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WHS VolSnap EventID 25 and EventID 28 RRS feed

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    I currently have 12 x 1TB disks attached to my WHS. Duplication is set on all folders and the disks are currently 50% full.
     
    WHS seems to privilege one disk and fill this up to 98%. I once ran Drive Balancer to spread the load with great sucess but already one disk is 'creeping up'.

    Every 12 hours I invariably get one or two VolSnap errors in my Event Log. The affected disks vary each time so I don't think this is a physical disk problem. ChkDsk runs every 24 hours on each disk and completes with no errors. 

    I have started running PerfectDisk on a daily basis (start time 1am). Initially the VolSnap issues subsided but they are beginning to return. PerfectDisk creates a pretty picture of the disk and it is extremely satisfying to see the large free contiguous disk space it generates. However, the WHS disk storage balancer rapidly makes a mess of this and PerfectDislk will typically run all day every day.

    I have confiermed that I still get the 12 hourly VolSnap events if PerfectDisk is running or not.

    I have 2 questions.

    1. are the VolSnap events significant.
    2. I can understand the use of PerfectDIsk on the ysstem volume but is a defrag necessary on the data disks other than as a cosmetic nicety and to free up space as and when a disk starts to get full (more than 95%)
    Sunday, March 8, 2009 3:31 PM

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    TripleFun said:

    I currently have 12 x 1TB disks attached to my WHS. Duplication is set on all folders and the disks are currently 50% full.
     
    WHS seems to privilege one disk and fill this up to 98%. I once ran Drive Balancer to spread the load with great sucess but already one disk is 'creeping up'.

    My opinion:  Don't use that tool.  It doesn't help the functionality of WHS at all (as a matter of fact, I'd be willing to bet that it's that tool that's causing your errors in the first place).

    TripleFun said:

    Every 12 hours I invariably get one or two VolSnap errors in my Event Log. The affected disks vary each time so I don't think this is a physical disk problem. ChkDsk runs every 24 hours on each disk and completes with no errors. 

    I have started running PerfectDisk on a daily basis (start time 1am). Initially the VolSnap issues subsided but they are beginning to return. PerfectDisk creates a pretty picture of the disk and it is extremely satisfying to see the large free contiguous disk space it generates. However, the WHS disk storage balancer rapidly makes a mess of this and PerfectDislk will typically run all day every day.

    I have confiermed that I still get the 12 hourly VolSnap events if PerfectDisk is running or not.

    I have 2 questions.

    1. are the VolSnap events significant.

    No.  Usually those are due to Shadow Copies not being able to clean up and expand at the same time (no doubt it's happening at midnight and noon, right?).  However, Shadow Copies doesn't work as it should on WHS anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

    TripleFun said:

    2. I can understand the use of PerfectDIsk on the ysstem volume but is a defrag necessary on the data disks other than as a cosmetic nicety and to free up space as and when a disk starts to get full (more than 95%)

    You'll get different opinions on this.   My take:  defrag is a waste of time and resources on WHS.  The bottleneck is the network, not the storage.  (And defrag doesn't "free up space" anyway, it just reorganizes data stored on a hard drive so that when a file from that drive is called for by the CPU, it's able to retrieve it faster).

    • Proposed as answer by kariya21Moderator Sunday, March 8, 2009 4:05 PM
    • Marked as answer by TripleFun Sunday, March 8, 2009 4:08 PM
    Sunday, March 8, 2009 4:04 PM
    Moderator

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    TripleFun said:

    I currently have 12 x 1TB disks attached to my WHS. Duplication is set on all folders and the disks are currently 50% full.
     
    WHS seems to privilege one disk and fill this up to 98%. I once ran Drive Balancer to spread the load with great sucess but already one disk is 'creeping up'.

    My opinion:  Don't use that tool.  It doesn't help the functionality of WHS at all (as a matter of fact, I'd be willing to bet that it's that tool that's causing your errors in the first place).

    TripleFun said:

    Every 12 hours I invariably get one or two VolSnap errors in my Event Log. The affected disks vary each time so I don't think this is a physical disk problem. ChkDsk runs every 24 hours on each disk and completes with no errors. 

    I have started running PerfectDisk on a daily basis (start time 1am). Initially the VolSnap issues subsided but they are beginning to return. PerfectDisk creates a pretty picture of the disk and it is extremely satisfying to see the large free contiguous disk space it generates. However, the WHS disk storage balancer rapidly makes a mess of this and PerfectDislk will typically run all day every day.

    I have confiermed that I still get the 12 hourly VolSnap events if PerfectDisk is running or not.

    I have 2 questions.

    1. are the VolSnap events significant.

    No.  Usually those are due to Shadow Copies not being able to clean up and expand at the same time (no doubt it's happening at midnight and noon, right?).  However, Shadow Copies doesn't work as it should on WHS anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

    TripleFun said:

    2. I can understand the use of PerfectDIsk on the ysstem volume but is a defrag necessary on the data disks other than as a cosmetic nicety and to free up space as and when a disk starts to get full (more than 95%)

    You'll get different opinions on this.   My take:  defrag is a waste of time and resources on WHS.  The bottleneck is the network, not the storage.  (And defrag doesn't "free up space" anyway, it just reorganizes data stored on a hard drive so that when a file from that drive is called for by the CPU, it's able to retrieve it faster).

    • Proposed as answer by kariya21Moderator Sunday, March 8, 2009 4:05 PM
    • Marked as answer by TripleFun Sunday, March 8, 2009 4:08 PM
    Sunday, March 8, 2009 4:04 PM
    Moderator
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    Kariya21

    Thanks for the rapid response. Drive Balancer worked well (although a bit scary during execution) and yes, the events were hapenning before I gave it a spin so I don't think it is responsible for the VolSnaps.

    And yes, I agree, PerfectDisk is not adding much value other than tidy drives and maybe a more responsive system (which given all the otehr overheads is not really noticeable)

    And thanks for the VolSnap reassurance - I'll ignore these issues and enjoy WHS for what it is.

    Sunday, March 8, 2009 4:13 PM