Strange WHS Pool Hard Drive Issues

[voorhees]

I recently added an external drive to my WHS SageTV server via eSATA. I plugged it in, added it to the data pool, and reformatted it to 64k clusters. I ripped some DVDs and attempted to move them to my server as I have done with my 230+ ripped DVDs, but this time I ran into problems. WHS decided to put them on the new empty drive (which was good), but it would write a file or two fine and then basically stop. It would pretend to continue to copy files (however the time to finish would continuously go up), but I would eventually have to stop the process and start the copy over. Almost every time it would copy the first file great, then basically stop. I did this for a very long time to get 6 newly ripped DVDs on my server. I never saw this problem with adding files to my server with my previous internal drives. It looks like there is some conflict with the new drive. Has anyone seen this before? Any ideas on what it could be? Any ideas on where I can start looking?

Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks.

[kevine]

Originally Posted by voorhees

I recently added an external drive to my WHS SageTV server via eSATA. I plugged it in, added it to the data pool, and reformatted it to 64k clusters. I ripped some DVDs and attempted to move them to my server as I have done with my 230+ ripped DVDs, but this time I ran into problems. WHS decided to put them on the new empty drive (which was good), but it would write a file or two fine and then basically stop. It would pretend to continue to copy files (however the time to finish would continuously go up), but I would eventually have to stop the process and start the copy over. Almost every time it would copy the first file great, then basically stop. I did this for a very long time to get 6 newly ripped DVDs on my server. I never saw this problem with adding files to my server with my previous internal drives. It looks like there is some conflict with the new drive. Has anyone seen this before? Any ideas on what it could be? Any ideas on where I can start looking?

Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks.

I would remove it from the pool and try a straight copy. But first remove the DVDs you just copied off the pool to see if reading has a problem for that drive too. If the straight copy has a problem, fix that before adding it to the pool again. Are you using any drivers? WHS specific? 2003?

[gplasky]

What you may have encountered was WHS starting up the migrator service to begin balancing the drives. This can become very drive-intensive. Especially if you have folder duplication enabled. If this was the case you could just wait until it is all balanced out and then begin your copy. Also make sure you are copying to the share folders and not directly to the drive.

Gerry

[voorhees]

Originally Posted by gplasky

What you may have encountered was WHS starting up the migrator service to begin balancing the drives. This can become very drive-intensive. Especially if you have folder duplication enabled. If this was the case you could just wait until it is all balanced out and then begin your copy. Also make sure you are copying to the share folders and not directly to the drive.

Gerry

Gerry,

That sounds like that could be it, but I added the drive a couple of days before I tried copying the ripped DVDs to it. I noticed when I reenabled duplicatoin after adding the drive it did not put anything on the new drive, but it did add the DVDs to it. When I would copy a whole DVD folder over it would write the first VOB file OK, then the copy dialog would steadily increase in time to 200+ minutes and there would be no drive activity on the eSATA drive. I would then cancel the copy and start again. It would again copy one VOB file and then stop again. I copied 3 of the 6 DVDs on one day, 1 the next day, and 2 today. WHS put them all on the new eSATA drive. It takes a long time to get them copied over when they all go through this process. I would think over this span of time I would not be running into the issue you mention.

Right now I am copying the DVDs over to a unmanaged external USB drive attached to the WHS server, and there is no problem removing them from the drive. It looks like it is just copying to the eSATA pooled drive. What would make it almost impossible to copy to, but no problem to get them off? Strange...

Thoughts?

Edit: I forgot to add that I am only copying to and from the share folders.

[voorhees]

Originally Posted by kevine

I would remove it from the pool and try a straight copy. But first remove the DVDs you just copied off the pool to see if reading has a problem for that drive too. If the straight copy has a problem, fix that before adding it to the pool again. Are you using any drivers? WHS specific? 2003?

kevine, thanks for the reply. I am starting at looking into this now. As I type I am copying the DVDs off the pooled drive share over to an attached USB unmanaged drive. That is going great. No problems at all. They are copying over very quickly and have not stopped during the copy yet. I will see how the copy works after I get it out of the pool. Concerning drivers, I actually did not load any drivers. As with my internal Seagate HDs, the server recognized the external right away. But, this could easily be my problem. I am not sure where I would get drivers. I checked the Seagate site and they only have the Seagate software that came installed on the drive for automatic backup. I may play around with using it as a USB drive, but I would like to use it as eSATA for the increased speed. I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks.

[gplasky]

Probably the other thing to check is if there are any settings for the eSata port out of your machine or into the external enclosure. Your drives them selves are just standard sata drives. It would be the controller that may need a driver.

Gerry

[voorhees]

OK I tried various scenarios, writing to and reading from, both in and out of the pool. I have no problem with reading, but do in both cases with writing large files (1GB VOB files). Smaller files did not seem to have a problem. The problem is not 100% repeatable, but it happens most of the time I write a large file to the drive (in or out of the pool). I started poking around to look for motherboard drivers or firmware updates for the external hard drive (which is a Seagate FreeAgent Pro). I have not found a driver for my Gigabyte motherboard for the eSATA controller. Looked on their web site but have not run into anything yet. On the other hand, while looking for a firmware update for the external drive, I stumbled up on a web site that discussed a few different problems with my drive used with the eSATA connection. One of those being that some people have experienced problems with writing big files. Hmmmmmmm....... There is a firmware update for the drive that some have experienced improvement on many if not all of the issues (of which the only one I have seen is the write problem), but I am unable to get the firmware installed because the software used to install it must be used with WinXP (not WHS or Vista as I tried both) and I do not have a computer with WinXP on it. So it looks like my drive has a issue that has been seen by others that is giving me trouble. Doh! I am going to keep poking around and see if I can find a controller driver or a way to update the firmware and see if something eventually works. Thanks for the help in pointing me in the right directions.

I used the drive for a couple of years as a backup drive using USB and never had a problem with it, but I wanted to add it to my WHS pool using eSATA. Has anyone experienced performance issues using a USB drive as a SageTV recording drive?

Thanks.

[gplasky]

How does it work if you connect the drive via USB or Firewire? Maybe this anomaly is only related to eSata connection. Might be worthwhile to test. The other option is do you have any room and a sata connection inside your PC? You could remove the drive from the external enclosure and see if it works any differently connected directly.

Gerry

[voorhees]

Originally Posted by gplasky

How does it work if you connect the drive via USB or Firewire?

It works fine on USB, and has for a couple of years.

Originally Posted by gplasky

You could remove the drive from the external enclosure and see if it works any differently connected directly.

I thought this was a great idea, and jumped in with both feet in between a lot of business travel. I cracked open the external Seagate case and extracted the drive. Installed it internally in my server and it is working great. WHS stared using it right away for duplication and SageTV started recording to it pretty soon after that. No problems so far. Thanks for the suggestion. I guess that is really what a wanted, to use my extra external drive instead of buying a new internal drive.

Thanks so much for the help.