Windows Server 2019 - Storage Spaces

[Loki0111]

Okay, so I've been making the gambit this week. Tried FreeNAS (which is good but limited), OMV (Dockers with Portainer is a shitshow right now) and Windows Server 2019. I had briefly tried Unraid as well to see how well the zfs implementation was integrated but its nowhere near fully functional unfortunately.

 

My drive array hardware: 4X(2TB-HDD), 2X(1TB-HDD), 2X (0.5TB-SSD)

 

Additionally I have: 2X (10TB-HDD), 2X (4TB-HDD) which I'll be adding down the road but they are currently busy acting as a backup to facilitate a data transfer for someone else right now.

 

What I am trying to do is setup a large RAID 10 type drive pool I can expand over time with an SSD cache tier above it.

 

The issue I am running into is no matter what I do I can't get Storage Spaces to recognize my drives and put them in a tiered RAID 10 type array.

 

This is the script I have been using and no matter what I do I just can't get this to work. What looks to be happening is the two 1TB drives keep getting excluded from the Virtual Disk for some strange reason. When I try to force them to add I get an error staying there is not enough space to allocate them. Its almost like Storage Spaces is trying to enforce some kind of specific hardware layout without indicating what exactly that is.

 

Quote

#Variables
$StoragePoolName = "Storage Pool"
$TieredSpaceName = "Storage Tiers"
$ResiliencySetting = "Mirror"
$SSDTierName = "SSDTier"
$HDDTierName = "HDDTier"

 

#List all disks that can be pooled and output in table format (format-table)
Get-PhysicalDisk -CanPool $True | ft FriendlyName,OperationalStatus,Size,MediaType

 

#Store all physical disks that can be pooled into a variable, $PhysicalDisks
$PhysicalDisks = (Get-PhysicalDisk -CanPool $True | Where MediaType -NE UnSpecified)       

 

#Create a new Storage Pool using the disks in variable $PhysicalDisks with a name of My Storage Pool
$SubSysName = (Get-StorageSubSystem).FriendlyName
New-StoragePool -PhysicalDisks $PhysicalDisks -StorageSubSystemFriendlyName $SubSysName -FriendlyName $StoragePoolName

Get-StoragePool -FriendlyName $StoragePoolName | Set-ResiliencySetting -Name Mirror -NumberofColumnsDefault 1

 

#View the disks in the Storage Pool just created
Get-StoragePool -FriendlyName $StoragePoolName | Get-PhysicalDisk | Select FriendlyName, MediaType

 

#Create two tiers in the Storage Pool created. One for SSD disks and one for HDD disks
$SSDTier = New-StorageTier -StoragePoolFriendlyName $StoragePoolName -FriendlyName $SSDTierName -MediaType SSD
$HDDTier = New-StorageTier -StoragePoolFriendlyName $StoragePoolName -FriendlyName $HDDTierName -MediaType HDD

 

#Identify tier sizes within this storage pool
$SSDTierSizes = (Get-StorageTierSupportedSize -FriendlyName $SSDTierName -ResiliencySettingName $ResiliencySetting).TierSizeMax
$HDDTierSizes = (Get-StorageTierSupportedSize -FriendlyName $HDDTierName -ResiliencySettingName $ResiliencySetting).TierSizeMax 

 

#Create a new virtual disk in the pool with a name of TieredSpace using the SSD and HDD tiers
New-VirtualDisk -StoragePoolFriendlyName $StoragePoolName -FriendlyName $TieredSpaceName -StorageTiers $SSDTier, $HDDTier -StorageTierSizes $SSDTierSizes, $HDDTierSizes -ResiliencySettingName $ResiliencySetting  -AutoWriteCacheSize

 

#Alternatively manually sizing:
#New-VirtualDisk -StoragePoolFriendlyName $StoragePoolName -FriendlyName $TieredSpaceName -StorageTiers @($SSDTier,$HDDTier) -StorageTierSizes @(455GB,2775GB) -ResiliencySettingName $ResiliencySetting -AutoWriteCacheSize

 

[Jarsky]

@leadeater is one of our resident Storage Spaces guru's so maybe he can help. 

 

I believe though that it may be to do with the number of columns you're trying to configure...looking at that script I believe it would just be trying to do auto columns which might be something like 4-6 based on your disks. I believe because you only have 2 x 1TB disks, you'd want to go 1 column with mirror, which would be 2 disks.

[Loki0111]

Thanks, I was able to resolve this by borrowing someone else's script. I'll post it below in case anyone in the future needs to make a tiered RAID 10 with SSD's and HDD's. Still not entirely sure why mine doesn't work but at this point I am just happy I got it working at all.

 

Quote

# RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR
# https://nils.schimmelmann.us/post/153541254987/intel-smart-response-technology-vs-windows-10
#Tested with one SSD and two HDD
#
#Pool that will suck in all drives
$StoragePoolName = "Storage Pool"
#Tiers in the storage pool
$SSDTierName = "SSDTier"
$HDDTierName = "HDDTier"
#Virtual Disk Name made up of disks in both tiers
$TieredDiskName = "Tiered VirtualDisk"

#Simple = striped.  Mirror only works if both can mirror AFIK
#https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-R2-and-2012/dn387076(v=ws.11)
$DriveTierResiliency = "Mirror"

#Change to suit - drive later and the label name
$TieredDriveLetter = "Z"
$TieredDriveLabel = "StorageDrive"

 

#Override the default sizing here - useful if have two different size SSDs or HDDs - set to smallest of pair
#These must be Equal or smaller than the disk size available in that tier SSD and HDD
#SSD:cache  -    HDD:data
#set to null so copy/paste to command prompt doesn't have previous run values
$SSDTierSize = $null
$HDDTierSize = $null
#Drives cannot always be fully allocated - probably broken for drives < 10GB
$UsableSpace = 0.99

#Uncomment and put your HDD type here if it shows up as unspecified with "Get-PhysicalDisk -CanPool $True
#    If your HDDs show up as Unspecified instead of HDD
#$UseUnspecifiedDriveIsHDD = "Yes"

#List all disks that can be pooled and output in table format (format-table)
Get-PhysicalDisk -CanPool $True | ft FriendlyName, OperationalStatus, Size, MediaType

#Store all physical disks that can be pooled into a variable, $PhysicalDisks
#    This assumes you want all raw / unpartitioned disks to end up in your pool - 
#    Add a clause like the example with your drive name to stop that drive from being included
#    Example  " | Where FriendlyName -NE "ATA LITEONIT LCS-256"
if ($UseUnspecifiedDriveIsHDD -ne $null){
    $DisksToChange = (Get-PhysicalDisk -CanPool $True | where MediaType -eq Unspecified)
    Get-PhysicalDisk -CanPool $True | where MediaType -eq Unspecified | Set-PhysicalDisk -MediaType HDD
    # show the type changed
    Get-PhysicalDisk -CanPool $True | ft FriendlyName, OperationalStatus, Size, MediaType
}
$PhysicalDisks = (Get-PhysicalDisk -CanPool $True | Where MediaType -NE UnSpecified)
if ($PhysicalDisks -eq $null){
    throw "Abort! No physical Disks available"
}       

#Create a new Storage Pool using the disks in variable $PhysicalDisks with a name of My Storage Pool
$SubSysName = (Get-StorageSubSystem).FriendlyName
New-StoragePool -PhysicalDisks $PhysicalDisks -StorageSubSystemFriendlyName $SubSysName -FriendlyName $StoragePoolName
#View the disks in the Storage Pool just created
Get-StoragePool -FriendlyName $StoragePoolName | Get-PhysicalDisk | Select FriendlyName, MediaType

#Set the number of columns used for each resiliency - This setting assumes you have at least 2-SSD and 2-HDD
# Get-StoragePool $StoragePoolName | Set-ResiliencySetting -Name Simple -NumberOfColumnsDefault 2
Get-StoragePool $StoragePoolName | Set-ResiliencySetting -Name Mirror -NumberOfColumnsDefault 1

#Create two tiers in the Storage Pool created. One for SSD disks and one for HDD disks
$SSDTier = New-StorageTier -StoragePoolFriendlyName $StoragePoolName -FriendlyName $SSDTierName -MediaType SSD
$HDDTier = New-StorageTier -StoragePoolFriendlyName $StoragePoolName -FriendlyName $HDDTierName -MediaType HDD

#Calculate tier sizes within this storage pool
#Can override by setting sizes at top
if ($SSDTierSize -eq $null){
    $SSDTierSize = (Get-StorageTierSupportedSize -FriendlyName $SSDTierName -ResiliencySettingName $DriveTierResiliency).TierSizeMax
    $SSDTierSize = [int64]($SSDTierSize * $UsableSpace)
}
if ($HDDTierSize -eq $null){
    $HDDTierSize = (Get-StorageTierSupportedSize -FriendlyName $HDDTierName -ResiliencySettingName $DriveTierResiliency).TierSizeMax 
    $HDDTierSize = [int64]($HDDTierSize * $UsableSpace)
}
Write-Output "TierSizes: ( $SSDTierSize , $HDDTierSize )"

# you can end up with different number of columns in SSD - Ex: With Simple 1SSD and 2HDD could end up with SSD-1Col, HDD-2Col
New-VirtualDisk -StoragePoolFriendlyName $StoragePoolName -FriendlyName $TieredDiskName -StorageTiers @($SSDTier, $HDDTier) -StorageTierSizes @($SSDTierSize, $HDDTierSize) -ResiliencySettingName $DriveTierResiliency -AutoWriteCacheSize -AutoNumberOfColumns

# initialize the disk, format and mount as a single volume
Write-Output "preparing volume"
Get-VirtualDisk $TieredDiskName | Get-Disk | Initialize-Disk -PartitionStyle GPT
# This will be Partition 2.  Storage pool metadata is in Partition 1
Get-VirtualDisk $TieredDiskName | Get-Disk | New-Partition -DriveLetter $TieredDriveLetter -UseMaximumSize
Initialize-Volume -DriveLetter $TieredDriveLetter -FileSystem NTFS -Confirm:$false -NewFileSystemLabel $TieredDriveLabel
Get-Volume -DriveLetter $TieredDriveLetter

Write-Output "Operation complete"

 

 

[Jarsky]

17 hours ago, Loki0111 said:

Thanks, I was able to resolve this by borrowing someone else's script. I'll post it below in case anyone in the future needs to make a tiered RAID 10 with SSD's and HDD's. Still not entirely sure why mine doesn't work but at this point I am just happy I got it working at all.

 

 

 

 

 

Awesome that its working

 

 

[Dyaets]

Hey, thanks for sharing the script!