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Shouldn't WHS migrate files off of my sytem drive? RRS feed

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    I recently migrated to new hardware and I copied files across from my old WHS box.  I added hard drives into my pool one at a time.  Here is the current situation of my drives (according to the Disk Management Addin)

    Disk        Capacity    %Full
    ===        ======    ====
    Disk0        465GB        70% (System)
    Disk1        931GB        98%
    Disk2        931GB        97%
    Disk3        698GB        13%

    Disk3 was added several days ago after I had emptied all files from my old server - Disks1&2 were full so it had to use the system drive.  Now that there is lots of spare capacity shouldn't WHS move files off of the system drive and onto Drive 3?  Disk3 has been in place for several days - does WHS just do this migration when it does cleanup - about once a week?

    Wednesday, December 31, 2008 9:37 PM

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    wayner9 said:

    The server is fully updated with PP1.  What is the good thing about not moving data off the system drive?

    The reason it used to move files from the primary drive was because the clients used to only see the free space on the primary drive.  That is no longer the case.

    wayner9 said:

    Does it move unduplicated data from the system drive?

    No.  The files no longer move at all for any reason.  Once the file lands on a drive, DE will no longer migrate the file to another drive (unless prompted by an action from you that requires it, such as removing a drive from the server).

    wayner9 said:

    If not then wouldn't you  be more hosed if the system drive failed as you can't do a server reinstall if some of your data is on the system drive and not duplicated elsewhere?

    You wouldn't be any more "hosed" than having non-duplicated data on a secondary drive and having that drive fail.  And yes, you can still do a Server Reinstallation.  All you would lose is the data that was stored on the primary drive (if you weren't using Folder Duplication).

    Thursday, January 1, 2009 4:15 AM
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    If your server is fully updated with PP1, then the files will not be migrated.  PP1 changed the way drive extender works.  Don't worry though because it's for the good!
    athlon 3400, 2gb ram, 9 drives totaling about 3.5 tbs.
    Wednesday, December 31, 2008 11:37 PM
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    The server is fully updated with PP1.  What is the good thing about not moving data off the system drive?  Does it move unduplicated data from the system drive?  If not then wouldn't you  be more hosed if the system drive failed as you can't do a server reinstall if some of your data is on the system drive and not duplicated elsewhere?
    Thursday, January 1, 2009 1:07 AM
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    wayner9 said:

    The server is fully updated with PP1.  What is the good thing about not moving data off the system drive?

    The reason it used to move files from the primary drive was because the clients used to only see the free space on the primary drive.  That is no longer the case.

    wayner9 said:

    Does it move unduplicated data from the system drive?

    No.  The files no longer move at all for any reason.  Once the file lands on a drive, DE will no longer migrate the file to another drive (unless prompted by an action from you that requires it, such as removing a drive from the server).

    wayner9 said:

    If not then wouldn't you  be more hosed if the system drive failed as you can't do a server reinstall if some of your data is on the system drive and not duplicated elsewhere?

    You wouldn't be any more "hosed" than having non-duplicated data on a secondary drive and having that drive fail.  And yes, you can still do a Server Reinstallation.  All you would lose is the data that was stored on the primary drive (if you weren't using Folder Duplication).

    Thursday, January 1, 2009 4:15 AM
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    I've never used either of these but:

    You can try 3rd party apps to force migration off of the system drive.

    LZReallocator:
    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whssoftware/thread/dcc54750-fc07-4ecb-9627-731efda8f19f/

    HDD Balancer:
    http://forum.wegotserved.co.uk/index.php?s=0acea8b56748790ebd2f7cf1049af4b3&showtopic=2715&pid=31909&st=40&#entry31909

    Both apps basically work the same, it fills the target drive with temp files until WHS is forced to migrate data off the target. The first one, I believe, just works on the D partition and the other can set a free space target on other drives too, IIRC...

    I've never needed to force migration off the D drive neither pre- nor post-PP1 but some people have. Maybe you let your pool get too full before adding your other drive(s)? Out of curiosity, did you build your WHS with 1 drive or 3? That 70% has been the same since you added the 750G drive, right?
    "He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -- Thomas Paine
    • Proposed as answer by S_M_E Thursday, January 1, 2009 5:05 AM
    Thursday, January 1, 2009 5:02 AM
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    S_M_E said:

    I've never used either of these but:

    You can try 3rd party apps to force migration off of the system drive.

    LZReallocator:
    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whssoftware/thread/dcc54750-fc07-4ecb-9627-731efda8f19f/

    As I recall, other users have reported that LZReallocator no longer works after the November "landing zone" update (but I'm like you, I've never used either of them).

    S_M_E said:

    HDD Balancer:
    http://forum.wegotserved.co.uk/index.php?s=0acea8b56748790ebd2f7cf1049af4b3&showtopic=2715&pid=31909&st=40&#entry31909

    Both apps basically work the same, it fills the target drive with temp files until WHS is forced to migrate data off the target. The first one, I believe, just works on the D partition and the other can set a free space target on other drives too, IIRC...

    I've never needed to force migration off the D drive neither pre- nor post-PP1 but some people have. Maybe you let your pool get too full before adding your other drive(s)? Out of curiosity, did you build your WHS with 1 drive or 3? That 70% has been the same since you added the 750G drive, right?

    "He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -- Thomas Paine



    Thursday, January 1, 2009 5:14 AM
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    Another option might be to remove the November update and PP1, temporarily, to get WHS to migrate the data off the system drive then reinstalling them.  I'd suggest keeping plenty of free space in the future though.
    "He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -- Thomas Paine
    Thursday, January 1, 2009 12:02 PM
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    With the changes in handling of the landing zone, and the change to allow Vista to see the full free space in the storage pool as available, there's no longer a need to worry about what drive your files are on, or force a certain amount of free space on a particular drive. If you have files in un-duplicated shares, then the loss of any disk in your server risks the loss of some files. It doesn't matter if it's the system drive or a secondary storage pool drive.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Thursday, January 1, 2009 1:27 PM
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    S_M_E said:

     Out of curiosity, did you build your WHS with 1 drive or 3? That 70% has been the same since you added the 750G drive, right?

    Pretty much - it was originally at 69% when I added the 750GB drive - but that was before I added the clients and started backups.  I couldn't add that drive until I had files off of my original WHS server to free up space so that I could remove it from that server and then add it to this server.
    Thursday, January 1, 2009 2:52 PM
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    wayner9 said:

    S_M_E said:

     Out of curiosity, did you build your WHS with 1 drive or 3? That 70% has been the same since you added the 750G drive, right?

    Pretty much - it was originally at 69% when I added the 750GB drive - but that was before I added the clients and started backups.  I couldn't add that drive until I had files off of my original WHS server to free up space so that I could remove it from that server and then add it to this server.

    Yeah, it's better to have the free space to prevent things getting shoved on the D partition. One of the solutions should get everything back to the pool and as long as you add more space before you get low again, it shouldn't be a factor in the future.


    Ken Warren said:

     It doesn't matter if it's the system drive or a secondary storage pool drive.

    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)

    Actually, in wayner9's case, it does matter. He's using his WHS for SageTV and the pooled drives are formatted to use 64K clusters and that helps with Sage's performance. Since the D partition is used for tombstones and such, it's not formatted to 64K clusters and therefore he'll want his media off D and in the pool. ;)

    "He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -- Thomas Paine
    Thursday, January 1, 2009 3:09 PM
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    As mentioned above, under ordinary circumstances you shouldn't worry about whether you have share data on your system drive or not.  This is one of those cases where the Disk Management software provides "too much knowledge" in that if you never knew how much your server had on it - the better off you'd be. :)

    If for some reason you want to migrate share data off your system drive you can do so with Theo's LZReallocator (providing he's still hosting it).  You need to rollback the November update, which becomes more of an issue as time goes on because you should roll back all WHS updates between now and then as well.

    There is a mechanism in place that ensures that there is at least 10 gigs of free space on the system drive.  WHS automatically migrates share data off of the server drive when this condition occurs.  The LZReallocator application takes advantage of this behavior.  You of course could write your own app (that doesn't require a Nov. rollback) that fools WHS into migrating share data as well.
    Thursday, January 1, 2009 5:54 PM
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    Chris H said:

    You of course could write your own app (that doesn't require a Nov. rollback) that fools WHS into migrating share data as well.


    That's what the other app that I linked does and it's fairly recent. However rolling back instead of forcing migration based on filling the drive may be preferred which is why I mentioned that option too.

    Not every WHS is used under ordinary circumstances and while "too much information" may apply to some WHS users it certainly doesn't apply to all. ;)
    "He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -- Thomas Paine
    Thursday, January 1, 2009 6:54 PM