Windows 10: Storage Pool - Don't understand my issues - Need add drive?

System Info:
Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
V 1703
Build 15063.674

I have a storage pool and am a bit confused about what I'm seeing. First off, per some other posts you may have seen, I am backing up a laptop to the storage space and getting not enough space errors. When I look at the 'drive' from the explorer, it shows: Total Size: 4.99 TB Available space: 2.93 TB. The file space on the drive I'm trying to back up is around 300 GB.

Now, when I look at the storage space through Manage Storage Space...see the screen capture:





Am I interpreting that wrong? It says I need to add 3 drives that I'm low on storage space. And it says using 4.84 of 4.99 TB of storage capacity.

ALSO: it has a notification to update the pool to take advantage of some new features. I can't find any info on that topic of how to do that.

What's lead me down this path is not being able to back up that drive.

Another attachment that may be of interest:

:)

 

Not happy with Storage Pools.

Thanks for your reply. I already read the Storages & spaces FAQ
before I posted this query. Maybe I still don't understand how this Storage Pool works. I do understand what you are saying about
C: Drive. But Crive also holds the "Library" files. These are the files I wish to delete on
Crive to free up space because they are now on the Storage Pool drives. The 2 extra Storage Pool drives are internal HD's in my tower. If this is the way the Storage Pool works, then I'd rather not have the Storage Pool and I'll just backup
my Library Files (pictures, videos, music, documents) on my internal HDs. Is there a way to reverse the Storage Pool I just created?

Thanks.

 

Cannot remove a "Retired" drive in Windows 10 Storage Spaces

****I asked this question in Windows Tech Net, but got no response. I am not an IT Pro, so maybe I posted in the wrong forum. This issue seems to be happening to others and the Windows Key + X.... solution I saw elsewhere on this forum did not work for me.
Here is my question....*****

I have 16 USB drives pooled in Windows 10 Storage Spaces (mostly 3TB to 5TB drives). Most of the pool is used as parity storage volume. I also have small 2 and 3 way volumes and a simple volume with little data on them. The pool was at about 68% capacity
before a 5TB drive failed. Storage Spaces automatically moved data off the failed drive and currently reports: 0.42% used, providing 4.54TB pool capacity. Error code for the failed drive in Physical Drives listing reads: Retired; add a drive then remove this
drive.

The Parity Storage Spaces volume now reads: Warning, Low capacity: add 2 drives. Because when data was reallocated to the remaining drives, the parity volume is now over 70% full.

What I have done.

1. I bought a new 5TB USB drive and added it to the storage pool. Attempted to "remove" the failed drive in the GUI Physcial drives listing. Got an error with detail: "Drive could not be removed because not all data could be reallocated. Add an additional
drive to this pool and reattempt this operation." I don't understand how adding a new 5TB drive to the pool was not large enough to reallocate the remaining 0.42% data used on the failed drive. Thought maybe the 70% low capacity error message had something
to do with it. So....

2. I then added two smaller USB drives (200GB, 500GB) to the pool and the "low capacity" and "add 2 drives" messages were cleared. I attempted to once again remove the retired drive in the Storage Spaces GUI, but got the same message as before that the pool
was not large enough to reallocate the remaining data on the failed drive.

After googling this issue of how to remove Storage Spaces retired drives, I believe I am not the only one with these concerns and I have yet to find an answer. I have effectively replaced one failed 5TB drive with three drives providing almost 6TB and yet
Storage Spaces will not let me remove the failed 5TB drive.

The failed drive is only about 4 months old, so I would like to remove it from Storage Spaces, run diagnostics on it, and RMA it for a replacement. However, don't want to "crash" the Storage Spaces by just unplugging the failed drive and physically removing
it on my own when the GUI says I can't.

Storage Spaces is still running fine despite the one failed drive, so no complaints. Just want to know how to get this retired drive off my pool. Have started learning how to use Powershell, so willing to go beyond the Windows 10 Storage Spaces GUI if needed.
Any help appreciated.

 

Here's a screen shot of what the explorer shows for my storage space. This is what has me so confused. On manage of storage space, it shows virtually full, and this shows 2TB available:





No-one has any thoughts at all?