Hello everybody!
This video will tell you about creating a storage space or a mirrored volume in Windows
7, 8 or 10.
The Storage Spaces function integrated into Windows 10 allows users to create one virtual
hard disk out of several physical disks.
It can help you to back up data by duplicating it in several disks or unite several hard
disks or SSDs into a unified storage pool.
Storage spaces are the same as RAID, but on a desktop computer with several hard disks
connected to it.
This feature first appeared in Windows 8, and it was improved in Windows 10.
Storage spaces are available in all versions of Windows 8 and 10, including Home versions.
You can create a storage space with the special menu in the Control Panel.
To do it: • connect to your computer all hard disks
that you are going to use for creating a storage space and in the Control Panel, select the
menu Storage Spaces / Create a new pool and storage space.
• Select the disks you want to add to the pool and click on “Create pool.”
Please remember that all data from the drives selected for the storage pool will be deleted.
• After the pool is created, you should adjust the new storage space - assign a name
and select a drive letter.
This letter and name will be represented in Windows.
• You can also select the standard Windows file system - NTFS, or the new system type
ReFS.
If you are going to create a mirror or parity storage space meant to protect you against
loss of data, it’s better to choose the ReFS type.
• Select resiliency type: Simple (no resiliency), Two-way mirror, Three-way mirror, Parity.
• To create a large storage pool without drive failure protection, select Simple (no
resiliency).
• Two-way mirror suggests storing two copies of data on a drive, and Three-way mirror - three
copies.
Each copy of the data is stored on a separate physical disk.
• A Parity storage space will protect data if one of the drives fails, and it will have
a larger size than a two-way or three-way mirror, but it will work slower.
• Depending on the resiliency type you have selected, the wizard will set the maximum
size of the storage space.
In my case, the size is 147 Gb.
However, you can set up a larger size for a storage pool.
This option is for cases when the available size of connected physical disks is full and
the user can connect another drive without the need to make changes to the storage configuration.
• After that, click on “Create storage space.”
The storage space you have created will be shown as another drive in the folder This
PC.
Such drive will have the name and letter which you have assigned to it, and it will look
similar to other drives.
You can do anything to this drive that you do to an ordinary drive.
You can even encrypt it with Bitlocker.
You can learn more about protecting a drive with Bitlocker from another video by our channel,
and you can find the link in the description:
After creating a disk storage, you can go back to the Control Panel to manage it or
change settings.
You can create another storage space.
Their number is only limited by the number of physical disks connected to the computer.
You can add drives or rename the storage pool.
You can change the name or letter of a storage space by clicking “Rename” in the Storage
Spaces section.
In order to add disks to the existing storage space, select “Add drives” and specify
the disks you want to add.
When you select the menu “Optimize drive usage”, Windows will spread the existing
data evenly across the disks within the storage space.
If the existing storage space consists of three or more physical disks, one of them
can be deleted.
To do it, unfold the Physical Disks menu and click on “Prepare for removal” link next
to the disk you want to remove.
In our case, there is no such link as the storage space consists of two disks only.
After that, the system will take the data from the disk being removed to the remaining
two (or more) physical disks of the storage space.
As a result, the link “Prepare for removal” will change into “Remove.”
The physical disk deleted from the storage space will become available in the Disk Management
window.
To enable further work with it, you may have to create a new partition there and format
it.
Among other storage space management choices, there is an option to delete a storage space.
Please remember that all data from the deleted storage pool will be erased.
If you want to delete a storage space, the menu “Delete pool” will become active;
by selecting it, you can delete the storage pool completely.
What to do if you face loss of data from a storage space?
Can it be restored?
If one or several drives of a storage space fail, the process of data recovery from such
storage space becomes very complicated and cannot be reduced to scanning every drive
with data recovery software.
In this case, data won’t be restored, or it will appear to be damaged.
The only exception is a mirrored storage space which has been created as RAID-1, as such
type of storage space creates a copy of all data on every drive.
Let us save some files in this storage space.
Now let us imagine a situation when your storage space or one of its drives is out of order.
You can even delete it.
In order to restore the files kept in such storage space:
• Run Hetman Partition Recovery.
• Though the storage space is no longer shown in the folder This PC, the application
can see all physical disks connected to the computer.
• I know that Western Digital was one of the drives in this storage space.
Let’s scan it.
• After the analysis is over, you can find and restore lost files or folders in the same
way as you do with any other drive.
• Find the folder where the necessary files were stored
• and recover them.
• If you can’t see the files in this folder or they are not shown in the preview window
or after recovery, just check the folder Content-Aware Analysis.
They are most likely there.
• The files have been recovered.
Find the link to Hetman Partition Recovery download page in the description:
As I said in the beginning of this video, the Storage Spaces function appeared in Windows
beginning from Windows 8.
However, this operating system had a function of creating storage spaces even in earlier
versions.
You can create a mirrored volume, striped volume or spanned volume in Windows 7 or older
versions of Windows by using the menu Disk Management.
In order to create a storage space with the Disk Management menu, you need to have two
or more drives connected to your computer, and these drives have to be unallocated.
If the drive which you want to mirror is allocated, delete such volume.
To do it, right-click on it and select “Delete Volume...”
Please remember that it will delete all data from the drive.
After that, right-click on the drive which you want to use for storage space, and select
the type of new volume depending on your goals.
These types are somewhat similar to resiliency types of disk storage that I have described
in the first part of this video.
For example, a Simple Volume is a part of the physical disk that operates as a separate
physical block.
It is nothing but an ordinary logical drive on a physical disk.
It is not a storage space in the meaning that we use in this article.
A Spanned Volume unites the free space in two or more physical hard disks into one logical
drive.
Spanned volumes have better performance than simple volumes, but their resiliency is the
same.
A Striped Volume is an array without redundancy, and is nothing but a RAID-0.
Such array is meant for better performance rather than safe data storage.
A Mirrored Volume is the same as mirrored storage space or RAID-1.
It is meant to keep data safe in case of a physical disk failure, by saving several copies
of files.
If one of the physical disks within a storage space fails, the copy of data will still exist
on another disk.
A RAID-5 Volume, as well as Parity storage space, is a cross between a simple and mirrored
volume.
Data is written to several physical disks, with one or two parity data files created.
I select “New Mirrored Volume...” and click Next in the wizard window that appears.
Choose the drive you want to add to the mirrored volume (that is, you select one more drive
in addition to the one you have selected before) and click on Add / Next.
Choose the drive letter.
Assign a name to the volume and format it.
Before formatting starts, you will be warned that the basic disks will be converted to
dynamic disks to create a mirrored volume.
After that, formatting and converting the drives into a mirrored volume begins.
In the Disk Management window, mirrored volume disks will be shown in brown color, and in
This PC folder, as one of the local disks.
That’s all.
If you have any questions, leave a comment to ask one.
We will answer every question without fail.
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Thank you for watching.
Good luck.