OS drive replacement with storage pool

[daphatgrant]

Hey LTT, I'm not sure if this belongs here or in the operating systems subforum so if it needs to be moved go ahead.

I have two questions really;

1. I have a file server that's got an old OS drive in it (160gb blue) that I'd like to replace. I bought a 250gb Samsung 960 evo to replace the current drive but wanted to check about how my storage pools will be affected before hand. I believe that the pooling info is kept on the pool drives and not the main OS drive? So I'd just need to reacquire the pool after a new OS drive and windows is installed? I am running windows 10 with file duplication.

Is this the case? Do I need to do anything other than install the new HDD and windows?

2. There must be some HDD jealousy as a pool drive started dying the day I got the new OS drive, I'm currently running (8) 1TB Blacks, (2) 2TB blacks and (1) 3TB black. Should I grab a WD Red or Gold to replace the Black drive? I think I'll probably grab a 6TB drive to give myself some more room.

Thanks for the help!
 

[kirashi]

47 minutes ago, daphatgrant said:

--SNIP--
1. I have a file server that's got an old OS drive in it (160gb blue) that I'd like to replace. I bought a 250gb Samsung 960 evo to replace the current drive but wanted to check about how my storage pools will be affected before hand. I believe that the pooling info is kept on the pool drives and not the main OS drive? So I'd just need to reacquire the pool after a new OS drive and windows is installed? I am running windows 10 with file duplication.
--SNIP--

What are you using for pooling your drives? We need to know how they were originally setup to even begin to research how or if they'll be affected by a new installation of Windows in this situation.

[daphatgrant]

2 minutes ago, kirashi said:

What are you using for pooling your drives? We need to know how they were originally setup to even begin to research how or if they'll be affected by a new installation of Windows in this situation.

Sorry about that, I'm using windows for the pool, storage spaces, under Control Panel.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, daphatgrant said:

Sorry about that, I'm using windows for the pool, storage spaces, under Control Panel.

Then you can put those drives in any windows 8+ system and they will work fine. A reinstall will keep your data. Id just unplug all data drives when installing the os to reduce the chance of error.

[kirashi]

1 minute ago, daphatgrant said:

Sorry about that, I'm using windows for the pool, storage spaces, under Control Panel.

Gotcha, according to the official TechNet article on Storage Spaces, the pool information is stored on the disks themselves, so as long as the pool is healthy before you reinstall Windows, I believe you should be able to set it up again / detect it fine on the new install of Windows.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/11382.storage-spaces-frequently-asked-questions-faq.aspx#What_happens_to_Storage_Spaces_when_moving_physical_disks_between_servers

Quote

What happens to Storage Spaces when moving physical disks between servers?

Storage Spaces records information about pools and storage spaces on the physical disks that compose the storage pool. Therefore, your pool and storage spaces are preserved when you move an entire storage pool and its physical disks from one computer to another.

 

Windows Server 2012 starts storage that could potentially be shared with a cluster in a safe state. For Storage Spaces, that means the first time Windows connects to a storage pool, the pool starts as read-only and the storage spaces will start in a detached state. To access your data, you must set the storage pool to read-write and then attach the storage spaces.

 

These steps do not apply to Windows 8 – storage pools start as read-write and storage spaces start as attached.

 

[daphatgrant]

Thanks! That was my understanding but I just wanted to hear it from someone other than a website before I did anything. I really don't want to mess up/lose 6.5+TB of collected data, lol.