By Philip Churchill on August 18th, 2012
Add-In: StableBit DrivePool v1.2.0.6659 BETA
StableBit DrivePool, the Drive Extender type add-in for WHS 2011 users has had an update.
Version 1.2.0.6659 BETA has a new more flexible file placement and balancing system. Here’s the full change log:
- Added visual markers on the DrivePool -> Disks tab to indicate where the balancer wants to attempt to reshuffle your files.
- Added animated arrows on the DrivePool -> Disks tab that show what the balancer is doing in real-time.
- [D] Fixed system crash under some rare conditions due to the timing of I/O operations.
- [D] Upgraded the pool balancing system.
– Now uses a layered system of balancers.
– Each balancer is responsible for implementing its own balancing algorithm.
– A combined balancing model is built by querying all the balancers, where the upper
balancers have priority over the lower balancers.
– Each balancer can:
– Schedule file moves for protected and un-protected files, separately.
– Set up real time file placement limits on any drive.
– Two types of limits are supported, hard limits and soft limits.
– There are 3 built-in balancers:
– Duplication Space Optimizer – A perfectly accurate duplication space optimizer that figures out if there
are any files blocking the optimal use of disk space for duplicated file placement. It only moves files
when it is absolutely necessary.
– Prevent Drive Overfill – If any drive becomes full, and there is disk space on other drives, move
some of the files to the other drives. This balancer comes with a bunch of settings letting you
set up the appropriate balancing limits.
– File Placement Limiter (new) – Control where new files will be placed by the real-time file placement
algorithm. This balancer comes with settings that let you choose which file types go onto which drives.
The algorithm sets up a "soft limit" which will be broken if all of the drives in the system are "full".
"Full" is defined in the settings pane and defaults to 90% full.
– There is a simple API for building 3rd party balancers (exposed in DrivePool.Integration.dll – not enabled yet).
– Each balancer can be enabled / disable or rearranged in the stack by the user.
– A balancer can come with a WPF user control for any settings that have to be exposed to the user.
– Each balancer stores its settings in a settings state object that is automatically serialized / de-serialized
for the balancer by the system.
More information on this beta release of StableBit DrivePool can be found here.
