing to help).

The failed drive is the last WD 1.5TB Green drive I will be buying. I have had 6 fail on me now. My WD 2TB Green drive are running fine though so for me it seems to be that particular model that has an issue rather than all WD Green drives.

Note: I am fairly sure the shared files are not visible on the original drive letter after adding a drive with data into the pool but am not at my server to 100% confirm.

RB
 
ChileanLlama said:
No dangers.

You'll need a >160GB SSD IIRC for WHS2011 to run without frigging the installer to install on a smaller drive.

Once installed the System partition C:\ will be 80GB (I think) and the rest set aside for the shares.

Before you put any data on it you can go in Disk Management and resize/add/remove partitions to suit your needs. You can even delete the pre-created Shares and WHS2011 will run a wizard to re-create them when you add a data partition/drives.

It's all very safe, and works just as you'll be familiar with in Win 7. It's one of the few advantages of not having Drive Extender complicating things.

You'll need to check the default sizes above as I've customised mine, but I'm pretty certain that for a small SSD (128GB or less) you'll need to change the installer files to allow it to proceed.
Click to expand...

Presumably you could also install to a hdd then clone the system partition and install it to a different drive (SSD). Have not tried it but I don't see why it would not work.

RB
 
ChileanLlama said:
Yep, providing the clone software supported the correct partition offset for SSDs.
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A number of SSDs come with cloning software. My Intel 520 and Adata 510 both did.

Installing and cloning saves having to rip the WHS 2011 dvd, edit the ISO and reburn but then cloning means you have to install, backup and image the new drive. two ways to do the same thing, which one to choose is personal preference.

RB
 
Check the cloning software though - I've had SSDs in the past supplied with it, and whilst it would clone, wouldn't do the offsets - admittedly this was a few years ago when most of the mainstream software didn't do it.

You can do both methods, but changing the .ini file will save you a bit of time, especially if you're installing from a USB keydrive.
 
ChileanLlama said:
No dangers.

You'll need a >160GB SSD IIRC for WHS2011 to run without frigging the installer to install on a smaller drive.

Once installed the System partition C:\ will be 80GB (I think) and the rest set aside for the shares.

You'll need to check the default sizes above as I've customised mine, but I'm pretty certain that for a small SSD (128GB or less) you'll need to change the installer files to allow it to proceed.
Click to expand...

paradisiac said:
yeh i had to add a cfg.ini file to get mine to install on my 60GB SSD.
Click to expand...
How about a 32GB SSD (as I have one spare without having to buy a pricey 160GB ssd)? I know the cfg.ini fix, but is ~29GB (formatted) going to be enough for v2011?
 
Tempted to give it a go then :p. I'll be running XBMC off it as well, but thats pretty small. I presume the data pool then just gets assigned to the next physical hard disk?

I'm going to try v2011 this weekend. Everything is backed up or almost backed up (500GB to go...).
 
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