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Stablebit Drive Pool
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=10680		 Page 1 of 3
Author:  erail [ Thu Apr 28, 2011 12:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Stablebit Drive Pool
I have been running my EX485 with 495 modded bios on WHS 2011 for a couple of months now. I have been testing Stablebit's Drive Pool and even though it's in Beta it has been just great. I have 4 WD 2TB EARS drives in the unit and all drives except the 60 gig C drive are in the pool. I have been using it heavily and think it is head and shoulders above WHS V1. I have transfered 3TB of data to the system and continually maintain it with out any problems at all. Now keep in mind that Stablebit drive pool is in beta and doesn't have all the function delivered yet but it is still better than the 2 version 1 machine that I'm running. Since build 718 has been released there has be no problems at all. The next 2 builds will release additional function which I think will totally eliminate my need to run v1 WHS. I have been running WHS 2011 RTM with the add-in. In fact it has been so stable that I just converted my EX495 with quad core over to WHS 2011 and Stablebit drive pool and it has 4 2TB drives in the machine and another 5 drives in a port multiplier. It has handled this configuration just fine with 12TB in the pool. Remember this add-in is beta and treat as such. I have tried both DE relacements and Stablebit is the simplest, most like DE and very stable.
Author:  yakuza [ Thu Apr 28, 2011 12:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
Thanks for the input, have you been testing with drive failure scenarios such as pulling a drive?
Author:  erail [ Thu Apr 28, 2011 12:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
No, not yet. I believe that is coming in the next release. So far the capability to creat the pool and remove and add disks and copy to the folders in the pool is basically what I've been doing. I've been using synctoy to load up the systems with data and been maintaining the data(add and remove). I have also been using it to stream movies to windows 7 MCE which works better than WHS v1. It's early Beta with much function still to come, but so far, I'm impressed.
Author:  dbone1026 [ Thu Apr 28, 2011 2:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
I have to try this next. I have Drive Bender set up but didn't get to spend too much time with it (although not but any means difficult it is a little discouraging that I need to read through setup instructions or give some thought just to set up a pool, something that was always a no brainer in v1)
Author:  erail [ Thu Apr 28, 2011 2:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
Yes, so far Stablebit is as simple as it comes, basically DE like without the downside of DE. There was little documentation at all and I was able to get it running and do things with it.
Author:  danivtec [ Sun May 15, 2011 1:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
New Build Now avilable at stablebit forum.

http://forum.covecube.com/discussion/9/ ... oad#Item_4

Theres some information regarding features in upcoming builds

Quote:
In order to give DrivePool some sense of progress and a clear indicator of where we are, compared to where we want to be for release, there is now a 'Milestone' number in the version.



Here's a short outline of what will be included in each milestone build:




•M1 - (Milestone 1) - Was the first public BETA. Proof of concept with basic functionality.
•M2 - (Milestone 2) - Solid foundation in the service and driver to work from. All elements necessary to deal with error conditions such as missing disks / read or write errors are in place.
•M3 - (Milestone 3) - Integration with WHS 2011 and all planned features in place.
•M4 - (Milestone 4) - Performance optimizing extensions in kernel. This may be left to post release depending on how good / bad the system performs at this stage.




There will be builds between the milestone builds to fix bugs and address any issues that come up. We are now at M2 and proceeding to M3. M3 will be where there will be visible new features that people have been asking for.
Author:  danivtec [ Mon May 16, 2011 4:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
Build 1588 has just been released, still the M2 branch.
Author:  saitoh183 [ Wed May 18, 2011 10:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
Drive bender has just released there new beta. I wonder, because im still on the fence, which is so far the most stable of the 2...which looks easier to use . Both seem to be neck and neck functionality wise but i guess it will be the first one to reach the finish line. What do you all think?
Author:  erail [ Thu May 19, 2011 6:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
I really don't think there is a contest. Stablebit has the planned functionality and is extremely easy to use and most like the V1 DE. I found Drive Bender to be more complex and somewhat clunky. So far, Stablebit has delivered on everything they planned and is a very stable base. They just delivered drive error handling and there seems to be nothing I can't do with the system. The big test for Stablebit will come with the M3 release which the planned functionality will allow movement of the standard WHS folders into the pool and the drive balancing functionality is important to me.
Author:  danivtec [ Sat May 21, 2011 1:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
I have been getting BSOD with the addin and I have been unable to get a full memory dump as it stays on initialisng disk.

Anyone else getting this BSOD?
Author:  erail [ Sat May 21, 2011 4:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
To be more accurate, you have been getting BSOD's when awakening from sleep. I never put my servers to sleep - so I haven't experienced that BSOD. Remember, the is a Beta test and there will be problems, but my machines running the addin have been more stable than many V1 machines. Both of my machines running WHS 2011 and Stablebit have big processors, 4 gig memory and brand new drives.
Author:  danivtec [ Sun May 22, 2011 1:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
To add some further clarity the BSOD happens (but not always)after wakeup when I try and access a pooled share.
Author:  danivtec [ Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:52 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
BSOD have now gone away since the build 1671.

Build 1706 is out now
Author:  schliemann [ Fri Jun 03, 2011 7:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
Will try stablebit out tonight.

Edit:

So I have now installed Drive Pool and my first impressions are very positive. Placing drives in the pool was easy and creating a shared folder likewise. The only nuisance I have run into so far is with the automatically created shared folders. Can these folders be moved into the pool?

In terms of memory allocation it doesn't seem outrageously high, like DriveHarmony did. I must admit I didn't give DriveHarmony that fair a shot and rather quickly uninstalled it. But when it immediately consumed all memory on my server I got displeased and gave it the knife.

Also a piechart of the pool would really be welcomed.
Author:  Comp1962 [ Thu Jun 16, 2011 8:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Stablebit Drive Pool
Over the past weekend I installed Stabebit on my WHS2011 test server. I have to say its a joy to use. I added drives to the pool and it did not and I repeat did not remove the data off the drives when adding them to the pool. Removing the same drives from the pool again did not remove the stored data on the drives.

I spent a couple days playing with file manipulation to better understand how this software works. What I found for migrating data its easier to install a drive can copy data off the drive to select storage pool folders. Then if you want to remove the files and then add it to the storage pool it makes it somewhat simpler. Prior to that I add the drive to the storage pool and copied the data to a folder on the storage pool. The data was duplicated and also left on the drive I was playing with providing me with 3 copies of the same files on the drive. Initially since I was working with a limited amount of drives and uncertain of how things work thus I played with it. Inserting a drive and just copying the data seems to be the best way to migrate data and should you want to keep the data on the drives as I did initially because I was pulling data off backup drives for my movies. Well they were backup drives now they are storage pool drives. No biggie there.

When coping files within the server with Stablebit installed the transfer rate dropped to like 20-35 mb/s which I can only attribute to Stablebit duplicating while the copying was taking place and prior to that I was seeing close to 100 mb/s and seeing 50-75 mb/s over network.

Now this week I will begin ordering the components for a WHS2011 build to replace the test server. Right now I am still fumbling with Stablebit but its already for the most part impressed me more then DE in WHS and appears to run more RAID like in that the duplication appears to be done when the file is added. The thing I need to look at and I have not done so yet is the CPU Load and I will have to take into consideration what drive controller cards I will need to purchase and hopefully not go broke in the process but thats another subject all together.

At this point if your running a test server I would highly recommend you give Stablebit a test run as its extremely user friendly but I do recommend you add drives to the pool, create your shares them move the data to the shares. If your drives contain data and you desire to add them but want to migrate that data to the Shares within the pool I would recommend installing the drive moving the files and then wiping them off the drive and then add the drive to the pool.

What is really cool is if you want to keep the files on the drive and add it to the pool it will not remove the files in that it will just add the drive to the pool and utilize it with your files left. The one thing I did notice is that the DE like folders which contain the duplicated files are actually visible rather than hidden as with DE thus making files on the drive easier for the end user to find.

If for some reason a drive becomes unhealthy Stablebit does a fine job repairing the issue. This happened to me because I was in in a learning curve and at first when I setup Stablebit I set it up not to duplicate but it duplicated anyway which is fine and maybe not fine depending on what your doing. Anyway I set huge chunks of files to be copies upto 1.3 tb to beat the hell out of it. Thing is here I soon discovered just how friendly Stablebit really is.

I really have to thank erail for mentioning Stablebit and since he had been running it and was not posting negatives I thought why not try it as I have always valued his opinions on the site.
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