Need assistance with Windows 11 Storage Spaces?
Need assistance with Windows 11 Storage Spaces?
I initially installed two 8 TB drives on my PC with the plan to add more later. When I ran out of space, I added a third drive and joined it to the existing pool. The issue is that I wanted to configure a RAID 5 setup, but with only two drives I ended up with a two-way mirror configuration. After inserting the third drive, I can't switch to a one-drive parity setup. Should I create a new storage area? Would that erase the backups if I started fresh? Am I limited to a simple mirror redundancy? I have another drive available, which would bring the total to 16 TB with a 1:1 mirror setup. However, I aimed for 24 GB since this is the main workstation. I spent my budget on these two drives, so my next goal is to rebuild an older PC as a personal cloud storage solution for the family. Also, could you clarify the warning message? It suggests checking the physical drive tab for details, but it just says "warning." The pool is currently trying to balance data distribution. The image looks distorted—please feel free to share a screenshot if needed. I'm protecting my serial number in case it's related to an unknown threat. All drives are 8 TB Exos models, and your advice is greatly appreciated.
It indicates optimization progress at 10%. Adding more drives can reach fault tolerance, though converting RAID1 to RAID5 isn't feasible. You'd likely need to destroy the volume and rebuild it, losing all data. Others may have insights about Storage Spaces, but personally I prefer avoiding this setup due to the proprietary nature and limitations. RAID5 requires N-1 drives, resulting in a 16-byte volume size because parity is spread across all members.
It's still optimizing, I'm hoping that warning just goes away but for whatever reason it's not coming up in crystaldiskinfo yet is found and transferring data according to Windows storage spaces. Kinda concerning, though maybe I bumped a cable or something. I'll be reseating it after the optimization I have a 4th drive that would bring me to 24GB optimally, but looks like I may be stuck with 16GB for now. What is strange is that I can allot more storage than would be available in a RAID 1, so Im wondering if anything over the mirror amount would be taken care of with parity, or if that data would just become unprotected. I feel ya on the proprietary thing, but outside of building a NAS or something this seemed like the most effective price/performance option just to get everything backed up so I don't lose any projects or files that I want to get into a vault. Do you have any recommendations as to what other options I could have tried? Thanks!
It would be better to use a Synology 4 bay NAS for storage. If you prefer to repurpose your current gear, consider TrueNAS Scale—set up a RAID Z1 volume with ZFS, which functions similarly to RAID5. The main hurdle will be finding a suitable location for your data migration. Also, ensure you have a backup system ready, as RAID doesn’t replace backups; it just protects against hardware failures.
The most effective approach would be to introduce a parity virtual disk, transfer the data over, and adjust the mirror and parity drives during this process. Starting fresh with backups might be simpler. Placing mirrors in storage allows adding a third drive, utilizing about half the space without traditional RAID 1.
Absolutely, I agree. Having your data backed up somewhere reliable—like on a phone, laptop, or cameras—is essential in case anything fails. The RAID setup adds extra storage beyond your regular SSDs, which is a smart choice since it protects against drive loss without requiring a backup volume.
For long-term storage, you're thinking of converting an old tower case into a NAS and connecting it to the network for family backups. That sounds like a solid plan.
If you're looking to learn more about TrueNAS Scale, there are several YouTube tutorials available that can help you understand the setup and planning process. Let me know if you need more details!
This sounds like a solid plan to handle the challenge. It seems the best approach would be to bring in a 2 Bay NAS to relocate everything before rebuilding the space correctly. Great thinking! It appears the system uses half the space for redundancy, which is why you can access more than 50% of storage. Regarding the resiliency size, it likely means the amount needed to maintain reliability—around 10.9GB is mentioned as a threshold. I wasn’t able to confirm whether it switches to full parity or leaves portions unprotected beyond 10.8GB, but I appreciate you asking for clarification. Thanks!
It seems the alert that appeared on the secondary storage shortly after adding the third drive might indicate a real problem. I connected it with a separate power and data cable, changed the port, but the warning persists. It doesn’t show up in CrystalDiskInfo like the other drives, yet it appears in storage listings. During a reboot, it caused a blue screen with a "pool failure" message. Since this happened about 20 minutes ago, I’m finished for now. What should I do next? I was considering adding a fourth drive with an optimization feature to redistribute data and then removing it or reformatting it. I’m open to any suggestions that aren’t too extreme, just my thoughts after thinking this through. Thanks!