Is DrivePool For Me?

411

I'm looking to replace my 5 Bay Drobo with an 6+ Bay Windows based machine.
I have the hardware for the Windows Machine up and running and have Windows 8 installed and have been trying Storage Spaces.

Anyway, Storage Spaces is not for me......Difficult to add/remove drives, a menu in a menu to change a simple setting.

I'm looking for a similar setup to my Drobo, a set and forget setup.

IE, Put 6 disks as a starting point and have them create 1 larger drive, with folders for my Documents, Pictures, iTunes and 2x PC backups.
With hopefully 2 disk redundancy and the drives spinning down when not in use.
Also is it possible to have 1x drive not included in Drivepool and have that backup to DrivePool every night?

I'm 100% after reliability over speed and I'm hoping Windows Server 2011 and Drivepool will be the answer. I haven't bought 2011 yet so can't try DrivePool yet.

Is DrivePool the soloution for me?

Many Thanks

411

I guess DrivePool isn't for me then.

dbailey75

Yes, it's for you, you setup it and you never look back, there's low activity on this forum for a reason, while there are a few that run into issues, but for the most part, there's minium work required after you set it up,  you get speed and reliablity. 

Redundancy happen at the share folder level, but I'm not sure about the disc spinning down, but give your post time for folks to repond, it's the weekend.  I not sure about the backup question either, I use a 3rd party program, and back up to another set of external disc's once month,   I have duplication on my primary data, but for movies, and music, the contents do not change as frequently, so once a month is enough, 

Go ahead and test drive, and make a decision.  Ask questions, as you go, but allow more than a day before you bump. 

Sorry I'm not one of the advance users,

saitoh183

Drivepool combined with Scanner (other software made by Dev) will do everything you described. Scanner will handle drive spindown. As for the 2 disk redundency DP has duplication but if the disk are for backup storage only, i wouldnt put them in pool.Instead i would make a mirror using windows (scanner could still manage them)

hopester

Drivepool combined with Scanner (other software made by Dev) will do everything you described. Scanner will handle drive spindown.

Just a minor correction, you dont need scanner to spin the disks down, windows will handle that
in the power options. The new spin down options in scanner were added because its smart calls actually stopped the disks from going to sleep.

dbailey75

this post got me to thinking about the drive power states, while I can confirm that I have the drives set to turn off after 30m under the power management options, they don't spin down, ever, I've also tried setting up power managemane in scanner, but for some drives the option is not there  (2 seagate LP 2TB drives), but I have 2 newer segate 2TB now called green drives that have the options avaliable, but the setting don't stick., here's a link to an old thread, http://forum.covecube.com/discussion/158/hard-drive-spin-down/p1, it was stated that the DP service does not let the drives power down, maybe this has changed with the final release, can anyone confirm?

My issue, I have a server backup disk, outside of the pool, connected via USB, and this drive never stops spinning , it's in a passive enclosure, and stays around 49 C.  I'd like this guy to spin down when not in use. Woud the DP servcie prevent non pooled drives from Spining down as well?

Shane

Under the latest stable release (1.1.0.6326) I can personally confirm DrivePool allows spindown; I also have Scanner installed (2.1.2601) without issue. Have you other software besides these two running in the background on your server?

dbailey75

yep, I'm also running perfect disk, I'll turn off the auto schedule, and do some more looking around, thanks for confirming DP is not the issue.