Best Practise question

MikeWI

Background:  I posted about having a problem balancing the pool after adding a new drive.  After trying everything I could including the latest Beta, I decided to scan the new drive.  This is something I normally do with a new drive, but decided I was being too OCD this time, as I've never had a drive fail right away.

So, of course the new drive has 22 bad sectors.  Maybe this had a part in the file copying issues?  But that's not where I'm going with this.

I couldn't remove the drive from the pool, because it kept claiming that I didn't have enough space even though it's 900GB before duplication on what would then be a 3TB pool.  I finally shutdown the server, unhooked the bad drive, and rebooted.  I was then able to remove the missing drive from the pool.  Of course this now leaves the pool badly out of balance, and in need of duplication besides which finally brings me to my question:

I was offered two choices, 1) to rebalance the pool and 2) fix the duplication issue.  Which one should be done first?

Surely one of those options is the best one to do first, and since there is no info provided with those choices I don't really have a basis on which to choose.  I decided to have it fix the duplication first, and it ended early claiming there was insufficient space.  True, one of the small drives was full, but given that there were 4 other drives, there was plenty of room (and had been before).  So it looks like I should have rebalanced first (doing that now).

Perhaps if there is always a best way to do this, the choice could be removed entirely and let DrivePool whip everything back into shape in the best way it knows how?

Shane

I'm concerned that DrivePool was seemingly unable to correctly see the available space on the four remaining drive. If there continue to be problems with it, could you contact Alex? http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Troubleshooting

MikeWI

yep, there officially still problems.  ended with 50% status saying it couldn't find space for files, even though it's all there.  I'll post up the logs, and just re-format the pool drives and start over.  At least I have a backup!

Does that mean the two questions aren't normal, or do I get an answer on that one too?

Shane

Just in my opinion, the best choice is duplicate first, THEN balance. 

Balancing - decides how much of your data is facing oblivion when a disk dies.

Duplication - decides whether or not that data needs to face oblivion in the first place.

There may be edge cases where the other way around is better, which I suppose means it's nice to get the choice, but generally? Duplicate first, ask questions later.

About the re-formatting, any chance of holding off a couple of days in case Alex needs further info?

MikeWI

as a matter of fact, once I saw that the server didn't "notice" that drive pool was gone I decided to wait to see if I hear anything.  That way Alex can use me as a guinea pig if he needs to.  I want to wait for WD to replace the drive so I can do everything all at once anyway.  Server is shutdown until I hear something, or I get tired of waiting after getting my drive .

Glad to hear my logic in choosing duplication first was sound anyway.