WSE 2012 R2 under-utilized Storage Spaces

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
M

mattb

Distinguished
May 25, 2001
38
0
18,530
I'm using Windows Server Essentials and UrBackup (due to unreliable windows backup) to back up my household of PCs. I configured a Storage Space when I set the server up consisting of three 4TB drives with Thin provisioning to just be a place to store the PC backups.

Space started getting low (I'm a photographer and generate a lot of data) so I added an additional 4TB drive to the pool. It now shows as being a pool of 14.6 TB with 3.65 TB available in Server Manager.

The problem is, when I rt-click on my original 10.9 TB virtual disk and select Extend Virtual Disk... the dialog that comes up shows the existing and maximum sizes as 10.9TB with no apparent way to use that additional space I added.

After some Googling it looks like I may have set this up wrong but I can't seem to find my way out of this now and I have over 10TB of data on the volume that I'd rather not have to delete.
This article: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askcore/2013/12/18/cannot-extend-simple-virtual-disk-in-windows-server-2012-r2/
Seems to say that when I look at my virtual disk properties, I should see the number of physical disks it was created with as NumberOfColumns which I would expect to be 3 but in my case, my 10.9TB virtual disk has a 1 for that value.

Is there a way I can extend my volume without resorting to something drastic like deleting and recreating it? I sure hope so! I don't have enough storage to back all this up and it would also take a while!

I used to be an IT guy but now I've been in software development long enough that I haven't kept up with the latest (or eve new-ish) tech and administration approaches.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

Matt
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
13thmonkey

13thmonkey

Titan
Jan 10, 2006
24,792
350
75,790
I don't think that there is a way of expanding, BUT I think that there is a way of reusing the same disks at the same time to create another pool, and then you move from one to the other.

With storage pools create at the maximum permissible size, and then grow the disks that lie underneath this. I found that 2 columns was best as it allowed you to expand using just 2 disks at a time, with a column of 3, you need to add disks in sets of 3's, this is why yours worked.

It's late over here, i'll have a better look in the morning.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

mattb

Distinguished
May 25, 2001
38
0
18,530
Thanks for the reply. That sounds counter intuitive to create another volume from the same disks while still in use!
But my NumberOfColumns is actually 1 now so it was just the initial size I set that locked me into this capacity, right?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
13thmonkey

13thmonkey

Titan
Jan 10, 2006
24,792
350
75,790
Remember that storage spaces allow 'thin provisioning', i.e. being able to declare the disk space to be greater than it actually is, I've a 14TB space using 6TB of disk space, so when I start to approach 6TB I'll run out of space, but adding more disks allows me to use 8 then 10 TB etc. without resetting the space in any way, just add disks, and tell the pool it can use them.

Set up a VM of 2012r2 and play with it, give it some virtual disks, 20GB each or something, and see if you can create a new space using disks that also belong to an existing space, I think they end up in a 'primordial pool' and can then be assigned to any spaces you which with any legitimate number of columns.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

mattb

Distinguished
May 25, 2001
38
0
18,530
Thanks for the info! I tried creating another volume like you mentioned above but when I try to move a UrBackup client backup folder over, it seems to just hang indefinitely. I left mine trying to move backups over for five days recently (with the backup service off to keep things static) and eventually just gave up and cancelled it and eventually had to reboot to make that file move process go away completely.

So I think I may need to either delete those backups or move everything to another volume before moving back to the storage space volume again to not have to recreate it.

Before I buy more hardware to try this, I want to ask if there is a simpler way to create an extendable volume on WSE 2012 R2. Storage spaces is cool and all but maybe overkill for my needs. I liked the simplicity of creating volumes the old way where I could just add another drive to a RAID 0 array when needed without planning at the start the total number of drives I will end up with. WHS did something like this too. Even if performance isn't great, I like that flexibility better than having to plan more precisely. Any suggestions or am I stuck with Storage Spaces on this OS? Thanks!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

mattb

Distinguished
May 25, 2001
38
0
18,530
Maybe I'm not remembering it right but I didn't think I had to do that and could just add another drive to the volume and expand to use the extra space as many times as needed. This may be something else from WHS I'm remembering rather than true RAID but I thought it was more flexible and "automagic". It might have been pre-WHS 2011.

The reason I don't want to plan to that level is I scrounge cheap drives to use for backup from my own upgrades or where ever I find the best deals. I don't know in advance what capacity which affects the number of drives needed to get enough space.
Did I imagine that?
I'm just verifying this is the best/easiest tool for the job as I don't want to have to lose all my backups again in a few years when I run out of space and may need to do this again.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
13thmonkey

13thmonkey

Titan
Jan 10, 2006
24,792
350
75,790


WHS v1 you could do that
WHS 2011 you couldn't without additional software, native it was much worse.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Sam Poland

Sam Poland

Honorable
Dec 5, 2013
200
0
10,760


FYI a modern PERC can do an in place upgrade of an existing RAID array. I did it on a H730 that was hosting a RAID 10.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
13thmonkey

13thmonkey

Titan
Jan 10, 2006
24,792
350
75,790


Good to know.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom