This topic discusses common questions most Storage Spaces on Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1, and Windows 8. For basic info near Storage Spaces, come across Storage Spaces Overview. For blueprint info, run into Software-Defined Storage Blueprint Considerations Guide. For performance information, see Storage Spaces - Designing for Functioning.

Table of Contents

  • How can I manage Storage Spaces?
  • What are the recommended configuration limits?
  • What are the best uses of simple, mirror, and parity spaces?
  • What types of drives can I use with Storage Spaces?
  • What types of storage arrays can I use with Storage Spaces?
    • Enclosure Awareness Support - Tolerating an Unabridged Enclosure Failing
    • What are the resiliency levels provided by Enclosure Awareness?
  • What types of storage spaces tin I use with a failover cluster?
  • What properties tin can I change after creating a storage space?
  • How does Windows let me know of a deejay failure?
  • How does Storage Spaces answer to errors on physical disks?
  • What data will Storage Spaces put in the Event log?
  • How exercise I supersede a physical deejay?
  • What are columns and how does Storage Spaces decide how many to utilise?
    • Example 1: A Two-Column Elementary Infinite
    • Case 2: A 3-Column Parity Space
    • Instance three: A 2-Cavalcade 2-Style Mirror Space
    • Decision-making the Number of Columns
  • Why do I have a low chapters warning even though I withal have unused pool capacity?
    • A two column, ii-way mirror space that uses thin provisioning in a 4 disk puddle
  • How do I increase pool chapters?
  • What happens to Storage Spaces when moving physical disks between servers?
  • How do I bank check Storage Spaces resiliency wellness in a failover cluster?
  • How do I know repairing a storage space starts and successfully completes?
  • What happens if I run out of concrete capacity on a thinly provisioned storage space?
  • See Also

How tin can I manage Storage Spaces?

There are 3 ways to manage Storage Spaces and associated storage pools and drives:

  • The Storage Spaces item in Control Panel Available in Windows ten, Windows 8.1 and Windows 8, you lot can use the Storage Spaces particular in Command Panel to easily create and maintain storage spaces and their associated storage pools. The Storage Spaces item in Control Panel provides simple but powerful control over tasks a user might want to perform.
  • The File and Storage Services section of Server Manager Available in Windows Server, you can utilize Server Manager to create and manage storage spaces (as well referred to as virtual disks) and their associated storage pools on the Storage Spaces subsystem besides equally on non-Microsoft storage subsystems. Server Managing director provides support for performing all of the tasks administrators commonly perform with Storage Spaces.
  • The Storage module in Windows PowerShell Available in Windows and Windows Server, you tin use the cmdlets included in the Storage module to create and manage storage spaces (also referred to as virtual disks) and their associated storage pools on the Storage Spaces subsystem likewise as on not-Microsoft storage subsystems. Windows PowerShell provides comprehensive support for managing Storage Spaces.

What are the recommended configuration limits?

The following are the recommended configuration limits for Storage Spaces:

For clustered storage pools:

  • Up to 80 physical disks in a clustered storage pool (to allow time for the pool to fail over to other nodes)
  • Up to four storage pools per cluster

For non-clustered storage pools:

  • Up to 240 physical disks in a not-clustered Windows Server 2012 R2 storage pool (4 ten 60 deejay JBOD); yous can, nonetheless, have multiple pools of 240 disks
  • In Windows Server 2012, you tin can take up to 160 physical disks in a storage pool; you tin can, however, have multiple pools of 160 disks.

For both clustered and non-amassed pools:

  • Upward to 480 TB of capacity in a unmarried storage puddle
  • Upward to 64 storage spaces in a single storage puddle
  • Up to 10 TB per virtual disk when using persistent VSS snapshots and the Volsnap VSS organisation provider

What are the best uses of elementary, mirror, and parity spaces?

Storage Spaces offers simple spaces, mirror spaces, and parity spaces, each with unique characteristics.

  • Simple spaces are designed for increased performance when resiliency isn't very important. They are best suited for temporary data, such as video rendering files, image editor scratch files, and intermediary compiler object files. Simple spaces crave a minimum of one physical deejay.
  • Mirror spaces are designed for increased performance and increased resiliency. Two-style mirror spaces tin tolerate one disk failure and three-way mirror spaces can tolerate 2 disk failures. They are well suited to storing a broad range of data, from a general-purpose file share to a VHD library. When a mirror space is formatted with the Resilient File Organization (ReFS), Windows offers automated information integrity maintenance. This is a layer of resiliency is higher up and beyond the resiliency achieved from maintaining multiple data copies to tolerate drive failure.

    Mirror spaces crave at least two disks (per tier if you use storage tiers) to protect you from a single disk failure. To protect a virtual deejay from 2 simultaneous deejay failures, you need at least 3 disks (per tier), with a minimum of five disks full in the pool to maintain pool metadata.

  • Parity spaces are designed for chapters efficiency and increased resiliency. Parity spaces are best suited for archival information and streaming media, such as music and videos. This storage layout requires at least iii disks to protect yous from a single deejay failure and at least seven disks to protect you lot from two disk failures.

For details on how to design mirror and parity spaces for maximum reliability and performance, including how to use journal disks to amend parity write performance, encounter the Software-Defined Storage Design Considerations Guide.

Note
Storage Spaces cannot be used to directly host the Windows startup disk or page file (though virtual hard disks can exist safely stored in a storage space). Storage Spaces is non a disaster recovery or data replication solution, nor is it a substitute for regular backups.

What types of drives can I use with Storage Spaces?

Y'all tin can utilise commodity drives attached via Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS), Serial ATA (SATA), PCI-Express, Yard.2, U.2, or USB. Storage layers that abstract the physical disks are not compatible with Storage Spaces. This includes VHDs and pass-through disks in a virtual motorcar, and storage subsystems that layer a RAID implementation on pinnacle of the physical disks. iSCSI and Fibre Channel controllers are not supported by Storage Spaces.

RAID adapters, if used, must be in non-RAID fashion with all RAID functionality disabled. Such adapters must not abstract the physical disks, cache information, or obscure whatever attached devices including enclosure services provided past fastened just-a-agglomeration-of-disks (JBOD) devices. Storage Spaces is compatible only with RAID adapters that support completely disabling all RAID functionality.

Note
Consumers tin use USB drives with Storage Spaces, though USB 2 drives might not offer a high level of performance. A unmarried USB ii hard drive can saturate the bandwidth bachelor on the shared USB charabanc, limiting performance when multiple drives are attached to the aforementioned USB 2 controller. When using USB 2 drives, plug them directly into different USB controllers on your computer, practice not utilise USB hubs, and add USB two drives to a separate storage puddle used merely for storage spaces that do not require a loftier level of operation.

What types of storage arrays can I use with Storage Spaces?

Storage arrays that provide direct connectivity to the physical disks they house and do not layer RAID implementations or abstract the disks in whatever style are uniform with Storage Spaces. Such arrays are as well known every bit Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD).

For Storage Spaces to identify disks past slot and leverage the assortment'south failure and identify/locate lights, the array must back up SCSI Enclosure Services (SES) version three. For a list of compatible arrays, see the Windows Server Hardware Catalog.

Enclosure Awareness Support - Tolerating an Entire Enclosure Failing

To support deployments that require an added level of fault tolerance, Storage Spaces supports associating each re-create of information with a particular JBOD enclosure. This capability is known as enclosure awareness. With enclosure awareness, if one enclosure fails or goes offline, the data remains available in one or more than alternate enclosures.

To use enclosure awareness with Storage Spaces, your environs must see the post-obit requirements:

  • JBOD storage enclosures must back up SCSI Enclosure Services (SES).
  • Storage spaces must use the mirror resiliency type if you lot're using Windows Server 2012:
    • To tolerate one failed enclosure with two-way mirrors, you need three compatible storage enclosures.
    • To tolerate two failed enclosures with three-mode mirrors, you need five compatible storage enclosures.

What are the resiliency levels provided by Enclosure Awareness?

The post-obit table lists the maximum simultaneous fault tolerance of solutions that take enclosure awareness enabled:

Resiliency type Three enclosures 4 enclosures

Simple

Non supported

Not supported

Two-way Mirror

one enclosure; or 1 deejay*

1 enclosure; or 1 disk*

3-fashion Mirror

1 enclosure + i disk*; or two disks*

1 enclosure + 1 disk*;

or 2 disks*

Single Parity

Not supported

Not supported

Dual Parity

Non supported

1 enclosure + 1 disk*;

or ii disks*

* per pool

What types of storage spaces can I use with a failover cluster?

Storage Spaces on Windows Server 2012 R2 supports creating a clustered storage pool when using mirror spaces, parity spaces, and simple spaces. Windows Server 2012 doesn't support parity spaces on clustered storage pools. To cluster Storage Spaces, your surroundings must encounter the following requirements:

  • All storage spaces in the storage pool must employ fixed provisioning.
  • Two-manner mirror spaces must use iii or more than concrete disks.
  • Three-way mirror spaces must use 5 or more than physical disks.
  • Parity spaces are supported on Windows Server 2012 R2, merely not Windows Server 2012.
  • All concrete disks in a clustered pool must be connected via SAS.
  • All concrete disks must back up persistent reservations and pass the failover cluster validation tests.

Note: The SAS JBOD must be physically continued to all cluster nodes which volition employ the storage pool.  Directly attached storage that is not continued to all cluster nodes is not usable for clustered pools with Storage Spaces.

What properties tin I change after creating a storage infinite?

Upon creating a storage space, certain fundamental properties are locked in place. These central properties include the provisioning type (sparse or fixed), the resiliency type (elementary, mirror, or parity), the number of columns the storage space striping requires, and the striping interleave.

After creating a storage infinite, you can alter properties that practice not bear upon fundamental characteristics, such as the size of the storage space and its proper noun.

How does Windows permit me know of a disk failure?

When a deejay failure occurs, Windows displays data on the deejay failure in the post-obit locations:

  • The taskbar
  • The Action Center
  • The Storage Spaces Particular in Command Panel (on Windows 8.1 and Windows 8)
  • The Storage Pools section of the File and Storage Services role in Server Manager (on Windows Server)
  • The Windows PowerShell cmdlet Get-PhysicalDisk

How does Storage Spaces reply to errors on physical disks?

Concrete disks often feel errors of varying severity, from errors that the deejay tin can transparently recover from, without pause or information loss; to errors that are catastrophic and can crusade data loss. For more information, see How Storage Spaces responds to errors on physical disks.

What information will Storage Spaces put in the Consequence log?

To help with administration, Storage Spaces will log certain events in the Event log. For more than information on the events logged by Storage Spaces, see the following:

  • Storage Spaces Event 100
  • Storage Spaces Issue 102
  • Storage Spaces Event 103
  • Storage Spaces Event 104
  • Storage Spaces Event 200
  • Storage Spaces Consequence 201
  • Storage Spaces Event 202
  • Storage Spaces Event 203
  • Storage Spaces Effect 300
  • Storage Spaces Event 301
  • Storage Spaces Event 302
  • Storage Spaces Event 303
  • Storage Spaces Event 304
  • Storage Spaces Result 306
  • Storage Spaces Result 307
  • Storage Spaces Upshot 308

How practise I replace a physical disk?

If you are using the Storage Spaces item in Control Panel, replacing a physical disk is as elementary every bit clicking the command to remove the former disk. After that, you can immediately disconnect the disk. In the background, Storage Spaces leverages resiliency to reconstruct your information. Disk removal has three prerequisites:

  • All storage spaces that depend on the disk are resilient and healthy (removing the disk will not succeed if a unproblematic infinite depends on the disk).   Yous can discover which storage spaces depend on a physical disk by pipe the Go-PhysicalDisk cmdlet to Go-VirtualDisk. For example: 
    Get-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName PhysicalDisk1 | Get-VirtualDisk
    You tin can bank check the resiliency and health of your storage spaces past using the Get-VirtualDisk cmdlet. A storage space is resilient when ResiliencySettingName is either Mirror or Parity and good for you when HealthStatus is Good for you.
  • The pool has at to the lowest degree every bit much unused capacity on other disks as the corporeality of information the old disk hosts. This ensures that the storage spaces can be reconstructed with a replacement disk. If the usage type of the deejay is manual, then the storage spaces that depend on the disk must take sufficient unused capacity on other disks in their list of disks they can use. In both cases, the unused capacity must exist on disks that exercise not already host an extent of the aforementioned stripe as the former deejay. This tin be satisfied by first adding the new disk to the pool, and, if applicative, calculation it to the storage spaces' lists of disks that they can use.
    Tip
    You can check for unused chapters on disks the affected storage spaces are not using by subtracting AllocatedSize from Size, as reported by the Become-PhysicalDisk command.
  • If the pool is clustered, removing the disk would non cause the puddle to have fewer than 3 disks, if the pool does not comprise whatever three-way mirror spaces, or fewer than five disks, if the pool contains a 3-way mirror space.

If you lot are using Windows PowerShell, you lot must perform following procedure to remove the old disk, assuming that yous run across the prerequisites for removing a physical disk.

Removing a physical disk by using Windows PowerShell

  1. Open a Windows PowerShell session as an ambassador.

  2. Type the post-obit command, replacing <diskname> with the friendly name of the disk:

    Prepare-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName                <diskname>                -Usage Retired

    If the pool is amassed, yous volition need to run this command on the cluster node which has the cluster resource for the puddle online.

  3. Blazon the following command for each storage space that depended on the old deejay, replacing <virtualdiskname> with the friendly name of the storage space:

    Repair-VirtualDisk -FriendlyName <virtualdiskname>

    If the pool is amassed, run this command on the cluster nodes that take the individual storage spaces' cluster resources online and then run it once again on the cluster node that has the puddle's cluster resource online.

  4. Prior to performing step 5, y'all must wait for all active repair jobs to consummate. To monitor the status of repair jobs, type the following command:

  5. Blazon the post-obit command:

    Remove-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName <diskname>                
    The above command did not work in my Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials.                
                    
    You have to do this in 2 steps. First give the deejay to be removed a name and so remove;                
                    
    example;
                    
    PS C:\> $PDToRemove = Get-PhysicalDisk -Friendlyname "PhysicalDisk25"
                    
    PS C:\> Remove-PhysicalDisk -PhysicalDisks $PDToRemove -StoragePoolFriendlyName "DemoPool"

  6. Physically disconnect the old disk.

What are columns and how does Storage Spaces decide how many to use?

Likewise offering resiliency to drive failures, Storage Spaces too offers increased operation by striping data beyond multiple disks. Storage Spaces describes a stripe via 2 parameters, NumberOfColumns and Interleave.

  • A stripe represents one pass of data written to a storage space, with data written in multiple stripes (passes).
  • Columns correlate to underlying physical disks across which one stripe of data for a storage space is written.
  • Interleave represents the corporeality of data written to a unmarried column per stripe.

The NumberOfColumns and Interleave parameters, which are attainable via Windows PowerShell or WMI, decide the width of the stripe (stripe_width = NumberOfColumns * Interleave). The stripe width determines how much data and parity (in the case of parity spaces) Storage Spaces writes across multiple disks to increment performance bachelor to apps.

Example 1: A Two-Column Uncomplicated Space

A simple example is a 2-cavalcade unproblematic space, which offers striping with no resiliency.

For the first stripe of information in this example, Storage Spaces writes 256 KB (the default Interleave value) to the start disk (column) in the storage pool, and then 256 KB of data to the second disk in the pool. This yields a stripe width of 512 KB (2 columns * 256 KB interleave).

Example ii: A Three-Column Parity Space

Some other instance is a iii-cavalcade parity space (with a 256 KB stripe interleave), the simplest form of a parity infinite.

For the outset stripe of data in this instance, Storage Spaces writes 256 KB of data to the first disk (column), 256 KB of data to the second disk, and 256 KB of parity to the third disk. This yields a stripe size of 768 KB (three columns * 256 KB of interleave). Equally more information is written to the parity infinite, information technology rotates the column for the parity data among all 3 disks.

Instance 3: A Two-Column Ii-Way Mirror Space

Another example is a ii-column 2-style mirror space. Mirror spaces add a layer of data copies below the stripe, which ways that a two-way mirror space duplicates each individual cavalcade'south data onto two disks.

For the first stripe of data in this case, Storage Spaces writes 256 KB of data to the outset column, which is written in duplicate to the first two disks. For the 2nd column of data, Storage Spaces writes 256 KB of data to the second column, which is written in indistinguishable to the next two disks. The cavalcade-to-disk correlation of a two-way mirror is 1:ii; for a three-way mirror, the correlation is 1:3.

Decision-making the Number of Columns

You can control the number of columns and the stripe interleave when creating a new storage space past using the Windows PowerShell cmdlet New-VirtualDisk with the NumberOfColumns and Interleave parameters.

Each type of storage space has a minimum number of stripe columns which translates to a minimum number of concrete disks, given their column-to-disk correlation (below).

Resiliency blazon

Minimum number of columns

Cavalcade-to-deejay correlation

Minimum number of disks

Maximum column count

Simple (no resiliency)

1

i:i

i

  N/A

Two-way mirror

1

i:two

2

  Northward/A

Iii-style mirror

one

i:iii

5

  N/A

Unmarried Parity

3

1:1

3

 8
Dual Parity  vii 1:1 vii 17

Due to striping, a storage infinite simultaneously allocates chapters from as many disks as its stripe requires. Therefore, when increasing pool capacity, yous tin usually achieve optimal pool capacity utilization when you add disks in multiples of the number of disks the storage space needs. For case, adding disks in multiples of four might provide optimal chapters utilization for a puddle comprised of two-column, 2-way mirror spaces (2 columns + 2 data copies = iv disks per stripe).

Note Storage Spaces in Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier by default uses the largest column count possible given the number of disks you have and the resiliency type yous select. This is useful for environments with a small number of disks where y'all want to maximize performance and don't have to replace disks very often. However, in environments with a large number of disks, apply a column count number one less than the maximum. This allows Storage Spaces to automatically repair virtual disks following a disk failure or after you retire a disk.

Why do I have a low capacity alert even though I still accept unused pool capacity?

Storage Spaces provides advance notification of thinly provisioned storage spaces when the storage pool does not accept plenty capacity spread among a sufficient number of disks to go along to write new data. The default warning betoken is lxx% capacity utilization. To learn when Storage Spaces will generate a alarm, consider the following example.

A two column, 2-way mirror space that uses thin provisioning in a four disk pool

Two of the disks have 1TB capacity and two take 2TB capacity. Because a two column, two-way mirror space needs four disks (number_of_disks = NumberOfColumns * NumberOfDataCopies), information technology volition evenly eat all iv disks as it writes new data. When capacity utilization of the two 1TB disks reaches seventy%, Storage Spaces volition warn of a low capacity condition. Fifty-fifty though the entire puddle has 3.2TB free chapters, the thinly provisioned space will soon not be able to write any more data considering the 1TB disks are nearly fully consumed.

You can easily keep individual storage spaces' depression chapters alarm synchronized with each other and with the pool past following the guidance in the side by side department, "How do I increase pool capacity?" from the moment of creating the pool and through all subsequent expansions of the pool.

How practise I increment pool capacity?

Storage Spaces tin usually utilize the boosted capacity from even a single additional drive. Notwithstanding, for optimal capacity utilization, consider the number of columns your storage spaces have and add disks in multiples of that number.

For example, consider a puddle which has a four-column simple space, a ane-column, two-way mirror space, and an eight-column parity infinite. The iv-column simple space suggests yous expand pool capacity in sets of four disks. The one-cavalcade, two-way mirror infinite suggests you aggrandize pool chapters in sets of ii disks (for mirror spaces, you have to multiple the number of columns past the number of copies). The viii-column parity space suggests yous expand puddle chapters in sets of 8 disks. In this example, you would desire to expand pool capacity in sets of eight disks as eight is a common multiple of the number of columns of each of the storage spaces in the pool.

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

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

Windows Server 2012 starts storage that could potentially be shared with a cluster in a safe country. For Storage Spaces, that means the beginning time Windows connects to a storage puddle, 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 kickoff equally attached.

How do I check Storage Spaces resiliency wellness in a failover cluster?

The health of each storage space is available only from the cluster node that has the cluster resource for the storage space in the online state. Use Failover Cluster Management to find which node has the cluster resource for a storage space in the online land. Then use the Storage Pools section of the File and Storage Services function in Server Manager to view the wellness of the appropriate storage space.

You tin besides use the Get-VirtualDisk cmdlet on the node that has the cluster resource online to call up the storage space's properties. The resiliency wellness of the storage infinite is noted in the storage space'due south properties. To view the wellness condition of a storage puddle, use the Get-StoragePool cmdlet on the cluster node that has the cluster resource for the puddle in the online state.

How practise I know repairing a storage space starts and successfully completes?

For the repair operation to complete successfully, the pool must have at least as much unused capacity as data to be repaired. If the storage space has a list of disks to use, then the unused chapters must reside on those disks. Unused capacity must reside on disks which do not already host an extent of the stripe to be repaired. Because repair happens over time, this requirement must exist continuously fulfilled for a successful repair completion.

For a quick check on whether repair is successfully progressing, use the Get-VirtualDisk cmdlet to look at the storage infinite's OperationalStatus. While repair is successfully progressing, OperationalStatus will be In Service. When repair successfully completes, OperationalStatus is OK. If repair is unable to keep, OperationalStatus returns to Degraded.

What happens if I run out of physical capacity on a thinly provisioned storage infinite?

Since the storage infinite is thinly provisioned, allocation of new capacity occurs every bit needed.  In one case capacity is wearied, there is no room to properly manage files on the storage space and there is a run a risk of data loss due to file corruption.  To protect against that, Windows takes the storage space offline – removing the storage space from the view of anything that was writing and thereby keeping your files safe.  Once the pool has more drives, you can bring the storage space back online and continue running.

When additional drives are not immediately available, you tin endeavour to merely bring the storage infinite back online and get to your files until additional drives are bachelor.  Nevertheless, sometimes applications, or the file system itself, may continue writing once the storage infinite is online.  If that happens, then Windows' safety measures will again protect your files past taking the storage space offline.

If boosted drives are not immediately available and the storage space cannot remain online, and then can still get to your files by using PowerShell to temporarily make your storage space read-but.

Get-VirtualDisk –Friendlyname name_of_your_space | Get-Deejay | Fix-Deejay –IsReadOnly $true

Get-VirtualDisk –Friendlyname name_of_your_space | Get-Disk | Prepare-Disk –IsOffline $false

If y'all practice that, and so yous will desire to switch your storage space back to read-write once your storage pool has boosted drives.  You can apply PowerShell to do that as well.

Get-VirtualDisk –Friendlyname name_of_your_space | Get-Disk | Ready-Disk –IsOffline $true

Get-VirtualDisk –Friendlyname name_of_your_space | Go-Deejay | Set-Disk –IsReadOnly $false

Get-VirtualDisk –Friendlyname name_of_your_space | Go-Disk | Set-Disk –IsOffline $faux

Finally, if you do not add more drives to the storage pool (the control panel volition tell you the minimum number of drives to add together), then Windows will protect the files which are already on the storage space by taking the storage infinite offline.  Adding new drives to the storage pool provides the boosted capacity the storage infinite needs.  You will be able to bring your storage infinite back online and go along to copy new files into information technology.

Meet Also

  • File and Storage Services
  • Storage Spaces Overview
  • Storage Management Overview
  • Modifying a Storage Pool that has a Read-Merely Configuration
  • Provide cost-constructive storage for Hyper-V workloads by using Windows Server (2012 R2)
  • Provide toll-effective storage for Hyper-5 workloads past using Windows Server: planning and design guide (2012 R2)