What is Drivepool doing constantly that consumes power?

kapone

I have been monitoring my server power usage, and if I uninstall it, the server idles at a rock solid 48-49 watts. With Drivepool installed, it jumps 15-20w every few seconds, as if Drivepool is checking something constantly.

This happens on both WHS 2011 and Server 2008 R2 on the same hardware.

Any ideas/guidance?

Shane

Does the Resource Monitor program provide any clues, e.g. spikes in processor or disk usage?

If it's a beta version, might be logging (wild guess).

Shane

Does the issue continue if you stop the DrivePool service?

Does disabling Windows Indexing have any impact?

Alex

Kapone,

StableBit DrivePool does not do anything periodically, unless you request it.

Under the default settings:

• StableBit DrivePool does not  need to scan the disk periodically for duplication consistency,
• StableBit DrivePool does not need to scan the disks periodically for file balancing requirements.
• StableBit DrivePool does not maintain an open handle to any folders on the pool (Windows Home Server 2011 does, but we don't).

Under the default installation, we are very careful about not using any unnecessary resources.

The only explanation that I can come up with for this scenario is that StableBit DeivePool does pool all of your disks together, and perhaps when files are accessed on StableBit DrivePool more than one disk is spun up, resulting in a higher power usage.

Since the pooled files are stored on individual drives that are part of the pool, this would make sense.

kapone

Update: Did additional testing on different hardware platforms, and it appears that the problem was isolated to that particular motherboard. It's an X58 motherboard and with the QPI power management turned on, it seems the Intel IOH was constantly spiking.

No issues with Drivepool.

Shane

Thanks for the update!