Win10 Storage Spaces Migration?

[middle_pickup]

I have been adding hard drives as I run out of space in my plex server for a few years, and I now have three hard drives of varying sizes up to 14TB. I think I should start to get a little more serious about my data, and I’m looking at moving everything into an refs storage space with a parity drive for better resiliency. Having everything in one neat virtual disk also sounds more convenient too. I currently use an old workstation PC with limited hardware specs, and will eventually upgrade to a whole new motherboard and CPU to serve as my plex server, but as funds are limited I’m trying to get the most life out of this setup as I can.

 

Keeping that eventual upgrade in mind, how difficult is it to transfer a storage space pool from one install of windows to another? Can I just plug all the drives belonging to the storage space pool into the sata ports on my next motherboard, and install windows? Does it take special setup, or specific hardware requirements? I’ve never used RAID or windows’ storage space features before. Can this even be done, or do you just have to reformat the pool and copy the data from a backup? If it can be done, can I jump from win10 to win11 with my storage space pool?

 

Not sure how much the current hardware specs matter for this question. Just in case though…The current PC is a Dell optiplex 790 with an i7 2600 and 16 gigs DDR3. The motherboard only has four sata II ports, and they’re all used. One might actually be a sata III though if I remember correctly I have my boot SSD on that port. I hope to find a deal eventually on something with a higher core count, and a lot of sata ports.

 

Thanks for the help! Looking forward to learning from you all.

[DigitalGoat]

29 minutes ago, middle_pickup said:

I have been adding hard drives as I run out of space in my plex server for a few years, and I now have three hard drives of varying sizes up to 14TB. I think I should start to get a little more serious about my data, and I’m looking at moving everything into an refs storage space with a parity drive for better resiliency. Having everything in one neat virtual disk also sounds more convenient too. I currently use an old workstation PC with limited hardware specs, and will eventually upgrade to a whole new motherboard and CPU to serve as my plex server, but as funds are limited I’m trying to get the most life out of this setup as I can.

 

Keeping that eventual upgrade in mind, how difficult is it to transfer a storage space pool from one install of windows to another? Can I just plug all the drives belonging to the storage space pool into the sata ports on my next motherboard, and install windows? Does it take special setup, or specific hardware requirements? I’ve never used RAID or windows’ storage space features before. Can this even be done, or do you just have to reformat the pool and copy the data from a backup? If it can be done, can I jump from win10 to win11 with my storage space pool?

 

Not sure how much the current hardware specs matter for this question. Just in case though…The current PC is a Dell optiplex 790 with an i7 2600 and 16 gigs DDR3. The motherboard only has four sata II ports, and they’re all used. One might actually be a sata III though if I remember correctly I have my boot SSD on that port. I hope to find a deal eventually on something with a higher core count, and a lot of sata ports.

 

Thanks for the help! Looking forward to learning from you all.

In theory yes, you can just move the disks across to a new board and install Windows and it will pick up the array since the 'RAID' information is stored on the disks.

In actuallity you may encounter issues if Windows has already been installed on the target system, the disks are plugged into the new board in a different order, the new board uses exotic drivers for SATA ports, some of the array disks are on add in controller boards, and there can be many other variables to be aware of.

The best option is to create a backup of the data before attempting the move, just in case, and re create the array (Storage Spaces) from scratch on the new system once Windows is installed and all drivers, system files etc are up to date and the system is running correctly. Then transfer the backed up data to the Storage Space.

[Blue4130]

44 minutes ago, middle_pickup said:

I have been adding hard drives as I run out of space in my plex server for a few years, and I now have three hard drives of varying sizes up to 14TB. I think I should start to get a little more serious about my data, and I’m looking at moving everything into an refs storage space with a parity drive for better resiliency. Having everything in one neat virtual disk also sounds more convenient too. I currently use an old workstation PC with limited hardware specs, and will eventually upgrade to a whole new motherboard and CPU to serve as my plex server, but as funds are limited I’m trying to get the most life out of this setup as I can.

 

Keeping that eventual upgrade in mind, how difficult is it to transfer a storage space pool from one install of windows to another? Can I just plug all the drives belonging to the storage space pool into the sata ports on my next motherboard, and install windows? Does it take special setup, or specific hardware requirements? I’ve never used RAID or windows’ storage space features before. Can this even be done, or do you just have to reformat the pool and copy the data from a backup? If it can be done, can I jump from win10 to win11 with my storage space pool?

 

Not sure how much the current hardware specs matter for this question. Just in case though…The current PC is a Dell optiplex 790 with an i7 2600 and 16 gigs DDR3. The motherboard only has four sata II ports, and they’re all used. One might actually be a sata III though if I remember correctly I have my boot SSD on that port. I hope to find a deal eventually on something with a higher core count, and a lot of sata ports.

 

Thanks for the help! Looking forward to learning from you all.

Be aware of the limitations of ReFS. It is only available on enterprise Windows and "pro for workstations", not  regular 10 or 11 pro.

[middle_pickup]

1 minute ago, Blue4130 said:

Be aware of the limitations of ReFS. It is only available on enterprise Windows and "pro for workstations", not  regular 10 or 11 pro.

Are you certain? I've seen YouTube videos show it in use on windows 10. My understanding is refs only available through storage spaces.

[middle_pickup]

15 minutes ago, DigitalGoat said:

The best option is to create a backup of the data before attempting the move, just in case, and re create the array (Storage Spaces) from scratch on the new system once Windows is installed and all drivers, system files etc are up to date and the system is running correctly. Then transfer the backed up data to the Storage Space.

 

That's kind of what I was thinking would be the case. Thank you for the info.

[Kilrah]

Might be worth looking into a dedicated system like Unraid. 

[middle_pickup]

25 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Might be worth looking into a dedicated system like Unraid. 

I like the idea of unraid, but I need to run some windows apps as well as plex. I expect the overhead of running a windows VM under unraid with my i7 2600 to be asking too much. Still a great idea for a future build with modern parts though.

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, middle_pickup said:

Are you certain? I've seen YouTube videos show it in use on windows 10. My understanding is refs only available through storage spaces.

https://www.guidingtech.com/71672/reasons-why-microsoft-removing-refs-window/

 

https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/microsoft-to-remove-full-refs-support-win10-pro.html

 

It had it and then they took it away.

[middle_pickup]

1 hour ago, Blue4130 said:

https://www.guidingtech.com/71672/reasons-why-microsoft-removing-refs-window/

 

https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/microsoft-to-remove-full-refs-support-win10-pro.html

 

It had it and then they took it away.

Omfg. I truly hate the tech industry. How many times can you get away with anti-consumer artificial scarcity BS? Refs isn't even as good as the other modern file systems as I understand it, and Microsoft is still happy to under-deliver with ntfs.