In some articles I have already reported about my experiences with the Windows Storage Pool.
Here I would like to describe a phenomenon that made me rethink.
In the past, the main reason for using storage pools was flexibility and protection against the failure of single or even multiple disks. The biggest disadvantage was poor performance. Especially when moving larger photo projects after editing, a write rate of 15 to 20 MByte/s was a test of patience.
The problem
Up to now I have used storage pools on single hard disks to be able to use additional partitions flexibly. Each partition (or storage space) has the same size as the disk itself and so, despite Bitlocker, the actual size of the partitions can be adjusted to the current needs. Normally this happens without much overhead. Normally!
Despite many cleanups and more extensive swapping from the HDD to the SSD, I got more frequent warnings that the HDD was full.
A comparison of the stated usage of the used pool capacity with the size of the files resulted in a proud delta of over 300 GB (according to ChatGPT this would have a height of ten times the distance from the earth to the moon as a stack of floppy disks, but there calc.exe is more reliable).
With the large storage pool on the server, I did not find a significant discrepancy in any of the storage spaces. Nevertheless, such a situation cannot be excluded in the future.
Solution attempts
First, I tried it via the Windows drive optimization. The disk space efficiency was indeed in need of improvement.
The second tool I used was SmartDefrag. The great graphics brought back romantic memories of times when defragmentation was still important. However, it did not help.
After that throwing some Powershell and ChkDsk at the problem was as fruitless as the Wise Disk Cleaner.
By the way, the intermediate result was an even larger storage consumption than before. So the imaginary floppy disk stack had grown further.
The solution
A quick solution was to re-create the storage space including re-setting up Bitlocker.
Unfortunately, with Bitlocker encryption, I saved the recovery key in the Microsoft account. A single wrong click is enough for this mistake. But fortunately, you can remove this key from the account again at https://account.microsoft.com/devices/recoverykey.
In the end, the storage was finally available and with the reserves recovered, I will hopefully be able to use the HDD until the end of the laptop’s life.
The difference of only 200 GB instead of the promised 300 GB results from the fact that I retrieved a lot of data from the SSD back to the HDD before the screenshot.
Afterwards one is always smarter
Afterwards, of course, I also asked ChatGPT what to do in such a case. The sixth option suggested to me is to recreate the storage space. The other five options are only partially helpful in my case:
- Search hidden files
- Empty recycle bin
- Adjust shadow copies
- Check configuration
- Repair Storage Space
However, the approaches I tried above are not suggested that way. Maybe my ideas were doomed from the start? ChatGPT is sure about that: “Note, however, that ChkDsk and defragmentation are not direct solutions to the problem when Storage Space consumes more space than the actual data stored.” 😞
New overall consideration of the storage pool
As part of the configuration of my new server (as a consequence of the fire), I initially considered a configuration with the same HDD from the legacy system and thus a complete takeover of the storage pool. The prices for AM5 mainboards with eight or more SATA ports compared to six gave with impulse to a reconsideration. I wanted to do without my two PCI SATA/RAID cards, or newer versions of them, in the future to have a more stable hardware platform without special curls.
With some Excel I created a migration plan from Storage Spaces to single HDDs. By doing without parity, the storage requirements would decrease by 33% and the freed HDDs could ensure availability (differently) as outsourced backup. By swapping out, I would have worse RPO and more problems if a drive failed, but by swapping out all the data (previously only the important) to another fire section, I would be in a better position here. So far, this consideration was plausible to me and consistent with my backup considerations and experience.
So much for the theory.
Rapid return to the storage pool
As life goes, I discovered a small problem while checking the inner parts of the old server before setting up the new one: One HDD – unfortunately my newest and largest to date (14 TB) – has a not insignificant mechanical problem. For some reason unknown to me, the SATA power supply is damaged and part of the connector (the plastic rail on which the power contacts sit) is broken off and stuck in the cable socket.
The good news first: the HDD runs without problems when using this connector.
Nevertheless, this defect has thrown my migration plan into a mess. I wanted to avoid buying an additional HDD, even though I can no longer use this defective HDD as primary data storage. Also, the migration plan away from Storage Spaces assumes that moving will always free up enough storage to subsequently remove an HDD from the Storage Pool. This plan is now also on shaky ground without the largest HDD.
The question of what will become of the HDD was also not easy to answer. In the end, the answer was: In a storage pool, a single HDD with an increased probability of failure causes the least problems. So I continue to use the storage pool in a somewhat reduced form.
The end of the story – a bit of storage pool and a bit of peace
Now I have just HDD without storage pool on the new server, but part of the outsourced backup still uses the old storage pool (with three HDD instead of eight). Currently I still have the problem that I can not remove the fourth disk and ChatGPT hallucinates itself again Powershell cmdlets to remove, which Microsoft has not yet introduced.
Since the change, the write speed of large amounts of data is stable above 100 MByte/s, but this may also be due to the new server (a lot has happened in the 15 years since the predecessor was purchased).
I continue to use storage pools, but the case-by-case considerations are richer by some experience.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)