Windows 10: Storage Pool Queries- removal of hard drives

Hi, Due to qty4x5bay Orico external devices, plus qty 6 single bay external drives, I will not have enough Drive Letters available from Windows 11. I am now looking at Storage Spaces, however there seems to be no easy way to remove/stop using a 5bay device as a storage pool without transferring the data, or just simply being forced to keep the device as a Storage Pool Device forever to be used on another windows computer. Ideally, I would like the option of just removing from Storage Spaces and taking the whole 5 bay device to use anywhere, however I like. Any way around the three options- del

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How to remove a bad drive in Windows 10 storage spaces pool

Could someone list the steps involved in replacing a bad drive from a Windows 10 storage spaces pool? I cannot find any info on the Microsoft support site that is specific to Windows 10. Also, could you list the steps to remove a 'good' drive and replace
it with another drive if the process is different?

 

Can't Remove Retired Drive from Storage Pool

I can't figure out why I can't remove a drive from my storage pool. I added a larger drive so now I have plenty of space, but it's stuck at .02% used, the usage of the drive is retired, and the repair process hits 99% but fails to remove at the very end.
It seems to be in an endless loop as it keeps trying to repair, but I just can't get it removed. Even if I take the hard drive out, it remains in the pool. Any suggestions?

 

How to remove external hard disk from storage pool on Windows 10

Hi Velen,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

I understand your concern about removing the external hard disk from storage pool, we will help you with this issue.

Try the below steps to: Remove a physical disk by using Windows PowerShell
and check if it helps.

• 
  Press Windows
  key from the keyboard, type Windows PowerShell and select
  Run as administrator.
  
• 
  Enter the command replacing <diskname> with the disk name:
  

• • 
    Set-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName <diskname> -Usage Retired
    

(If the pool is clustered, you will need to run this command on the cluster node which has the cluster resource for the pool online.)

3. Prior to performing step 5, you must wait for all active repair jobs to complete. To monitor the status of repair jobs, type the following command:
Get-StorageJob

4. Type the following command: Remove-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName <diskname>

5. Physically disconnect the old disk.

For further reference: Storage Spaces Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Hope it helps. Reply to the post with an updated status of this issue for further assistance.