Windows 10: Windows Storage Spaces -- Moving a Physical Disk

Hope the following review/summary of my recent experimenting with Microsoft Storage Spaces will be of use to others. Sorry if this is too 'verbose'... The steps I performed/show could be used in one of several scenarios...

1] If you physically remove a disk from a functioning Storage Space without going thru Storage Spaces in the Control Panel first. 'How to Remove Drive from Storage Pool for Storage Spaces in Windows 10'

2] If there is a failure of a disk in a Storage Space [two-way mirror]

3] If there is a failure of the computer hosting the Storage Space [again a two-way mirror].

In scenario 2 you can replace the failed disk and press-on. But if you want/need to get the files off the remaining 'good' disk or in the case of scenario 3 you have no other option, you can physically remove the disk from the computer and connect to another. In my case, moving a 2.5" SSD [Identified in the Desktop Pool as 'SamsungSSD2'] from a Windows 10 Home Desktop to a Windows 10 Home Laptop and connecting with USB 3.0 to 2.5 SATA III Hard Drive Adapter/Cable.

When connecting the 2.5" SSD to the laptop got a Notification 'Check Storage Spaces for issues'





Windows displayed 'Microsoft Storage Space Device' in both Device Manager, Disk Manager and Explorer...

















All of the files stored on SSD2 were accessible thru Explorer. So at this point we can copy any/all the files from the Desktop's two-way mirror.

I can't speak to what would happen or the steps needed if you wanted to physically return the drive to the Desktop's original two-way mirror. The most straightforward option would be to build a new mirror on the Desktop from scratch and go from there.

At this point on the laptop, Windows treats the drive as a Storage Space [albeit in a 'Reduced resiliency' state]. The following steps will guide you thru how to get the SSD 'out' of Microsoft's Storage Space.

On the laptop, under Control Panel; Storage Spaces we are presented details about the Storage Pool as created on the Desktop, to include name of the Storage Space and the details about the Physical drives making up the original Two-way mirror. It happily finds SSD2, but SSD1 is missing. Hence the 'Warning' about 'Reduced resiliency...'. These details must be coming from somewhere on SSD2. I was not successful in finding out much about how/what is on a Storage Spaces Two-way mirror other than info on this Microsoft Blog in 2012

From here I selected 'Change Settings'; From there chose to 'Delete' the Two-way mirror Storage Space













This deletes the Two-way mirror Storage Space, but we still end up with the two drives in the Pool. A simple matter to 'Delete Pool'









And we end up here in the Control Panel...





SSD2 now appears in Disk Management and Windows Explorer









Of note... There were NO files from the Desktop Two-way mirror on SSD2 once we got to this point in the process!

Please, add/correct as needed since this was done in a bit of a rush.

:)

 

Storage spaces recovery

For interest:

Move Storage Spaces from Windows 10 Pro to Windows Server 2016 Essentials

But I note:

What Windows build/edition are you using on your old PC, and what on your new?

More:
Can you move Storage Spaces pools between computers?

 

Storage Spaces on Windows 10 Single Physical Drive Failure Causes entire virtual disk to fail

I have the following current situation:

• an old Asus R1F notebook running Windows 10 Professional 64-bit;
• 10 external USB disks of varying sizes;
• one Storage Space (using all 10 external disks) called “Spacelab”;
• set to a total virtual capacity of 14TB;
• total external physical disk space of 19TB;
• set to use mirror resiliency;
• a single external disk (of 1.36TB called “WolfmanASMT”) showing in the Storage Spaces GUI as disconnected;
• the Storage Space showing in the GUI as inaccessible.

My issue is, since I have 9 drives out of 10 showing as connected and healthy, why does the one disconnected physical drive (WolfmanASMT) stop the entire Storage Space (Spacelab) from connecting?
I thought that the whole point of mirror resiliency was that I could lose up to two disks and still have a working virtual disk.

I thought the issue might be that the one drive that is disconnected (WolfmanASMT) makes the difference between the Spacelab virtual disk as a whole having enough space for resiliency.
The trouble with that theory is that the disconnected disk contributes only 1.36TB of the entire setup, which is a 14Tb space with total physical drives of over 19Tb.
I have tried forcing the virtual disk to reconnect using a powershell command “connect-virtualdisk” but it gives the error that it cannot connect because too many drives have disconnected or gone missing.

By way of history, the notebook has only 3 USB 2.0 ports. As a result, I have been tinkering mercilessly with the means of connecting up the drives.
That included adding a 3-port Express card to the notebook. It included using a variety of different USB hubs.
As I tested out each different physical configuration the Storage Spaces GUI would show varying degrees of success from no Storage Space at all (not even disconnected) to disconnected with only one physical drive disconnected.
That is the current position.

I could try marking the disconnected disk as retired and then repairing the virtual disk but I would need to be confident that this will work.
If not. I will have to be patient and find a way to resurrect the one disconnected disk.
I think I might be able to do that by cloning it to a spare disk.
However, I am concerned that I have actually reached a limit of my old notebook and that even if I replace the disk, it will never connect properly because of some elusive limitation in the USB capabilities of my notebook.
Any suggestions gratefully considered.

I have included a screenshot of the Storage Spaces GUI.

 

Windows 10 Storage Spaces Improvements?

Are you using 3 column parity? This is the default setting for parity spaces in the Windows 8.1 GUI. If so, this is the reason for your high overhead. 3 column single-parity incurrs a 50% storage overhead (1 parity shard for every 2 data shards)

This makes sense for small pools containing 3 or 4 physical disks. However it is a poor choice with 14 physical disks.

In your case I suggest a 12 column dual-parity space. This means 2 parity shards for every 10 data shards. This will allow for recovery from two drive failures and give only a 20% storage overhead.

Unfortunately the Windows 8.1 GUI is too basic to allow creation of such a space. You need to use Powershell. You can create such a space on your existing storage pool and move data to it from your existing parity space. As you move the data your free space
will increase.