Hi all,

I added to Western Digital 2tb EARS hard drives to my storage pool recently and made sure I jumpered them per this article (http://homeservershow.com/wd-ears-drives.html). I also have a 1.5tb EARS hard drive already in my storage pool which I thought I'd better remove and jumper. I went to the console and clicked remove and the status window popped up with the green progress bar appeared and the warning that this could take several hours...

...however it has now been about 48hrs and the progress bar is still at 1/3 (it doesn't seem to have moved for the last 24hrs). Is this normal for it to take so long? My storage pool is 12.28tb at the moment with 3.67tb of free space.

I'm worried that I haven't jumpered the two new drives successfully and hence the transfer speeds are miniscule due to the two new drives. Or is this length of time normal? Also, can I shut my PC down and then log back in to check the status? Or do I have to keep the console open the whole time?

Thanks for any help!!

Wow! 48hrs that is a long time. Even a full 2TB drive should not take that long I would think.
I have pulled a 2TB drive that was half full and it took maybe 4-6 somewhere in there.
I would be worried anything over 12 hours.
Sorry I don't have any good info for you and I would not close the console, but I am thinking something has gone bad and doing anything is more then likely going to get worse.
Do you have backup copies of your data?
I always have a non-pooled drive and backup the "folders just in case".
Goodluck

_________________
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Thanks for the reply Gardian.

Groan, sounds like something has gone wrong then. I had to shut my computer down so had to close the console. Tried to log in again to the console last night to get the 'could not connect' message. All the lights on the front of the server are green though.

I think I'll give it another day or two to see if things do magically work, but if not, looks like I'm going to have to hold down the off button and then re-boot to try and see what the damage is. A full system restore no doubt...

I don't understand why it didn't work - surely clicking 'remove hard drive' is a pretty basic function, no? Makes me question what the point of the server is if it can't even perform a basic function like that without crapping up.

The data is all replaceable, it's just rips of my DVDs, CDs and photos (the photos I back up elsewhere). It's just very timeconsuming (and frustrating) to have to re-do them all again. I might just sell my media server and go back to getting the discs out and sticking them into a DVD or CD player.

Have you tried to log in via Remote Desktop? Your experience is not normal and could possibly be due to a problem hard drive. Do you have duplication enabled?

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Hi Yakuza,

Thanks for the post. When I connect remotely, I get a screen with the blue background you get when trying to log in, but it just has the Windows Home Server logo in the bottom right. I just tried to connect remotely again and this time it wouldn't connect.

All my hard drives were working fine and green before I clicked on this particular drive and tried to remove it. I think I'll give it another day in it's current state, then I'll have to hold down the power button on the back and then power it back up to see what carnage awaits me.

It's really frustrating how it can't even perform a simple task like removing a hard drive, has made me doubt the entire system tbh. If all my data has gone, I think I'm just going to bin it and buy something that actually works. I'm gutted tbh.

I wouldn't wait another day, personally. You should try to press the power button briefly to see if it will shut down gracefully.

Again, if you've got a bad or misconfigured drive, it can cause issues with any system not just WHS. Also, you didn't answer if you have duplication enabled.

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Alex Kuretz
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Sorry - I had folder duplication on some folders (photos), but not others (music and movies).

Hmmm, ok, thanks for the advice, I'll see if it wants to shut down gracefully. If not, should I hold it down to shut it down?

Yes, hard power off if it won't shut down gracefully and you can't access the server via RDP.

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Alex Kuretz
Remote Notification: Monitoring and alerting for your Home Server via email, Twitter, text message, RSS, push notifications, and on your Mac desktop
Have you tried our Add-Ins? If so, be sure to Rate them at WeGotServed.

^Cheers!

I tried to push the power button to see if would gracefully shut down, but no joy...so I held the button down to hard shut down. Held my breath and crossed my fingers and re-booted...everything was fine and all my data is still there...phew!!

The hard drive I tried to remove using the console is still there and is marked as 'healthy' in the pool...so even though it seems to have got halfway through removing it, it didn't seem to completely remove it or get stuck in the middle...I take back my criticism of earlier posts Mr EX490

So I'm very relieved...but now have a bit of a dilemma, do I just leave the EARS drive as is (if it ain't broke, don't fix it!), or should I try to remove the drive again so I can jumper it and re-add it? If it is the latter, I'll try and back up as much data as I can one other hard drives in case it all goes wrong...!

Wow, that was close
Duplication is a good thing, at least that way you can pull a drive if you have to and grab your stuff.
I reccomend a non-pooled drive with folders backed up on it.

Not sure what you should do with the drives now, I stay away from funky stuff
Goodluck

_________________
EX470 5-3-08 CPU/RAM/BIOS/New Power Supply-For sale!
X510 3-15-11 CPU/RAM -Active.
X710 2-15-13 DIY Test 2012E.
X510 3-20-13 CPU.
X510 4-25-13 from parts.
EX490 5-12-13 used.