Question

saitoh183

I created my pool, is there a way to see it locally if all drives are not assigned a drive Letter?

Shane

Could you clarify what you mean by "see it locally"?

The "StableBit DrivePool" tab on the WHS dashboard allows you to see the list of pool shares ("Shared Server Folders") and hard drives ("Hard Drive Pooling") including all pooled, non-pooled, and non-poolable volumes, even if they are not assigned a drive letter.

To access a pool share, even if it has not been mapped to a drive letter, you can use \\whsname\poolsharename - e.g. "\\myserver\mypool" - this works from the server too, not just other computers.

saitoh183

oh..that part i get \\whs2011\mypoolshare...i just wanted to know if it will be possible to give my pool a drive letter so i can see it in Computer on WHS2011 or in order to see it i will have to map a drive in WHS2011  - i.e. H:\ = \\whs2011\mypoolshare

The reason for my questions is that right now i have a pool with no folders in it, if i wanted to dump files on it without having any folders, how would i do so? Doing \\whs2011\mypoolshare wouldnt apply since there is no share folder

Shane

Yes, you would have to map a drive letter to the network share to see it in explorer's Computer section, alongside your physical drives, on WHS2011.

You do need to create a shared folder for a pool before you can put files in it. Think of it like a house - until you make a door (share), you can't get into your house (pool). Each door gives access to a different room in the house. The rooms automatically resize as you put files in or take files out, so long as the total is not bigger than the house.

saitoh183

Thx Shane for the clarification.Do we know if this will change when the final version is released? Because i have been also trying Drive bender and it allows you to have a mount point without have to create a share to access pool which i found was a nice addition. If not , i can live with making a share

Alex

We're trying to keep the pool under C:\ServerPool\ServerFolders as a mounted volume (same as drive letter, but without the letter) for the final.

I totally understand the want to make it a drive letter. I guess the thinking is that if it's a drive letter then I can do anything...

The problem is that once you map the pool to a drive letter, then you open up a gigantic can of worms. Now you have to be compatible with all the various applications that may use the pool directly (a monumental task). Plus, it would need to integrate well with WHS at the same time.

We simply couldn't ensure data integrity / stability for every use case and release this any time soon.

So we're keeping the pool under C:\ServerPool\ServerFolders, you can dump files into it if you want, but be aware that it wasn't designed for this.

We may have a config option in the final to map it to a real drive letter, but it would be an advanced function

saitoh183

Cool beans Alex, Thx for your input and keep up the good work