Storage Spaces issue, need help. How to disassemble Storage Spaces without losing data. After upgrade HDD still same size and need format.

[Alan Mattano]

Hello, 

I'm a novice user first experience making a two-way mirror ironically to protect my data.

Storage Spaces in Windows 10 is buggy or at least bad UI.

 

There was 2 4TB drives in a Two-way mirror using Storage Spaces

I need a bigger drive so I purchase two 12TB WD Element. I shock them into Storage Spaces, one by one and take out the two old 4TB

 

 

Now looking in Windows, my drive D: is still only 4TB

 

 

 

So is not using the full 12TB space. Nonsense

I wish to change the volume from 4TB to 12TB

 

I ask explaining the issue in Microsoft forum and turns out the volume hasn't been formatted.

Or at least is missing the "Change" option as it should be shown in this pic

 

 

NOW at this point, what I should do?

 

How to disassemble Storage Spaces without losing data?

I can't use the stupid "Delete" option because will delete all my info (I presume).

I can't use the "Format" option because will delete as well.

I do not have a second PC to take out and look at what's inside the HDD (all my memories)

I can't just move (copy past) almost 4TB of data because is ridiculous and I lose info like created data.

I still have my old two 4TB. In pandemic, I can't go out. Only one computer. Also two 12TB.

Can I build a RAID1 to clone? How? Storage Spaces will allow that.

 

Question

How do I proceed at this point to get out? What is The best option? Disassemble and rebuild, format, or if possible creating a new pool and merge or other? How do I backup the data at this point? Do I need to use Powershell to change the volume?

 

A novice user.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Alan Mattano]

Any help?

 

I added back my old 4TB HDD. I format it and add to the pool without the "Optimize drive usage" option.

Now I can take out one of my 12TB

What I do now?

 

1. Do I "Prepare for removal" a 12TB disk? but I will lose the data in it.
2. I just take one 12TB out (unplug it)?

 

 

I "Remove" the 4TB out from the pool. 

I Partition, format and assign drive letter to 4TB drive in Disk Management instead

 

 

 

 

[Alan Mattano]

Now I need to copy D: to E:

Is it possible to clone a 3TB specific folder?

I do not want to loose all file "creation date" and folder setup configurations 

[Alan Mattano]

So I will use robocopy to move/copy all my tree data but it's own complicated instructions and parameters scare me.

It also does not make a checksum to check if the data is valid!

 

https://content.spiceworksstatic.com/service.community/p/post_attachments/0000179014/5abbc7ed/attached_file/robocopy.pdf

 

any help?

I wish to move all that is in a folder without losing date created and without skipping empty folders in case are not empty, if possible making a checksum, etc.

[thewelshbrummie]

I've used storage spaces on my UK desktop - started using it with Win 8 but did the free upgrade and has Win 10 and is still the original pool I created way back on Win8  in 2013/14.

 

Storage spaces has run on it without issue, despite removing one drive and adding 4, but then I used parity mode (so like RAID5).

 

You used the 2-way mirror mode, which is like RAID1. It's designed for 2 drives - adding drives increases resiliency but you still only get the capacity of one drive, specifically the smallest. That's what's happened, adding the new drives doesn't change anything in terms of pool capacity. Assuming that you, at one point, had all 4 drives connected to the pool, Windows was correctly spanning your data over all 4 drives. At that point you had 4 copies - with the 4/4/12/12 TB drives as you had installed, 4TB is the largest capacity that all drives can allocate, so a 4TB storage space is correct. Removing the 2x 4TB drives doesn't mean that storage spaces will automatically expand the storage pool as it was setup with 4TB in mind. It's not nonsense, it's how Storage spaces operates (as from memory, you don't have to allocate the entire drive to a storage space, you can partition drives into a storage space allocated pool, and an independent partition, or whatever you want - Windows doesn't assume you want the extra space as part of the pool as that's not what I'd call best practice when it comes to storage).

 

It's a pity you've made multiple posts with changes you've made as I can't follow what's going on. However, had you taken a screenshot of Disk management as part of you're 1st post, that probably would have shown your 12TB drives as having a 4TB and 8TB partition, with the 8TB unallocated (and no drive letter attached to the HDDs in the storage space, that's how my computer manages my storage space, I can still see each individual drive).

 

As for the comment on the MS forum about formatting, that 1st screenshot does imply that you have a storage space created but haven't formatted it. I can't answer why you've got that but so long as the drive letter matches what you see in the file explorer an you have data on it, don't format it as that would obviously wipe the drive.

 

That said, a SIMPLE storage space is no different to a single drive installed without any backup - it's not clear from your posts whether you have 1 or 2 4TB drives, and whether they were actually in a 2-way storage space before you started with the 12TB drives.

 

A few things come to mind:

• DON'T DELETE THE POOL!! You will  lose all your data if you do that!
• The 1st picture you posted has the "optimise drives" option - you should use that after adding a drive every time.
• When removing a drive, only remove one drive at a time, then optimise drives, then repeat for as many drives as you want to remove.

How you'd do this is something best left to someone else with more knowledge than I have, but my suggestion would be to keep the existing storage space on the 4TB drives, create a new 2-way storage space using the 12TB drives, then clone the 4TB pool onto the 12TB pool - I've used Paragon Partition Manager to clone boot drives without issue while keeping all metadata using a 2nd computer, so running it on the host PC and cloning a data drive should work but I can't answer for whether it works with storage spaces. But that's probably the best option if you really want to keep the metadata intact. And I can't see that you're original data would be at risk. The only problem using that method is that the cloned data file takes around 60-80% the space of the original, and that you'd need a 3rd pool to copy the image to. If you can run a 2-way storage space with a single drive, then you're good to try that.

 

FYI if you try Paragon Partition Manager, I'd suggest that you DO NOT use their partition resize feature - it works perfectly on a normal drive (like when I've cloned boot HDDs to a larger or smaller SSD), but I can't say that is true for a storage space or whether it can handle resizing one without causing major problems. 

 

[Alan Mattano]

6 hours ago, thewelshbrummie said:

I can't follow what's going on.

Thx thewelshbrummie for your help

 

I'm at this stage:

After adding two 12TB HDD and removing two 4TB, the Storage Spaces "change" option is not available; does not show up in the UI.

 

 

 

 

Actually drive D: is 4TB (need to expand it to 12TB).

Or dismount Storage Spaces pool without losing data to make a new one.

 

 

To be at this stage my steps was

I remove a 4TB

I add a12TB (wait for file to transfer)

I add a12TB (wait for file to transfer)

Optimised

I remove a 4TB (and wait for file to transfer)

Optimised

 

I so as you explain probably my steps were not correct. Thanks for the explanation.

Or it can be that was not "Format" in the first place.

I have two questions for you:

• Is there a command to go out (dismount) from Storage Spaces. I mean in other words,  how do you disable disassemble your pool? if at some point you do not what to use Storage Spaces anymore are you forced to stay in or there is an option to return to normality?
• I presume that Paragon Partition Manager will clone the Storage Spaces pool as well. So If I can't resize then it make no sense because is the actual issue here. I do not whant to risk/gess. Is there another more secure option? In case Storage Spaces force me to stay in and there is no other option than copy:  is Windows Robocopy better than GoodSync or Paragon-software to copy (3TB folder big tree)? Will keep without issue while keeping all metadata? And what is: metadata? (sorry is more than 2 questions.)

[thewelshbrummie]

In terms of "dismounting" storage spaces, you only get the nuclear option of deleting the pool (the option against your AM pool) and using the Windows Disk manager to format/allocate a drive letter to add the drive back to Windows normally - obviously that deletes everything. Formatting the pool also wipes data but it keeps the storage pool as-is, rather than disconnecting the drives from the pool (and is the way to change the file system from NTFS to ReFS if you want to do that). The only way to safely keep data is to move it to another drive before dismounting the pool.

 

Point 2 - it looks like you have 2x 4TB and 2x 12TB drives, so a total of 4 drives. This is what I'm suggesting:

• Rebuild the original pool using the 2x4TB drives, with your data on those drives, as it was before you added the 12TB drives
• Create a brand new pool using the 2x12TB drives
• Use something to clone the data on the original 4TB pool - now that I've checked, I actually used Paragon Backup & Recovery for this, creating a backup job of the whole disk (it creates multiple compressed 4GB files). The way it works is that it can backup all your data, which you can then you can restore to the new pool while keeping things like folder creation dates (which is what I mean by metadata). From memory, you can save a backup to and restore it to the same drive, so long as you have enough space (which you absolutely would as obviously 12TB is 3x4TB). The idea is that, from memory, this keeps the folder creation dates intact so it's worth trying if you want to keep that (which you mentioned in one of the bullets towards the end of your original post). You can also compare folders side-by-side to check that everything is there and exactly the same before deleting the original pool.

The only issue I can think of is whether the Paragon app is OK with you restoring a data backup to somewhere else on the same physical drive - as it's effectively the whole pool you want to clone, it might not like restoring it to the same drive which would mean running one of the storage pools with a single drive only, and I'm not sure how Windows handles that on 2-way mirrors as I've only used the parity option of Storage spaces (that needs 3+ drives, but you might find that to be a better option as data is still safe if one drive fails while it also expands or contracts correctly every time you add or remove a drive. For example, if you create a parity storage space with 2x12TB and 1x4TB drive, you get 14TB of usable space rather than the 12TB available from a 2-way mirror of your 2x 12TB drives).

 

Here's the link - it's Paragon Backup & Recovery that I used, the community edition is free (though might require email registration). It apparently supports storage spaces but it's functionality I've not used before so I can't make any recommendations on that feature. The point I made in my previous post is that I think it has the option to resize partitions, and even if it supports storage spaces I'm not sure I'd risk using that to resize your live storage space in case it goes wrong.

 

Because you're increasing the pool size by such a big margin, I'm suggesting creating a 2nd pool so that your data is safe on the original pool, as it's easy to accidentally delete some or all of your data if you're not careful about it. You've got more than enough space on the 12TB  drives to both clone your original data and restore it in its original form without touching or modifying data on the original pool until you're ready to remove it.

[Alan Mattano]

As a side note thread specific for the fact that there is data out button:

 

 

[Alan Mattano]

On 5/13/2021 at 3:44 PM, thewelshbrummie said:

... (it creates multiple compressed 4GB files). The way it works is that it can backup all your data...

Well I do not know how this compression is done. But often or always when you compress a file and that file was downloaded from the internet, Windows loose a second track that was downloaded. A prompt what warns you that is not safe and more checks virtualisation around it.   So is not safe to run a file that was compressed after you has download it from internet. In other words, in Windows, files in the "Download" folder (or else that are not created internally in Windows) will not be exact same copy as if you make a "move".

 

And move can stop as for example this issue

 

 

[Alan Mattano]

Storage Spaces Design

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/LRC12-cheng20webpage.pdf

[Alan Mattano]

On 5/13/2021 at 3:44 PM, thewelshbrummie said:

 

The only issue I can think of is whether the Paragon app is OK with you restoring a data backup to somewhere else on the same physical drive - as it's effectively the whole pool you want to clone, it might not like restoring it to the same drive which would mean running one of the storage pools with a single drive only, and I'm not sure how Windows handles that on 2-way mirrors as I've only used the parity option of Storage spaces ...

I was thinking to use Windows Robocopy

[Alan Mattano]

After making a copy of broken Storage Spaces D: to E:   (I end up using GoodSync because of analysis)

I connect another 4TB disk

This disk was part of Storage Spaces pool but was take out using the "remove" button.

But there is no format option in the drop down menu.

To fix this, open Storage Spaces and press the "Reset" next to the disk WD40EZRZ "Error Unrecognized configuration; rest drive"

After that, the format option is now available.

 

 

 

 

 

[Alan Mattano]

I get stuck "moving" the files from one HDD to another drive.

 

Windows is full of UI bugs

It get stuck at 99%. So I press pause hoping to resume

The now the only button I got is the cancel button. Should I press it?